Samsung Electronics is a giant global technology conglomerate that is not only famous for their electronic products, but also for developing various types of semiconductor components that are used by other companies. This includes components such as Samsung Exynos processing chips, memory chips and even Samsung storage used in many modern computers.
However, Samsung Foundry, the subsidiary of Samsung Electronics that is seen as responsible for developing these components does not seem to have many customers right now, and this has caused them to close most of their semiconductor chip manufacturing capacity using 7nm, 5nm and 4nm processes.
Samsung has shown production using their 3nm process called SF3 which is expected to produce the Samsung Exynos 2500 processing chip that will power their Samsung Galaxy S25 device next year.
For this, Samsung has started developing a task force to analyze the need to separate Samsung Foundry from Samsung Electronics. This process is expected to take around three to five years to ensure whether the matter really needs to be done or not.
It is reported that the executive chairman of Samsung Electronics, Lee Jae-Yong does not want this separation to happen, but will allow the task force to check all the details thoroughly before making a decision to separate the two divisions.
Technology process development competition is seen to be very rapid, especially this year, where TSMC remains the number one semiconductor chip manufacturer in the world with customers such as Apple, AMD, Qualcomm and others using their 3nm N3 process technology for the latest processing chips.
In the meantime, Intel is also preparing to start opening up their 18A manufacturing process in the middle of next year. The process has already started early production, where Intel has shown the Xeon Clearwater Forest processing chip which is the first data center processing chip to be built using the process.
It is expected that if Samsung Foundry were to be separated from Samsung Electronics, it would operate as a company unrelated to it, and this would seem to give the new Samsung Foundry some autonomy to do what is necessary for the company's benefit.