In fully unrelated vogue, Samsung officers have tried to close down hypothesis that the Korean tech big is seeking to purchase AMD’s one-time manufacturing arm, GlobalFoundries, whereas its inheritor obvious hosts the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates. Of course it’s unrelated, GlobalFoundries is an American semiconductor producer, headquartered in Santa Clara, in any case.
Except that 90% of the corporate is definitely owned by the UAE state-run Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) and actually it’s not a US outfit in any respect. This is seemingly the second time in two weeks that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan and Samsung inheritor, Lee Jae-yong, have met after the latter’s go to to Abu Dhabi earlier this month.
That’s slightly earlier than Korean media began speculating that Samsung and SK Hynix were the most likely candidates to purchase GloFo as a sale to Chinese considerations has been successfully dominated out. Despite being owned by the UAE, the US authorities would nonetheless seemingly have one thing to say a few Chinese firm proudly owning the third largest producer of semiconductors, and one with a HQ on American soil.
The report on the Korean Herald explains that, throughout a go to to Seoul, the crown prince was taken on a tour of Samsung’s main manufacturing websites, together with its 5G services and semiconductor fabs. There was additionally hypothesis that he was being taken round Samsung’s excessive ultraviolet (EUV) manufacturing strains, the place it’s going to begin manufacturing 7nm silicon.
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One of Samsung’s launch partners for its 7nm EUV process is reportedly going to be Nvidia subsequent 12 months, with sampling prone to start this 12 months.
Nvidia itself hasn’t stated something about its potential 7nm graphics playing cards, although there was some hypothesis {that a} 7nm Turing refresh may very well be on the playing cards this 12 months. According to inner leaks TSMC has some 7nm 2019 capacity set aside for Nvidia, so it seems to be seemingly that Nvidia isn’t going wholesale over to Samsung for its manufacturing. Indeed The Motley Fool’s Ashraf Essa has stated as a lot, level to it utilizing TSMC’s 5nm course of sooner or later.
I do know for a indisputable fact that @nvidia is implementing merchandise in TSMC 5nm. The rumors that NVIDIA goes to wholesale defect to Samsung foundry are straight up false.
— Ashraf Eassa (@TMFAshrafEassa) February 26, 2019
But if Samsung does purchase out ATIC’s stake in GlobalFoundries it is going to be capable of improve the stress on TSMC’s contract manufacturing enterprise. At the second TSMC is means forward, with 50% of the worldwide foundry market, so if second-place Samsung takes management of the quantity three participant it’s going to up its share to some 23% of the market.
Samsung officers have, nevertheless, poured chilly water on these stories, suggesting that it will reasonably innovate to extend its market share than merely purchase out the competitors.
“GlobalFoundries could be attractive in terms of securing a bigger market share and winning more customers, but it’s not what Samsung is going to do,” stated a Samsung official. “Rather than simply taking over the market share, the company is looking for much higher levels of technologies.”
The Korean expertise big doth protest an excessive amount of, methinks.
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