The market is accelerating! American semiconductor equipment manufacturers have laid off employees to save themselves
Lead: With the global semiconductor industry slumping and the export of semiconductor equipment to China blocked, American semiconductor equipment companies have accelerated the pace of layoffs. After Lam Group announced layoffs, the industry revealed that two other major American semiconductor equipment manufacturers, Applied Materials (AMAT) and KLA, have also launched layoff plans.
Just the latest news, according to the Korean media newdaily, Kelei Korea Branch is screening the resignees. Some resignees also raised procedural issues, saying, “Without prior notice, I was called to the head office on the grounds of negotiating annual salary, and I was advised to resign.” The report pointed out that Kelei will not only lay off staff in South Korea, but will lay off about 3% of its staff globally. Many of the roughly 700 employees at Kelei’s South Korean unit are expected to be laid off. It is reported that the target of Kelei’s layoffs is engineers. In semiconductor equipment companies, engineers are responsible for the production, maintenance and repair of products supplied to customer companies, but they have become the number one target of layoffs, which has caused repercussions in the industry.
According to other news, the proportion of Kelei’s global layoffs is about 3%, and the proportion of layoffs in China is unknown. It is suspected that Kelei’s internal employees have previously reported on the Internet that anyone who has a bad relationship with the manager may be on the layoff list, and many excellent FasT (thin film and scattering measurement), eBeam, and SFS-ADE department personnel are on the list superior. It is reported that a person familiar with the matter revealed that due to the relatively small impact of the new U.S. regulations, Kelei’s layoffs in China accounted for only 1% of the staff, and the global layoffs were completed on March 2.
According to public information, Applied Materials China previously planned to lay off about 10% of its workforce (the proportion of global layoffs is unknown). The layoffs mainly affect engineers who maintain equipment. As for the process support engineer (PSE) layoff ratio has not yet been determined. However, the latest news shows that the proportion of layoffs in Applied Materials China may be lower than the previous rumors. Data show that Applied Materials currently has 27,000 employees worldwide, including about 3,000 full-time employees in China. Kelei has 14,000 employees worldwide. Not long ago, Lam Group announced that it would lay off about 1,300 people worldwide. In addition, Lam Group also laid off 700 temporary workers and will reduce the same number of temporary workers this quarter. The company expects charges related to layoffs and facility reductions of $150 million to $250 million. According to the data, Kelei was established in 1976 and is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, USA. It mainly provides solutions for front-end process control and yield management for semiconductor, data storage, LED and other related nanoelectronic industries. The product category has covered all kinds of front-end optical and electron beam measurement equipment in the process of processing. With the high-efficiency and precise performance characteristics of its testing products, Kelei has an absolute leading position in the field of semiconductor testing and measuring equipment.
In terms of specific products, Kelei has a wide range of products, including defect detection, Overlay, CD measurement, film thickness, etc.
In addition, Applied Materials, founded in 1967, is the world’s largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer. Its products mainly cover thin film deposition (CVD, PVD, etc.), ion implantation, etching, rapid heat treatment, chemical mechanical planarization (CMP), metrology inspection and other equipment. Some analysis shows that these three major American semiconductor equipment manufacturers have successively laid off employees. On the one hand, it is related to the decline in demand in the global semiconductor market since the second half of last year, and many semiconductor manufacturers (especially memory chip manufacturers) have significantly reduced capital expenditures in 2023; On the one hand, it is related to the new US semiconductor export control regulations to China in October last year, which restricted mainland semiconductor manufacturers from purchasing some advanced US-based semiconductor equipment.
Recently, the US think tank Institute for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) called on South Korea and Germany to join the ranks of restricting exports to China. According to the report, as the possibility that Samsung and SK Hynix will not be able to update the equipment of the Chinese production base increases, American companies that provide and manage equipment on this basis will be the first to withdraw.
Post time: Mar-15-2023