(Seoul = Yonhap Infomax) Reporter Kim Gyeong-rim = Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong visited the Cheonan and Onyang campuses on the 17th to tour the package technology and business status, which is interpreted as customer companies’ demand for ‘customized semiconductors’ has increased.
Packaging is a process that makes semiconductor chips attachable to electronic devices, and has not been recognized as relatively important compared to fabless or foundries.
However, as the ‘fine process competition’ among global companies has recently faced technological challenges and cost issues, and major IT companies have developed their own chips, the ability to supply customized semiconductors is emerging as a key competitive edge.
The semiconductor industry is currently working hard to develop technologies of less than 3 nanometers (nm 1 nanometer is 1/1 billion), but compared to 5 nanometers, the 3 nano process costs more than 20% and has limitations in reducing line width. Already in the academic world, it is a popular opinion that 2-3 nanometers are the limit of microprocessing.
Customers such as artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, and battlefields are demanding various types of semiconductors. Demand for semiconductors that respond faster while reducing power consumption is increasing, but there is a limit to implementation with only the current microprocess.
A technology that can compensate for this is a package. The key to a package is how many types of semiconductors can be contained on one substrate.
In other words, considering the limitations of microprocessing and the demand for customized semiconductors from customers, Samsung Electronics must secure back-end process technology to rise to the global top tier in memory as well as system semiconductors.
In the case of Taiwan’s TSMC, which is a foundry leader, it is evaluated that it has already built a ‘post-process ecosystem’ by operating only six package factories and having a research and development (R&D) center in Japan.
Another competitor, US Intel, is also investing more than $3.5 billion in a package-related back-end process plant in New Mexico to expand its facilities. Chips manufactured at the factory are said to be used in fields such as AI.
It is also building a package factory in Malaysia with an investment of 7 billion dollars and 8 billion euros in Italy.
In the case of Samsung Electronics, it has a 2.5D package that puts logic semiconductors and high-bandwidth semiconductors (HBM) on a board, and a 3D packaging technology that puts SRAM on a logic integrated circuit, but it is pointed out that it is being pushed behind by competitors.
Chairman Lee Jae-yong’s visit to the site is interpreted as evidence that the package can be a solution to the deteriorating semiconductor industry.
On the other hand, Chairman Lee Jae-yong visited Samsung Display’s business site on the 7th to tour the Quantum Dot (QD) Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) panel production line and check the business strategy.
In the case of the display business, as Chinese companies are intensifying their pursuit, maintaining the super-gap is emerging as a priority task. The LCD technology gap with China has already narrowed.
An official from the business world said, “For Samsung Electronics, which is competing with Chinese companies that have a huge domestic market and state support, the only countermeasure is to secure technology that is one step ahead of them.” It seems that they are taking strategic steps with the development of talents in mind.”
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