Attempts by the current management of Intel to improve the company’s financial position, as noted by South Korean publications, are not limited to the search for investors. Patrick Gelsinger is reportedly seeking a meeting with Samsung Electronics CEO Lee Jae-yong to discuss the possibility of forming an alliance in the contract chip manufacturing industry.
Image Source: Samsung Electronics
Although Intel likes to “highlight” in the public information field the big names of its new clients, for whom it is preparing to launch the production of chips, in financial terms it cannot yet boast of significant revenue from contract activities. Samsung suffers from a slightly different combination of problems. Although it has nominally mastered the production of 3nm products before its main competitors, it still cannot arrange mass supplies of specialized products.
Perhaps both companies, while maintaining administrative independence, could help solve each other’s problems, so the alliance discussed by the Korean media could make sense. In any case, Intel entered into a similar agreement with the Israeli Tower Semiconductor after an unsuccessful attempt to buy it, and now the former has access to Intel’s production facilities in New Mexico. In a similar way, Intel could cooperate with Samsung, at the same time exchanging information in the technological field on mutually beneficial terms. Intel, for example, has made good progress in chip packaging technologies, and Samsung’s experience could be useful in the context of producing HBM memory and its further integration into customer products.