Foundry sales to begin in earnest from the end of the year
Pursuing TSMC through synergy with Samsung
Increased contract discussions, green light for overseas expansion
“Foundries (semiconductor manufacturing services) and design houses companies complement each other. “If each person plays their part and strengthens the ecosystem, I am confident that Samsung Foundry will not be inferior to TSMC.”
Junkyu Park ADtechnology (200710)The CEO said this in a recent interview with the Seoul Economic Daily at AD’s headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi City. ADT announced in 2020 that it would switch from a partner of TSMC to a partner of Samsung Foundry.
The design house plays a role in optimizing the design according to the foundry process so that the customer can mass-produce semiconductors. It acts as a bridge between companies that want to make chips and foundries. The thicker the pool of design houses, the more prosperous the foundry, and conversely, the higher the competitiveness of the foundry, the more work there is for the design house.
The second half of the year is especially important. CEO Park said, “The contract with the first U.S. customer, which was scheduled for the first half of the year, is also likely to be signed in the second half of the year,” “We have invested in technological advancement for years to optimize Samsung Foundry’s process, and we will see the results of full-scale mass production from the end of this year.”
The situation of Samsung Foundry, which has a widening gap with TSMC, is variable, but it is a plan to overcome it through synergy. He said, “We convinced the customer through the process of receiving the database in advance from the customer, reviewing the product, and showing how superior the performance was compared to the competitors…also through this in fact we won many projects.”
The company, which once had stable sales of 300 billion won, saw its sales drop to 100 billion won as it prepared to transform into Samsung Foundry. The company used this time to refine its portfolio in line with next-generation high-value-added technologies and increase its competitiveness. Korea’s first reference 2.5-dimensional (D) packaging technology is an example.
CEO Park said, “Internalization is the most important thing in 2.5D packaging technology,”, “In the past, we outsourced packaging when it was needed, but about four months ago, we created an organization dedicated to packaging design and simulation.”
Sales are also recovering to their heyday levels based on technologies such as advanced packaging and processes below 2nm (nanometers, billionths of a meter), CEO Park expects sales to be comparable to the previous record by 2026 at the earliest. He predicts that overseas expansion, especially in the United States, will also accelerate.
CEO Park said “There are many high-value customers overseas, especially those with high demand for the fleet process,” and added, “We are discussing more and more overseas contracts, and we are continuously increasing our sales force, especially in the United States.”