Samsung seeks closer cooperation with Taiwan's semiconductor industry

Taipei, Sept. 10 (CNA) South Korea's Samsung sees opportunities in working more closely with Taiwan in the artificial intelligence (AI) era, according to the company's representatives.

Samsung is ready to work with Taiwanese companies in areas such as packaging and manufacturing, a Samsung representative said in a rare media meeting in Taipei during SEMICON Taiwan, adding that the company's semiconductor division will be setting up a position of regular contact in Taiwan for the first time.

This signifies Samsung Electronics' effort to forge closer connections with Taiwan's semiconductor industry in an era where the AI market is projected by various research to reach more than US$1 trillion by 2030.

This move was already earlier hinted at by Lee Jung-bae, president and general manager of the memory business in Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions Division, at a CEO summit on Sept. 4 at SEMICON Taiwan, an annual semiconductor expo in Taipei.

Lee said in his speech that Samsung has "ultimate in house collaboration, making us the only provider in the global semiconductor market that handles everything from baseline design and manufacturing all the way to packaging."

However, it is now also keeping its "doors open to various ecosystem partners to ensure we can meet the diverse needs of our customers who want to utilize the partners' designs and services," Lee added.

Samsung is working toward "offering foundry flexibility for our customers, meaning memory collaboration is not limited solely to Samsung foundries," he stressed, as "we are at a pivotal moment where complicated collaboration is more important than ever."

Samsung Electronics is in competition with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), a pure play foundry, in the foundry business.

According to TrendForce Corp., a Taipei-based market information advisory firm, Samsung Electronics' DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory) has a global market share of 43.9 percent and its NAND Flash memory had 36.7 percent of the market in the first quarter of 2024, making it the first in both segments.

But in terms of foundries, it has only 11 percent, the statistics show, leaving it a long way behind TSMC's 62 percent.

Though not confirmed, it is believed that the external foundry partner suggested by Lee would be TSMC, especially when SK hynix, another top South Korean memory chip manufacturer, announced in April that it is to collaborate with TSMC on HBM4 development and next-generation packaging technology.

High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) is a new type of memory technology designed to provide wider channels for data communication and lower power consumption compared to other kinds of traditional DRAM memories.

HBM4 is its latest development to meet the demand for AI chips.

It was reported by Business Korea on Sept. 5 that Dan Kochpatcharin, head of Ecosystem and Alliance Management at TSMC, announced at another SEMICON Taiwan forum that "Samsung Electronics and TSMC are jointly developing buffer-less HBM," meaning better power efficiency and lower latency.

It was the first time TSMC and Samsung Electronics have mentioned HBM collaboration, according to the report.

"Collaboration" was highlighted at this year's SEMICON Taiwan, which ended on Sept. 6.

Samsung's Lee was not the only one who said "ecosystem-wide collaboration is a must" in order to achieve "quantum jump of memory and AI."

At the CEO summit, SK hynix President Justin Kim also noted that he has visited Taiwan about 10 times this year and stressed that the two medium sized countries, where the semiconductor industry accounts for more than 15 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), should have "close collaboration" to meet new challenges in the AI era.

It was the first time top executives of two memory giants attended SEMICON Taiwan, said SEMI Taiwan President Terry Tsao (曹世綸), referring to the attendance of both Samsung and SK hynix executives at the expo.