April 27, 2024

• 

[THE INVESTOR]  Samsung Electronics' contract chip manufacturing business is expected to see more than 10 percent growth in sales this year although its key client Apple has stopped orders, the Korea Economic Daily reported on Dec. 28.

According to the report, the sales could surge to US$4 billion, making up 40 percent of the total revenue of the Korean tech giant's non-memory chip business division, called System LSI. 

Largely buoyed by the upbeat sales recently, Samsung, the world’s largest memory chipmaker, is considering splitting off the foundry business to soothe any tech leak concerns among clients, mostly chipmakers.

Samsung has long relied on Apple to nurture its foundry business that started supplying application processing chips for iPhone since 2007. But the business suffered slowing sales as Apple started placing orders with Taiwan Semiconductor, more widely known as TSMC, since 2012. For the latest iPhone 7, Apple used TSMC processors only.

But Samsung has recovered sales more recently, diversifying its clientele, including Qualcomm, AMD and Nvidia.

Samsung has produced processors for Qualcomm since 2013 and plans to produce server chips that the US chip giant will unveil next year. The company has also inked a deal with Tesla Motors to produce chips for self-driving solutions.

Samsung started producing chips using the most-advanced 10-nanometer fin field-effect transistor, or FinFET, since October this year, outpacing its foundry rival TSMC that is still focusing on the less-sophisticated 7-nanometer technology.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)