Chiplet Ecosystem and Advanced-Packaging Adviser

The mandate

The board repeatedly returns to one unresolved question: should the group build differentiated chiplet integration capability, anchor itself to an external packaging ecosystem, or remain an intelligent buyer of finished modules? Each business unit supplies a plausible answer, yet none combines interface maturity, yield learning, partner power and end-market economics into one investment view.

The adviser will commit three days each month, normally one strategy session, one technical review and one day of executive access, plus four scheduled Technology and Investment Committee meetings. Ad-hoc questions require acknowledgement within two business days; emergency transaction reviews are separately scoped rather than absorbed into the retainer.

The term is twelve months and concludes after the final annual capital review. Renewal for a further six months may be proposed by the committee chair and requires a recorded board vote; the adviser cannot presume continuation from an unfinished discussion.

This appointment carries influence only: it has no line authority, fiduciary board vote or executive responsibility for technology selection, supplier award, hiring or capital release. Accountable executives own recommendations and delivery, while the adviser sharpens the questions, tests evidence and records where conviction is premature.

Concurrent university, standards-body and non-competing industrial appointments are permitted after disclosure. A board seat, paid retainer, material equity holding or current negotiation with a competing chiplet platform, packaging house or named transaction counterparty constitutes a conflict requiring recusal or termination.

Why the board wants this voice

The committee understands the group's end markets but lacks a member who has taken heterogeneous integration from architecture choice through package qualification and commercial ramp. Management papers have treated technical readiness and ecosystem leverage as separate topics. The chair wants a seasoned counterweight who can connect them without campaigning for a preferred supplier.

What you will own

• Press the committee to distinguish durable integration capability from features that packaging or foundry partners can supply more efficiently.
• Test architecture proposals against interface governance, known-good-die strategy, thermal limits, test access, yield attribution and field-service implications.
• Challenge partnership economics by modelling volume ramps, substrate constraints, capacity reservations, learning ownership and supplier exit costs.
• Shape a staged capital thesis with explicit evidence gates before pilot line, qualification tooling or reserved external capacity is approved.
• Probe whether internal talent can govern package co-design and supplier quality without recreating a full manufacturing organisation.
• Review quarterly ecosystem signals covering standards adoption, design-tool support, partner concentration and credible customer pull.
• Record an annual independent perspective on strategic options, unresolved assumptions and decisions the board should defer or stop.

Candidate qualifications

• Held enterprise vice-president, chief technologist or business-unit leadership responsibility across chiplet architecture and advanced-package industrialisation.
• Guided at least one heterogeneous integration programme through package selection, qualification, yield learning and customer-volume release.
• Negotiated ecosystem arrangements involving foundries, outsourced assembly and test providers, substrate suppliers or interface intellectual property.
• Evaluated capital allocation where internal packaging capability competed with external capacity and can evidence the stage gates used.
• Served a board or investment committee as an independent technical voice able to challenge both engineering optimism and financial simplification.
• Maintains current understanding of interconnect, thermal, test and supply-chain constraints without holding a commercial mandate for one solution.

Non-negotiables

• Can attend four in-person committee meetings in Tokyo and one disclosed partner visit in Asia during the term.
• Will disclose relevant board seats, retainers, investments, patents and supplier negotiations before appointment and on any subsequent change.
• Accepts that management retains every operating decision and will not direct employees or negotiate with partners on the group's behalf.
• Can reserve three named days monthly and acknowledge board questions within two Japanese business days.

1. 49 words maximum. Which current semiconductor, packaging or investment commitments would you disclose to this board, and where might recusal be needed?
2. 49 words maximum. Cite one chiplet or heterogeneous-integration capital decision you challenged and the evidence that changed its gate.
3. 49 words maximum. Can you commit three days monthly and four Tokyo committee meetings for the full twelve-month term?