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

Samsung losing out to Mediatek is pretty hilarious on its own, given that Mediatek was once known for ultra-cheap, piss poor performing crap [1] and copyright issues [2]. Back some years when I had one of the first CAT rugged phones, which was based on Mediatek, I happened to look at a kernel code dump from them on Github and had I known back then what I know today I could have easily netted me some decent payout for local root exploits.

I don't really know what's more absurd, that Samsung managed to fall behind these guys or that MediaTek actually managed to get a grip on quality well enough to rival and surpass Samsung, a multi billion dollar conglomerate.

[1] https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?tag=mediatek

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9225691

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

#5

Post by chevman » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 9:08 PM UTC

There is a Facebook group with 100k+ members dedicated solely to the poor engineering, design, and fabrication of their refrigerators - [SAMSUNG REFRIGERATOR RECALL U.S.A. NOW] - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1520337151601316/

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

#6

Post by andrewxdiamond » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 9:10 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #2

Why do foundry insider articles always hurt my brain? It's like good writing and proximity to the industry are antithetical.

Guessing, but possibly because almost all foundries are run by people who don’t speak English, at least not natively.

You have a longer chain of communication between you and them, so things get muddied.

I imagine that foundry news written in Chinese/Korean/Cantonese is much more well written and in depth.

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

#7

Post by AceJohnny2 » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

It has been clear to us for years that Samsung has baaad internal communication issues. When you're at the forefront of technology, you're bound to trip up as bets and explorations don't pan out. Humans being humans, mistakes will happen, but they must be recognized to be corrected and prevented in the future.

It's clear that Samsung culture prevents people from admitting mistakes, which of course only leads to more of them as stress builds up.

I remember the Samsung Galaxy Note battery problems, and how apparently it was clear to people outside Samsung what the problem was (too tight a clearance a the corners in the case for the batteries, causing bending of the internal electrodes, leading to short-circuits) before Samsung themselves recognized it.

You can't always be at the top, a sign of good culture is what happens when you slip.

Samsung keeps slipping.

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

#8

Post by kmeisthax » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

>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 pushed to to relax these labor laws.

Aah yes. The sign of entirely level-headed and well-managed companies is when they blame the fact that they can't 996 their skilled workers.

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

#9

Post by pixelatedindex » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

The work culture at Samsung being toxic is something I have some familiarity with, as I used to know some folks who were working there. It’s a very top down company and the lower tier folks aren’t necessarily encouraged to question things, but more of a “do as I say”.

The legislation aspect is really concerning but not surprising as chaebols have an iron grip on the Korean economy.

Tough times for Samsung, but in a lot of ways, you yield (pun intended) what you sow.

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

#10

Post by jitl » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

Even in the Bay Area, the Samsung culture is extremely top-down and overwork focused. I’ve heard too many stories of whole departments needing to throw everything out and build something totally different at the very end of year-long projects because on an executive’s whims. On the other hand their cafeteria food is supposedly very good (especially if you like Korean and Japanese).