Samsung Electronics secures a $200 billion partnership with Broadcom for AI chips, enhancing its foundry initiatives
Samsung Electronics announced on Saturday that it has reached an agreement with U.S. chip designer Broadcom to expand their collaboration in memory chips, contract chip manufacturing, and advanced packaging, with expectations to surpass $200 billion by 2030.
Securing long-term production commitments from Broadcom, a prominent player in custom AI chip design, may enhance utilization at Samsung’s advanced manufacturing facilities, positioning them favorably in the competition to supply AI chips.
The expanded collaboration … showcases Samsung’s commitment to providing customers with comprehensive semiconductor technologies tailored for a growing variety of AI and high-performance computing applications,” the company stated.
The collaboration arises as international technology firms progressively create their own tailored AI accelerators, moving away from dependence on general-purpose graphics processors. This shift is fueling the need for specialized chip design and manufacturing partnerships.
The memorandum of understanding between the two firms highlights Samsung’s commitment to strengthening its position in AI semiconductors by enhancing its long-term relationship with Broadcom in response to the increasing demand for custom AI processors.
The upcoming five years of partnership will merge Broadcom’s proficiency in designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), which are chips tailored for specific tasks, with Samsung’s manufacturing strengths.
The agreement outlines that Broadcom’s upcoming communications chips, engineered for high-speed data transfer, will be produced using Samsung’s sub-2-nanometer process technology, according to Samsung’s statement.
The two will also work together on next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) products.
The collaboration has the potential to bolster Samsung’s foundry operations, as it aims to close the gap with industry leader TSMC by attracting significant technology clients.
Last month, co-CEO and chip division head Jun Young-hyun mentioned that he had discussions regarding next-generation foundry cooperation with Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, which included future HBM4E and HBM5 memory products.
Samsung announced that it anticipates securing more advanced 2-nanometer foundry orders in the near future following discussions with major tech companies. Last year, it secured a $16.5 billion contract to produce logic chips for electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla.
