Leaked transcripts show memory-line staff offered up to 607% bonuses worth $477,000, while logic-chip employees get as little as 50%. The 45,000-person walkout, if it lands, would be the largest in semiconductor-industry history.
Samsung Electronics will pay its chip workers an average bonus of about $340,000 for the year, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, as the company tries to share out the windfall from a record AI-memory cycle and head off industrial action that could halt high-bandwidth memory production at peak demand.
The offer has not, on the available reporting, satisfied the union. The 45,000-strong National Samsung Electronics Union is preparing for an 18-day walkout that would be the largest in semiconductor-industry history.
The bonus structure is the part the leaked negotiating materials get sharpest about. Internal Samsung meeting transcripts show memory-division staff offered 607% bonuses worth roughly $477,000, while logic-chip employees on the foundry side have been told to expect as little as 50%.
The disparity reflects the underlying business: Samsung’s HBM3E and HBM4 lines are running flat-out into Nvidia, AMD and hyperscaler customer demand, while the foundry book has continued to lag TSMC and remains margin-pressured.
