A $476,000 bonus is emptying Samsung's memory teams into SK Hynix

SK Hynix, flush with record profits from the high-bandwidth memory that feeds Nvidia's AI accelerators, is set to pay employees roughly $476,000 each this year — mostly cash — under a deal to share 10% of operating profit. Samsung's May agreement shares 10.5% of its semiconductor division's operating profit but mostly in stock vesting over three years. Engineers told MIT Technology Review that near-entire teams have applied to the rival; Samsung declined to comment and SK Hynix did not respond.

What it means The binding constraint on AI memory supply is turning out to be the engineers who can make HBM, not the fabs — and that constraint moves with a bonus cheque.