Intel CEO Visits Korea Again After 6 Months... Focus on Next-Generation Memory Discussions with Samsung

CEO Pat Gelsinger's Visit to Korea

Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, will visit Korea again to encourage employees and meet with customers and partners. This revisit comes less than six months after his visit in May. Gelsinger also visited Korea twice last year.

On the 8th, Intel Korea announced that after attending the 'Intel Innovation 2023' event held in Taiwan the previous day, Gelsinger will travel via Japan and spend a day in Korea on the 9th. Since the visit includes meetings with customers and partners, there is a high possibility that he will meet with Samsung Electronics executives, who are Intel’s key customers and partners in Korea.

Gelsinger has met with Samsung Electronics executives every time he visits Korea. He also shares a special relationship with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong. In May last year, Chairman Lee met with Gelsinger during his visit to Korea, holding a series of meetings to discuss cooperation in various fields such as next-generation memory, fabless system semiconductors, foundry, PC, and mobile. Present at the meeting were Kyung Kye-hyun, head of Samsung Electronics’ DS (semiconductor) division; No Tae-moon, head of the MX (mobile) business division; Lee Jung-bae, head of the memory business division; Choi Si-young, head of the foundry business division; and Park Yong-in, head of the system LSI business division.

When Gelsinger visited Korea in December last year, he held talks with President Kyung Kye-hyun and Kim Woo-joon, head of the network business division, and met again with President No Tae-moon in May this year.

Intel and Samsung Electronics have a complex business relationship as both competitors and partners in the semiconductor industry. In terms of semiconductors alone, Samsung Electronics and Intel compete for the top two positions in global semiconductor sales. Especially since Intel officially announced its entry into the foundry market in 2021, competition with Samsung Electronics in semiconductors has intensified.

Taiwan’s TSMC and Samsung Electronics are engaged in a battle to lead the cutting-edge foundry process technology below 2 nanometers (nm, one billionth of a meter), while Intel recently unveiled a 1.8-nanometer process semiconductor prototype in San Jose, USA. Currently producing 7-nanometer process semiconductors, Intel plans to start mass production of 3-nanometer chips by the end of the year, like TSMC and Samsung Electronics, and to introduce 1.8-nanometer wafers into its production line in the first quarter of next year.

While Intel and Samsung Electronics compete in the semiconductor sector, they collaborate in the set product field. Samsung’s Galaxy Book series, which incorporates the latest Samsung technology, is equipped with Intel’s flagship central processing units (CPUs). The memory semiconductors paired with the CPUs are Samsung products.

Especially as Samsung’s new Galaxy Book 3, equipped with Intel processors, is performing well in the market, Intel inevitably considers cooperation with Samsung for future models. The Samsung Galaxy Book 3 series is based on Intel’s 13th generation processors.

Intel and Samsung Electronics are also expanding collaboration through new product innovations utilizing Intel’s 4th generation Xeon Scalable processors equipped with virtualized radio access network (vRAN) boost technology. The two companies have been cooperating on vRAN innovation since 2017.

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