Samsung talks 'turnkey' AI chip production at annual Foundry Forum

Choi Si-young, president and head of the foundry business at Samsung Electronics, speaks at the Samsung Foundry Forum in Silicon Valley on Wednesday. [SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS]

Samsung Electronics emphasized its capacity for turnkey, or one-stop, AI chip production — encompassing memory chips, manufacturing and packaging in one — at the annual Samsung Foundry Forum on Wednesday.

The Korean tech giant is currently scrambling to close its gap with industry leader TSMC while shaking off competitors like Intel and Rapidus.

The integrated service has helped clients shorten chip production time by 20 percent compared to periods when the three processes were handled separately, Samsung Electronics said at Samsung Foundry Forum 2024 in Silicon Valley.

The company added that optic elements, considered next-generation technology for fast data processing, will be added to the turnkey service by 2027.

“We plan to introduce integrated co-packaged optics technology for high-speed, lower-power data processing, providing our customers with the one-stop AI solutions they need to thrive in this transformative era,” said Choi Si-young, president and head of the foundry business at Samsung Electronics at the event.

Samsung Electronics is currently the only company that does business in memory chips as well as the designing, manufacturing and packaging of logic processors. The firm has recently been highlighting that turnkey service to differentiate itself from competitors.

The company's road map for the advanced manufacturing of chips remains largely unchanged from what it's announced in the past.

Samsung pledged to start mass production of the 1.4-nanometer process by 2027, a year later than TSMC's target year of 2026. The Korean tech giant said it has achieved its targeted performance and yield for the process under its “Beyond Moore” initiative.

It also announced the adoption of a backside power delivery network — which shifts power lines to the back of the wafer to improve performance and power consumption — beginning with its two-nanometer process. Mass production of this process dubbed SF2Z is slated to begin in 2027.

Mass production for second generation of Samsung's three-nanometer process will also commence in the latter half of this year. Gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, meant to enable faster and more efficient data performance, will be utilized for both the three-nanometer and two-nanometer processes.

Samsung Electronics has been struggling to catch up with industry leader TSMC in the foundry, or contract manufacturing business.

The company's market share dropped to 11 percent in the first quarter of this year from 11.3 percent in the previous quarter, according to TrendForce, while TSMC's rose to 61.7 percent from 61.2 percent.

BY JIN EUN-SOO [jin.eunsoo@joongang.co.kr]