Foundry demand solid, Samsung says
Customers such as Qualcomm not switching to TSMC
Samsung has denied market concerns over the future of its memory and foundry chip businesses during the conference call for the first quarter of 2022 on Thursday.
The South Korean tech giant was asked by an analyst about rumors that it could skip the development of 1b DRAM and go right to 1c.
1b refers to a DRAM with a gate width of 12nm. Some media alleged that Samsung was facing difficulties in developing 1b and was jumping right ahead the next-generation node 1c DRAM.
Samsung said the rumor was “completely false” and that there were no problems with its previous set production timeline.
Development of 1b was going stably and the node following it __ 1c __ will be done on schedule, the company said.
Samsung also denied another rumor that it was facing yield rate problems for its advanced processing node in its foundry service.
The company said the yield rate of its 5nm process has entered maturity and it was expanding the supply of the service.
For the 4nm node after that, while there were some delays in ramp up, the node has also entered its expected yield rate curve, Samsung stressed. The company was also preparing a new R&D line for the 3nm process node, it added.
Another analyst said there were concerns that major foundry customers such as Qualcomm and Nvidia were shifting their orders to a competitor __ meaning TSMC, the world’s largest foundry chip firm and Samsung’s chief rival in the sector.
Samsung said the market concerns over the issue were “overblown”, adding that demand from its major customers was higher than its current capacity.
The foundry business’ remaining orders for the next five years were worth eight times that of the business’ revenue last year, Samsung stressed.
Orders are expected to increase further as the company was actively promoting its advanced nodes, the tech giant said.
Meanwhile, Samsung said it recorded 77.78 trillion won in revenue and 14.12 trillion won in operating profit during the first quarter, an increase of 19% and 50%, respectively, from a year prior.
