Samsung Electronics Heads to Israel to Secure Foundry Customers

Participation in Israel's Annual Semiconductor Event 'ChipX 2023'

Samsung Electronics headed to Israel, a cradle for startups, to secure foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) customers. The company aimed to promote its advanced 3-nanometer (nm; 1 nm = one billionth of a meter) Gate-All-Around (GAA) process technology and secure business opportunities.

Samsung Electronics announced on the 9th (local time) that it participated in the 'ChipEx 2023' event held at the Tel Aviv Convention Center in Israel.

ChipEx is an event hosted annually since 2009 by Israel's ASG (Advanced Systems Group). Leading semiconductor companies and scholars attend to share trends and development directions in the semiconductor industry. This year, keynote speeches were delivered by world-renowned fabless semiconductor companies including Samsung Electronics' Foundry Division, Apple, AMD, IBM, Marvell Technology, and MediaTek.

Jung Ki-bong, Vice President of Samsung Electronics' Foundry Division, introduced key market prospects for foundry including mobile, high-performance computing (HPC), and smart cars in his keynote speech titled 'Foundry All Around.' He also presented Samsung's innovative technologies and outlined a future blueprint that Samsung Foundry will open with its customers.

Jung Ki-bong, Vice President of Samsung Electronics Foundry Business Division, is delivering a keynote speech at ChipEx 2023 held in Israel. / Photo by Samsung Electronics

Vice President Jung stated, "The foundry industry faces the challenge of developing technology for more energy-efficient computing devices," adding, "GAA transistors that deliver higher performance per watt, multi-die integration, and low-power and low-latency memory solutions will address this challenge."

He also emphasized, "GAA is a core technology that can achieve More than Moore, and Samsung Electronics' unique GAA (MBCFET) technology allows the nanosheet width to be adjusted according to characteristics, providing high design flexibility."

GAA is a next-generation technology that improves performance over the existing FinFET technology while reducing chip area and increasing power efficiency. Samsung Electronics began mass production of the world's first 3nm first-generation process using GAA transistors in June last year. The company aims to start mass production of the 3nm second-generation process next year. In its first-quarter earnings announcement last month, Samsung mentioned that customers are producing test chips using Samsung's GAA 3nm technology.

At this event, Samsung Electronics also set up a booth showcasing foundry production technologies specialized for different applications and its 3nm GAA process technology. The company explained that it made efforts to discover potential customers and expand business opportunities.

Starting with Israel, Samsung Electronics plans to hold the annual semiconductor events 'Samsung Foundry Forum' and 'SAFE Forum' globally from next month through the second half of this year to discover potential customers. The company also revealed plans to capture business expansion opportunities early and increase the number of customers more than fivefold by 2027 compared to 2019.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.