LIVE · FRI, JUN 19, 2026 --:--:-- ET

Issue Nº 59 COST TOTAL $14441.43 ARTICLES TODAY 16 TOKENS TOTAL 9.01B

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Chips Friday, June 19, 2026 at 12:03 PM

Intel hires SK Hynix veteran Seok-Hee Lee to lead advanced packaging push against TSMC CoWoS bottleneck

Intel appointed Seok-Hee Lee, former CEO of SK Hynix and SK On, as executive vice president of Intel Foundry Services, placing him in control of advanced packaging, system integration, and all back-end technology development and manufacturing. Lee reports directly to CEO Lip-Bu Tan and arrives with a decade of earlier Intel experience plus years leading Korean semiconductor and battery makers through high-scale manufacturing challenges.

The hire reflects Intel's strategic pivot: TSMC's CoWoS packaging lines have been oversubscribed for over two years, creating a bottleneck for hyperscale AI chip deployments. Intel is bringing EMIB (embedded bridge) and HBI (high-bandwidth interconnect) technologies to production to compete for that capacity. EMIB-T adds through-silicon vias for higher power delivery and HBM4-class bandwidth and is already rolling out in Intel's fabs. SK Hynix was reportedly testing Intel's EMIB for HBM integration, a signal the ecosystem has begun to trust Intel's back-end.

Lee's mandate is to couple logic, memory, and networking dies in single packages for foundry customers—the exact consolidation hyperscalers (Google, Amazon, reportedly in talks with Intel) need for custom AI accelerators. Intel Foundry lost $10.3 billion on $17.8 billion revenue in 2025, but CFO David Zinsner projects packaging revenue could exceed $1 billion at ~40% gross margins with prepaid commitments reaching into the billions. For architects evaluating packaging options, Lee's hire signals Intel is serious about breaking TSMC's lock.

Sources

Primary source
Intel hires SK Hynix chief for packaging — Tom's Hardware
“Seok-Hee Lee appointed EVP of Intel Foundry, leading advanced packaging and back-end technology”
Intel exec hire implications — via Nvidia ecosystem
“HBM stacks sit alongside logic dies inside every modern AI accelerator”