Samsung pursues memory‑foundry bundle

Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee’s Taiwan trip this week put a spotlight on a sales strategy that goes beyond process nodes. According to Seoul Economic Daily, Lee traveled to Taiwan on May 21 and met MediaTek executives as Samsung sought to pair its memory business with its contract chipmaking arm in pitches to customers. The approach targets one of Samsung’s biggest structural advantages over Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.: Samsung can sell both advanced memory and foundry capacity to the same customer. Samsung has said its foundry business is targeting double-digit revenue growth in 2026, while its memory division is leaning into AI-related products. ### Why does Lee’s Taiwan visit matter? Taiwan matters because it is home to MediaTek, one of the world’s largest fabless chip designers and a long-standing TSMC customer. Seoul Economic Daily reported that Lee made a surprise visit to MediaTek’s headquarters as part of an effort to expand Samsung Foundry’s customer base. Other reports citing industry sources also said Lee met MediaTek Chief Executive Rick Tsai during the trip. (en.sedaily.com) May 21 also came less than a day after Samsung’s labor union suspended an 18-day strike, according to TechTimes, removing an immediate distraction as Lee traveled. The timing underscored how directly Samsung’s top leadership is now involved in foundry customer acquisition. ### What is Samsung actually offering customers? (en.sedaily.com) Samsung’s pitch is a bundle: foundry manufacturing tied to memory supply. Seoul Economic Daily said Samsung is trying to use its strength in memory to support foundry sales, a combination TSMC cannot match because TSMC does not make memory chips. The commercial logic is that a customer buying application processors or AI chips may also need DRAM, HBM or other memory products in volume. (techtimes.com) February 12 gave Samsung a fresh talking point on the memory side. Samsung Semiconductor said it had begun mass production of HBM4 and shipped commercial products, calling it the industry’s first commercial HBM4. In that release, Samsung also said “a tightly integrated” optimization effort between its foundry and memory businesses helps quality, yield and production lead times. (en.sedaily.com) ### Why is this different from the usual Samsung-TSMC rivalry? TSMC’s core advantage has long been execution in pure-play foundry services. Samsung’s new pitch does not replace that contest, but it adds a commercial layer to it by offering customers a broader supply package. Reports on Lee’s trip framed the effort around winning or expanding accounts rather than making a public claim of process leadership. (news.samsungsemiconductor.com) Samsung’s own guidance points in the same direction. In its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results, Samsung said the foundry business was targeting double-digit revenue growth in 2026 through advanced nodes, while the memory business said it would prioritize high-value AI products. That combination gives Samsung room to pitch customers on supply coordination across businesses, especially in AI hardware where logic, packaging and memory are closely linked. (en.sedaily.com) ### Why would MediaTek even listen? MediaTek has historically relied on TSMC for leading-edge manufacturing, but large chip designers often want leverage, second-source options or better commercial terms. Reports tied to Lee’s visit said Samsung was trying to persuade MediaTek to broaden its manufacturing relationships. Even a partial shift, rather than a full transfer of business, would be meaningful for Samsung Foundry because MediaTek is a high-volume smartphone and connectivity chip supplier. (news.samsung.com) Samsung enters that conversation with scale in memory. In its fiscal 2025 results, Samsung said its memory business set all-time highs in quarterly revenue and operating profit, driven by HBM and other high-value products. That gives Samsung a stronger hand in arguing it can support AI and mobile customers across more of the bill of materials. (digitimes.com) ### What should readers watch next? Samsung’s next test is whether the Taiwan meetings produce named foundry wins or expanded business from existing customers. The company has already said its foundry business plans to ramp second-generation 2-nanometer products in 2026 and prepare performance- and power-optimized 4-nanometer processes. Any announcement involving MediaTek, advanced-node production, or paired memory supply would show whether Lee’s Taiwan push moved beyond a sales pitch. (news.samsung.com)