Samsung Electronics Co, the world’s second-largest semiconductor maker, showed off a speedier and more powerful processor, seeking a bigger stake of the surging smartphone market.
The company will begin selling a chip that has eight processors built into the same piece of silicon, Samsung’s System LSI unit president Stephen Woo said at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Four of the processors are designed to run fast when the device needs operating power and the rest are engineered to help conserve battery life.
Samsung is following announcements this week by chipmakers such as Nvidia Corp, Qualcomm Inc and Intel Corp of processors designed to make handheld devices more powerful.
The Suwon, South Korea-based company is trying to build on its position as a supplier to Apple Inc and its own handset division by winning orders from other phone makers with a full range of integrated components including processors, memory chips and screens, Woo said in an interview.
“In the world, the only company that has logic, memory and display is Samsung Electronics,” he said.
Woo’s appearance at the show is designed to showcase the company’s capabilities outside of televisions and phones, where Samsung has market leadership, he said.
Samsung’s new mobile processor, the Exynos 5 Octa, will build on its predecessor’s success, he said.
The previous version appeared in 53 million devices, he said, and was chosen by Google Inc for its Chromebook notebook computer.
While Woo’s System LSI division is focused on the smartphone market — where Samsung and Apple have more than half of industry sales — the unit is independent of the company’s handset business.
“They use others’ components,” he said. “Even though we have very good components they choose to use others. It’s their choice. They are looking after their interests and we are looking after ours.”
Woo declined to comment on other customer relationships.
In the third quarter of last year, Qualcomm led the applications processor market with 42 percent revenue share, followed by Samsung with 27 percent, according to market researcher Strategy Analytics.
Samsung, also the world’s biggest supplier of ultra-thin organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, displays, probably saw rapid growth at its display business in the final three months of last year, largely driven by sales of its own mobile devices, said David Choi, a Seoul-based analyst at SK Securities Co.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
RSS