Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM

semianalysis.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 239 posts

Re: Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM

#101

Post by ethbr0 »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #95
ethbr0 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every instance of this I've come across can be described by repeated localized, short-term optimization. No one ever sat down and said "How can I design a terrible system that's a pain in the ass to work with and unable to be extended?" Everyone sat down and said "How can I make that one thing that's actually my job faster?"

sometimes people also sit down and ask "how can I build a platform to do this kind of thing so expanding and maintaining that platform can be my new job here?"

Sometimes that's the end result, but I'd question if that's frequently the actual goal.

Never ascribe to malice, that which can be described by laziness, etc.

It seems like it would take more work to specifically design a system to ensure job security than to just haphazardly design without coherent architecture, and consequently be the only one who understands it.

Re: Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM

#102

Post by dogecoinbase »

jason-phillips wrote: post #53
cxr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NB: Jason is referring to "S2" aka Samsung Austin Semiconductor. I'm familiar with Jason's previous comments in threads about Samsung, but outside of that I don't know him (even, say, by name). This makes sense, given the separation between the work of an SE manager and the actual day-to-day operations that are involved with getting wafers fabbed and shipped. I worked at SAS in lots of different areas—Metro, Photo, a…

I hear what you're saying and I totally get your frustration. Many of my co-workers also shared similar frustrations. In a massive operation running 24/7 that never stops to catch its breath, it's chaotic. There are certain techniques I adopted that helped me be successful there, but I definitely understand your frustrations.

I genuinely hope you can appreciate how funny this exchange was, in which you asserted there were no problems, someone pointed out a bunch of specific problems, and then you said "sure, I knew about all those problems".

Re: Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM

#103

Post by creakingstairs »

kmeisthax wrote: post #8

>In other cases, Samsung LSI executives even seem to be blaming the change in Korean labor laws. Rather than hitting crunch time and having engineers do absurd hours, employees are supposed to be limited to 52 hours a week, maximum. While we hear this is not being adhered to fully, it has cut down on the overworking of many Samsung engineers. The pushback from Samsung is so strong that there is even legislation being…

This is a bit of a hot topic in Korea. I don’t agree with abolishing the 52 hour law but what the opposition is proposing is being able to crunch for a period and take the days off later which is more reasonable than 996 all the times.

Re: Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM

#104

Post by creakingstairs »

I’m sure toxic culture is one of the reasons for Samsung falling behind. But I don’t think that can be a sufficient cause. If toxic culture is the reason for the recent slip up, how has Samsung grown before the slip up when it was arguably even more toxic?

Re: Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM

#105

Post by toast0 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #72
mwint wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of issues are you seeing? Naively, a fridge seems like such a simple device that I'm curious how they screwed it up so badly that it's developed an anti-following.

The biggest consistent problem mine has is the display panel burns out LEDs in a matter of weeks. Yes, burning out LEDs . If I put in a new panel (which thankfully is fairly easy, just a ribbon cable and a couple screws) it works for a few weeks, then the LEDs start to burn out again. So it becomes a guessing game of whether you're going to get water, crushed ice, or cubed ice. There is basically no warranty on repla…

> There are a few other problems, like accumulating ice in the tray at the bottom, but this is not really a Samsung-specific problem, lots of fridges develop this issue.

I have a totally different fridge, and it has a heater at the bottom... but I needed to physically bend the heater a smidge so it was close enough to the drain to keep the drain clear and prevent ice build up. Might help if there's something similar.

Re: Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM

#106

Post by xunn0026 »

krisoft wrote: post #52
jason-phillips wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has been clear to us for years that Samsung has baaad internal communication issues... It's clear that Samsung culture prevents people from admitting mistakes... Jesus H. Christ on a fucking hockey stick. I doubt I've ever read such a breathless hit piece with so many unsupported assertions summarily presented as fact. I worked for Samsung Semiconductor for ten years and left as a software engineering manager. N…

> Communication issues? Not admitting mistakes? Please... enlighten me. Tell me how we worked. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a satire or not. The forcefull and quite frankly agressive way you denied ever having a problem with admiting mistakes makes me think that there might be something to this allegiation. Every company I ever worked with had occasional issues with communication, and even rarer issues with…

> The forcefull and quite frankly agressive way you denied ever having a problem with admiting mistakes makes me think that there might be something to this allegiation.

