The South Korean company is the world's biggest maker of memory chips but it lags far behind in the non-memory chip processor business dominated by the likes of Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Broadcom.
"We constantly study the market and try to determine what's the best ... and there's absolutely no reason why we want to avoid doing M&A," Wong Yiwan, vice president of Samsung's system chip business, told Reuters in an interview in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show.
"By the same token, we do other things that actually complement what we do ... clearly things like partnership. It's very difficult for one company to do everything."
No.1 mobile chip producer Qualcomm announced a $3.2 billion deal this week to buy Atheros Communications Inc, a key producer of chips used for Wi-Fi and bluetooth, showing its desire to become a stronger player in supplying chips for smartphones and tablets.
Cash-rich Samsung had been reportedly interested in buying Infineon's wireless chip unit, which Intel snapped up instead for $1.7 billion last year.
Its system chips division saw strong growth last year, driven by robust demand for mobile processors and image sensors, but an organic-growth approach kept its global share in an exploding mobile chip market at around 3 percent, according to research firm iSuppli.
The business also represents around 20 percent of Samsung's overall semiconductor business. Its mainstay memory chip operation, ranked the world's largest, earned 20 trillion won in revenue in the first nine months of 2010.
While still small in comparison, the division is expected to help offset weakening growth in memory chip demand, helped by rising popularity of smartphones, tablets and Internet TVs.
MORE FOUNDRY DEALS
Wong also expects to secure more outsourcing deals for chip manufacture in coming years, as belt-tightening companies shed capital-intensive investment in chip-making facilities.
Samsung said last month it had won a deal from Japan's Toshiba Corp to produce system chips, as the Japanese firm seeks to reduce its non-memory chip exposure.
"Our foundry business is doing very good. Many companies are adopting fab-light strategy. So demand for foundry service support has become stronger, and we actually benefit from that," Wong said.
"Clearly, expansion in foundry is our major focus ... so the next two, three years, you'll probably see more relationships being set up between our company and other companies on the foundry side."
Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us
No comments:
Post a Comment