▲ Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong met Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger while visiting Korea on the 30th. He held a relay meeting on ways to cooperate in the overall semiconductor business. After President Joe Biden’s visit to Samsung, it seems to have opened up cooperation with Intel, a leading US semiconductor company.
Vice Chairman Lee and CEO of Gelsinger continued the related meeting through relay, deciding to cooperate in various fields such as ▲next-generation memory ▲fabless system semiconductor ▲foundry ▲PC and mobile in the presence of executives from both companies. From the Samsung side, Gyeonggi-hyung, head of Samsung Electronics’ DS division, Tae-moon Roh, head of MX business, Jeong-bae Lee, head of memory business, Si-young Choi, head of foundry business, and Yong-in Park, head of system LSI business were in attendance.
In the industry, Samsung and Intel, which were representative rivals in the semiconductor field, are reacting unexpectedly to the joint venture. Not long ago, Samsung and Intel competed fiercely for the top spot in semiconductors, back and forth. Last year, Samsung overtook Intel to achieve the top spot in semiconductor sales.
Moreover, many opinion that it is surprising that Intel, which recently declared re-entry into the foundry business, is discussing cooperation with Samsung, the second largest foundry. This is because the 2nd and 3rd place companies joined forces in a three-way war where Intel is challenging Samsung, which is increasing its market share, in a situation where Taiwan’s TSMC, the No. 1, has an overwhelming market share.
▲ Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger ⓒIntel
However, there are many areas where the two companies are already working together. First of all, Intel’s processors are used in Samsung Electronics’ main products. The ‘Galaxy Book Pro’ series, a notebook with Samsung’s latest technology, is equipped with Intel’s 12th Gen Intel® Core™ processors and Intel® Iris® Xe graphics. It has also been certified for ‘Intel® Evo™ Platform’, Intel’s high-performance and high-efficiency mobile PC certification system.
‘Compute Express Link (CXL)’, a new memory interface DRAM technology developed by Samsung for the first time in the industry, has also been verified for use by Intel. This technology is known to dramatically improve data center performance that processes artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and big data, and has recently been verified in Intel’s data center and server platforms.
Debendra Das Sharma, Intel Standards General Fellow, also said, “We will continue to work with Samsung Electronics to build a strong memory ecosystem around CXL.”
It is analyzed that the influence of US President Joe Biden, who recently visited Samsung, was the decisive factor in the surprise cooperation between Samsung and Intel, which were rivals. It is also evaluated that it is the result of the US government, which has emphasized the cooperation between Korea and the US several times in the semiconductor field, has selected Samsung as a cooperative partner with Intel, the country’s representative semiconductor company.
