The Hot Take: Nice, competition domestically is the best thing to see going on. I'm cheering on intel but Samsung and TSMC domestically too.
Samsung has made a massive investment in a cutting-edge chipmaking plant in Taylor, Texas. A $16.5 billion order from Tesla has already been secured for its next-generation self-driving chips.
A new report claims that Samsung's Taylor plant is now close to launch, with Tesla's chips likely to be produced from the second half of this year.
This is one of Samsung's biggest investments in the US
A report out of South Korea mentions that Samsung will host a major equipment move-in ceremony at the Taylor plant on April 24th. Key Samsung Electronics executives are said to attend this event, including Han Jin-man, the president of the company's foundry division.
This has been a long time coming. Samsung initially broke ground on the project back in November 2022. The Taylor fab was projected to begin operations in October 2024. However, given the lack of visibility on major orders, Samsung had delayed production activities.
It then received a shot in the arm from Tesla last year when the automaker confirmed it had signed a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung for its AI5 and AI6 chips to be built at the Taylor fab. Samsung views its Taylor fab as key to catching up with TSMC, its biggest rival in the contract chipmaking space, which already enjoys a dominant lead over the Korean aspirant.
Samsung's focus on making 2nm production capacity available at its US plant is meant to offer major customers like Microsoft and Meta a viable alternative to TSMC's US plant which operates on the 4nm process technology.
Major chip designers will closely watch how Samsung is able to deliver on these 2nm Tesla chips. If yields are stable at mass production volumes, it could unlock a surge in orders for Samsung as TSMC simply doesn't have the capacity to absorb all of the 2nm orders.
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The Hot Take: When you fix RAM prices you'll get this. Wonder when the Class Action Suites for pricing fixing get started.
Samsung Electronics is expected to deliver one of its strongest quarterly performances on record, driven largely by a sharp upswing in the global DRAM market. Forecasts for Q1 2026 point to operating profit reaching approximately $23.
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The Hot Take: ARM appears to have miffed licenses already.
ARM's ecosystem is both expansive and pervasive these days, with Samsung's latest cutting-edge Exynos 2600 chips also leveraging ARMv9.3 CPU cores. Even so, Samsung is apparently taking its first tentative steps towards the open-source RISC-V architecture via a custom SSD controller chip. Samsung is tentatively exploring the RISC-V open-source architecture via a custom SSD controller chip, moving away from ARM's IP According to South Korea-based ETNews, Samsung's upcoming SSD lineup, called the BM9K1 and designed entirely in-house, will leverage a controller chip that is based on the open-source RISC-V architecture. For the benefit of those who might not be aware, […]Read full article at https://wccftech.com/samsung-takes-first-step-away-from-arms-ecosystem-by-working-on-an-ssd-controller-chip-based-on-risc-v-architecture/
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The Hot Take: So USA looks to be having 3 foundries that will be able to produce 2nm chips. This is great news.
Samsung Electronics has reportedly moved into the equipment installation and testing phase at its foundry in Taylor, Texas, transitioning from construction to operational setup for 2nm production. More than 3,000 engineers from Samsung and global equipment suppliers have begun gathering at the site, according to ET News, signaling the start of large-scale ramp-up activities.
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The Hot Take: RISC-V getting traction everywhere it appears. I wonder if intel starts breaking into RISC-C SoCs to more easily compete with ARM. Given Intel is a steering board member.
Samsung is taking a notable step in SSD controller development by introducing a proprietary design based on the RISC-V instruction set. The new controller debuts in the upcoming BM9K1 PCIe 5.
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