Samsung and Intel chiefs meet in Seoul to discuss potential chip collaboration
Meeting raises expectations of cooperation between Intel and Samsung as the race for next-generation processing technology intensifies
Pat Gelsinger, the chief executive of Intel, and Lee Jae-yong, the vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, met on Monday in Seoul to discuss a potential collaboration between the two firms.
The meeting took place as part of Gelsinger's tour of Asia, during which he has met with major suppliers and attempted to tackle supply chain difficulties.
Gelsinger flew to Korea after attending the 2022 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
As reported by the Korea Herald, Gelsinger and Jae-yong discussed co-operation in the areas including next-generation memory chips, fabless logic chips, foundry business, personal computers and mobile devices, and more.
Samsung executives, including co-CEO Kyung Kye-hyun, who supervises Samsung's semiconductor business, Roh Tae-moon, head of Samsung's mobile division, and other high-ranking officials representing each chip business, from memory chips to processors and foundries, were also present at the meeting.
The Korea Herald did not publish any official comment on the meeting, but said that it raises expectations of cooperation between Intel and Samsung as the race for next-generation processing technology intensifies.
The meeting is said to have been largely influenced by US President Joe Biden's and South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol's visit to Samsung's Pyeongtaek semiconductor plant last week. During the visit, Biden voiced his desire to build a multilateral partnership in the semiconductor industry.
In the semiconductor sector, Samsung Electronics and Intel have long been both rivals and business partners.
Last year, Samsung posted $82.3 billion revenue, which allowed the company to overtake Intel and reclaim its position as the top chipmaker in the world. Intel, which was at number two spot, reported $79 billion in sales.
Despite their rivalry, the companies are also dependent on one another in many areas.
In the DRAM market, where Samsung holds the top position, compatibility with Intel's CPU is critical in producing next-generation memory products such as DDR5 for PCs and servers and LPDDR6 for mobile devices.
Last year, Intel announced it was re-entering the chip manufacturing business, a market dominated by Taiwan's TSMC and Samsung Electronics, having said in 2018 that it would no longer be involved in the foundry sector.
Intel has invested tens of billions of dollars as it seeks to reclaim its technological lead since its return, including a $3 billion promise in April to develop its semiconductor factory in Oregon.
Samsung Electronics is expected to host a groundbreaking ceremony in Taylor, Texas, in June for a $17 billion chip manufacturing plant. The plant is projected to be fully operational in the second half of 2024, according to the firm.
The Korean tech giant revealed plans to create an advanced chip factory in Taylor in November to help boost production of sophisticated logic semiconductor solutions that fuel next-generation innovations and technologies.
Last month, Gelsinger was in Taiwan, trying to acquire more of TSMC's sub-7nm manufacturing capacity. No details about the components Intel seeks were divulged.
Intel is also expected to be among the first customers for TSMC's 2nm chips, when the node goes into production in late 2025. At that time, TSMC plans to begin manufacturing chips using its 2nm process technology (N2) at scale, delivering the first batch at the start of 2026.
Analysts from China Renaissance Securities said last month that Intel will likely use N2 for the graphics tile of its next-gen client processor, code-named Lunar Lake.
Intel is expected to use its own 18A node for the CPU tile, which the chipmaker claims is equivalent to a 1.8nm process.
Intel's upcoming Arc GPUs are expected to use TSMC's 3nm and 2nm manufacturing nodes, as it attempts to compete with fellow chipmaking giants Nvidia and AMD.