Katie Marsal
With its latest recruiting efforts, Apple is allegedly targeting "experts in next-generation technology" from rival Samsung, offering raises and competitive benefits to lure talent to California.
Specifically Apple is said to be hiring experts in chip design, as well as batteries, according to the Korea Times. Citing an unnamed Samsung official, it was said that the workers were offered "greater independence" in new roles at Apple, in addition to higher pay.
Apple's apparent interest in battery experts could be tied to recent rumors that the company is working on an electric car that it could release years down the road. The iPhone maker has been confirmed to have hired other battery experts from A123 Systems, thanks to a lawsuit that has accused Apple of unfairly poaching that company's employees.
The Samsung official quoted in Monday's report suggested that many of the company's employees already speak English, so there would be no language barriers to them working in America. The report was first highlighted by G for Games.
Samsung and Apple are fierce rivals, but the two also partner closely on a number of components that power Apple's most popular devices. It's rumored that Samsung will build the 14-nanometer "A9" chips expected to power Apple's 2015 iPhone and iPad refreshes.
Prior to the launch of the iPhone 6, Samsung manufactured all of Apple's low-power ARM processors at its factory in Austin. But starting with the A8 CPU in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, TSMC was said to have taken over the bulk of responsibility, though exactly how much is in doubt.
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51 Comments
Sounds like this English-speaking independence-wanting Samsung employee wants a pay raise.
Can someone please explain how recruitment via incentives is considered illegal and worthy of a lawsuit. I object to 'poaching' with its connotations of underhand behaviour.
I still think the bulk of these hires are for Watch 2.0 and on at this point. And engineers being engineers, I'm sure a lot of these chip designers are intrigued about how an upstart company has so quickly trounced every other ARM chip maker. Just hope none of these guys intend to phone home once they're hired.
It will be very interesting to see what Samsung's 14nm 64bit 7 Octa Exynos 7420 SOC is like next week when they release the S6. The preliminary benchmarks seem to indicate quite impressive multi-core performance.
Apple might want to leave Samsung with enough engineers to allow them to make the A9.
[quote name="TheWhiteFalcon" url="/t/184903/rumor-apple-poaching-samsung-experts-in-chips-batteries-more#post_2679814"] Just hope none of these guys intend to phone home once they're hired.[/quote] There's this danger for sure. Some Korean engineers could be too patriotic. Beside, taking a paycheck from BOTH Apple and Samsung would be the best.