This is some amazing mental gymnastics! You should get into politics!

Maybe Samsung does not have a problem about admitting mistakes. But a problem about admitting mistakes in their problem admitting mistakes procedures. It's always the meta-problems that get you!

Again, this above comment shows people can twist anything into anything and will just stick to what confirms their bias.

Re: Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM

#107

Post by tomatowurst »

creakingstairs wrote: post #96

I was hoping to get some insider scoop on the Samsungs culture problem. But looks like it’s just a round up of Samsungs bad results rather than specific tales of toxicity or culture issues. I don’t doubt it for one second that there are toxicity issues but I also found some of the sources don’t support what they are alledging. > These various units are allegedly playing the blame game with each other. Samsung LSI (de…

My suspicion also, they outright quoted a rumor mill forum post here: https://meeco.kr/mini/34835643

Someone reading that article might have walked away with the impression that Samsung's collapse is imminent, which seems to be the narrative often touted on the internet circles by people with some type of stake in TSMC or its allied subsidiaries.

"Clients and employees of SemiAnalysis may hold positions in companies referenced in this article."

I mean from the authors disclaimer here we can see why the article reads like some Zerohedge article. I hope the author can afford expensive lawyers because there's just no way Samsung is going to let the author off the hook, they've gone after journalists for way less.

Re: Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM

#108

Post by tomatowurst »

dylan522p wrote: post #49
lizardactivist wrote: post #27

Disasters in foundry, LSI, and DRAM? Is the writer sponsored by the U.S. chip manufacturing sector or other pro-American interests? What a weird hit-piece filled with assertions that could never be reliably backed up by other than Samsung themselves conducting a massive internal investigation.

If anything I am making the case that TSMC is reigning supreme but okay, believe your conspiracy

the sources the article cited are at best unverifiable, even quoting rumor mill directly to support their claims so it does feel quite strange and we can see why from the author's disclaimer:

"Clients and employees of SemiAnalysis may hold positions in companies referenced in this article."

So somebody seeks to benefit financially from selling the perception that Samsung is in trouble but feels an online disclaimer can shield them litigious Samsung lawyers.

This won't end well.

Re: Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM

#109

Post by dreamcompiler »

rootusrootus wrote: post #72
mwint wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of issues are you seeing? Naively, a fridge seems like such a simple device that I'm curious how they screwed it up so badly that it's developed an anti-following.

The biggest consistent problem mine has is the display panel burns out LEDs in a matter of weeks. Yes, burning out LEDs . If I put in a new panel (which thankfully is fairly easy, just a ribbon cable and a couple screws) it works for a few weeks, then the LEDs start to burn out again. So it becomes a guessing game of whether you're going to get water, crushed ice, or cubed ice. There is basically no warranty on repla…

It's easy to design LED circuits that look like they're working for a little while but if you pump too much current through them or otherwise overheat them their lifetime decreases from 30,000 hours to a few minutes. This is a common amateur EE mistake; the question is why Samsung allows amateurs to design these systems.

Re: Samsung Electronics cultural issues causing disasters in foundry, LSI, DRAM

#110

Post by tomatowurst »

opensrcken wrote: post #44

Clients and employees of SemiAnalysis may hold positions in companies referenced in this article. This article lacks the evidence to warrant the boldness of its arguments. And after reading through the paragraphs of poorly based assertions, I see this at the bottom of the article. Why am I not surprised?

It might be construed as defamation in Samsung's view, as they've repeatedly shown to be quite intolerant and litigious in the past, I have to warn that the author is treading on the deep end here.

A big part of Samsung's success is because of their insanely powerful and effective legal department. There's just no way their attorneys aren't reading semianalysis.

Post reply on HN