Samsung has been on a hiring spree of top executives from reputed companies in the last few months. About a week ago, we reported that Samsung had hired two former Ericsson executives to its Samsung Networks team. Last December, Samsung roped in an ex-Mercedes designer, Hubert H. Lee, to lead its smartphone design team. Now, Samsung has now hired former Qualcomm Vice President Benny Katibian.
Benny previously worked for Qualcomm as the Vice President of the company’s engineering division. After joining Samsung, Benny will serve as the head of the Samsung Austin Research Center (SARC) and the Advanced Computing Lab (ACL), which are the core R&D centers of Samsung Electronics USA, as per Business Korea.
According to reports, Benny Katibian is an expert in semiconductors and was in charge of self-driving systems, including ADAS (Advanced Driving Assistance Systems) at Qualcomm. Later, he also served as the COO of the North American Cooperation in Xiaopeng, a Chinese electric car company. He also worked as the head of the development of self-driving chips.
Samsung hired Benny Katibian to expand its efforts in the automotive business and to expand its system-on-chip business (System LSI). Also, the company wants to strengthen Exynos Auto, which Samsung is supplying to various car makers, especially to European automakers such as Audi and Volkswagen. This would help Samsung expand its market dominance. FYI, Exynos Auto is an AI-enabled automotive processor, and it is used in an automotive prototype by BMW.
