Samsung Electronics Signs First Foundry Contract with Intel

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] It has been suggested that Samsung Electronics may have secured semiconductor outsourcing production orders from Intel in the United States.

On the 21st, the financial investment industry and the U.S. semiconductor specialized media SemiAccurate reported that Samsung Electronics recently signed some semiconductor foundry contracts with Intel. Samsung Electronics plans to produce Intel's chips at its foundry plant in Austin, Texas, starting in the second half of this year, with a scale of 15,000 300mm wafers per month.

The Austin plant has a 14nm (nanometer, 1nm = one billionth of a meter) line. This is considered outdated compared to the 5nm or 7nm lines used to manufacture smartphone application processors (AP) and PC central processing units (CPU). It is presumed that Intel has entrusted the production of graphics processing units (GPU) rather than CPUs.

Kim Sunwoo, a researcher at Meritz Securities, said, "The cooperation between Intel and Samsung Electronics is likely to start with GPU production," and added, "If Samsung Electronics expands the Austin plant, it will be able to produce high value-added products using advanced 5nm processes."

If this report is true, Intel appears to be outsourcing semiconductor production through a dual vendor system with Samsung Electronics and TSMC, rather than signing an exclusive foundry contract with Taiwan's TSMC. Currently, Samsung Electronics and TSMC are the only companies worldwide capable of producing the advanced semiconductors Intel requires.

A Samsung Electronics official said regarding the order status, "We cannot confirm matters related to customers."