April 26, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics plans to supply its own Exynos chips to Audi, marking the first time for the Korean tech giant to supply its non-memory chips to a carmaker, local news daily Chosun Biz reported on Jan. 6.

Citing an unnamed Samsung executive, the report said the deal has recently been signed with plans to start the first shipment from 2018. 

The latest deal comes after a strategic partnership between the two firms. Samsung has supplied memory chips to the German luxury carmaker.

Starting with the Audi deal, the report said, Samsung would make a big push to expand its presence in the soaring automotive processor market.

Market research firm IHS predicts automotive chips could surge to a US$9.5 billion market by 2019.

Samsung, the world’s largest memory chipmaker, recently created a task force team to develop chips for self-driving cars under the leadership of Vice Chairman Kwon Oh-hyun, one of the company’s three co-CEOs.

“The whole development and production process takes considerable time to meet the demands of a carmaker,” the executive was quoted as saying. “We will continue to expand our clientele.”

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