Stefan Mileschin

Giant Korean combine Samsung opened a new semiconductor centre in Silicon Valley today now it considers rivals such as Intel to be in its sights.

Samsung is a vertical company with many strings to its bow. In the past it has even tried making jets although that turned out to be a project too far. It has dabbled in the automotive sector too, and is believed to be considering a re-entry into that market.

In South Korea, Samsung also manufactures leading edge storage products, displays, and makes many of the components that are included in the smartphones it, and its rivals, sell.

It has the advantage over companies like Intel – forced to diversify in recent years and think about stuff like the internet of things – while plucky British CPU manufacturer ARM continues to be the market leader in microprocessors.

The design centre it opened, according to a statement from its USA arm, is a million square foot R&D centre.

While many focus on smartphone sales, and contrast its sales to Apple’s iPhone sales, they would do well to reflect on the fact that Samsung’s fabrication plants in South Korea continue to dish its rivals on the memory front.

Intel used to be a memory company, but analysts see its strategic relationship with the last USA DRAM manufacturer Micron as faltering, particularly as Chinese consortia want to snap it up.

It would be a foolish analyst or journalist who predicted the game is over for Samsung, TechEye believes.

http://www.techeye.net/chips/samsung...silicon-valley