Samsung Electronics' chip foundry business is in the next city.
Samsung just won an outsourcing order for STMicroelectronics microcontrollers (MCUs) to produce MCUs for its big customer Apple's next-generation iPhone 14 series, using a 16nm process. But this time Samsung does not want to be too high-profile, has not responded for the time being, do not know how big the order details are.
What is an MCU? It is a system single chip that can control small switches of large parts, like the MCU in a smart phone can process the data of multiple sensors, and will continue to work when the mobile phone is sleeping, reducing power losses. This time Samsung uses 16nm specifications, and compared with the traditional MCU, the new product is smaller and has a stronger power density.
More importantly, 70% of the MCU outsourced by the world is produced by TSMC, so in this market, TSMC is the boss, and now Samsung has won this order, which can be said to be a naked "provocation", that is, to show its attitude and prepare to grab business.
Anyway, Samsung and TSMC these two foundries have been secretly competing, no one obeys anyone, in the third quarter of this year, TSMC wafer foundry revenue was 14.884 billion US dollars, far more than Samsung's 4.81 billion US dollars, while TSMC's market share increased to 53.1%, while Samsung's market share fell to 17.1%.
So Samsung wants to catch up with TSMC's mood is becoming more and more urgent, and last month it also set aside $17 billion to build a chip factory in Texas. In addition, Samsung Group also holds hundreds of billions of dollars, intends to harvest or invest in a number of international semiconductor manufacturers, such as STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Infineon and other important customers of TSMC, are Samsung wants to dig the corner of the object.
You know, in the past four years, the total number of mergers and acquisitions in the global semiconductor industry has exceeded 200 billion US dollars (about 1.3 trillion yuan), but Samsung Group has disdained to participate, and now it is 100 billion US dollars.
Text | Li Zejun title | Zeng Yi reviewed | Lee Ze-plutonium