As large-scale performance bonuses at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix materialize amid the semiconductor industry boom, major changes are also emerging in university admissions. The academic record cutoff for the 2026 early admissions cycle of semiconductor contract departments, which are linked to employment at "Samjeonnix" (Samsung Electronics and SK hynix), has risen to its highest level ever. In the Daechi-dong and Mokdong private academy districts of Seoul, the change in admissions is so clearly felt that preparatory classes have been set up for "ui-chi-han-yak-su-ban," which adds semiconductors to the traditional medicine, dentistry, oriental medicine, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine track.
In an interview with The Seoul Economic Daily at his Seoul National University laboratory on Tuesday, Lee Hyuk-jae, professor at SNU's Department of Electrical Engineering and director of the Inter-university Semiconductor Research Center, opened by saying, "There is an aspect of expectation that the concentration of top talent flowing into medical schools will ease, and that more high-quality personnel will move into advanced industries such as semiconductors." Lee received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University in the United States in 1996 and has served as a professor at SNU since 2001. Since 2024, he has led the Inter-university Semiconductor Research Center, a hub for semiconductor education and research at Korean universities. He worked in research and development at Intel in the United States in 1999 and served in 2013 as a program director managing semiconductor R&D projects at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Since last year, he has served as an outside director at Samsung Electronics, making him one of the top semiconductor experts active in both government and industry.
Lee repeatedly emphasized that it is time for a dramatic shift in how semiconductor talent is cultivated. "The contract period between universities and companies is usually about five years, and from the university's perspective, there is no guarantee that the contract will continue, so it is difficult to hire enough professors for these departments," he said. "In the long term, regular departments must be expanded." He continued, "Due to laws preventing overcrowding in the capital region, universities in the Seoul metropolitan area find it difficult to expand semiconductor departments, and graduates of non-capital-region universities without contract departments are finding it harder to get jobs." He proposed, "We must increase opportunities for students at both capital-region and non-capital-region universities to be educated together through measures such as credit exchange and seasonal-semester courses, and open a path to employment for those who earn good grades there."
He also presented a forecast that the operating profit of Korean semiconductor companies could grow to a level approaching Nvidia's. "No matter how good the performance of the graphics processing unit (GPU) and central processing unit (CPU), which are core devices controlling computer operation like the human brain, it is useless if data is not delivered," Lee said. "In particular, data storage capacity and processing speed are becoming important for AI functions, and that is the role of memory semiconductors." He added, "Until now, the operating profit of Nvidia, a GPU manufacturer, has been far greater than that of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, but it can be expected that they will become similar going forward." Regarding China's "semiconductor rise," he forecast, "Equipment is important for developing semiconductor technology, but because U.S. export restrictions on China continue, the gap in technology levels with our country will be maintained for the time being."
Recently, plans for Samsung Electronics to build an advanced packaging plant in the Honam region have also been circulating, primarily within political circles. Packaging is the process of assembling and producing semiconductors into final products such as high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and is considered a core field in the era of AI semiconductors. "The era of packaging (back-end processing), led by HBM, has already opened," Lee said. "Because the process of reducing circuit line widths to improve semiconductor performance is becoming increasingly difficult, the importance of packaging technology that connects multiple semiconductors is growing." He continued, "We should pay attention to PIM, a structure that integrates computation and storage functions into a single semiconductor chip, as the next-generation technology to succeed HBM. Prototype development is currently underway, and it could become a milestone for Korean companies to secure leadership in the semiconductor industry."
Regarding the semiconductor super cycle, he forecast it would continue for at least two years. "In the IT industry, where change is severe, the boom will be maintained for the next two to three years, which is the predictable range," he said. "The 'AI bubble theory,' a concern about the overvaluation of the AI industry's worth, is rather fading away." On the pessimistic forecast that demand expansion would be braked by the development of technologies using less memory, such as Google's TurboQuant, he said, "Because the amount of memory needed for new functions such as AI agents is far greater than the amount of memory that can be reduced through technology, the impact will be limited."
