[News] Samsung Reportedly Eyes Expansion in China with Legacy Nodes by Leveraging Local RISC-V Ecosystem

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Samsung’s new head of its foundry business, Han Jin-man, stated last week that the semiconductor giant will work on a “two-track strategy” aimed at closing the technology gap with TSMC and countering competition from followers, such as China’s SMIC. Now, to further secure its leadership on legacy nodes in China, Samsung is actively collaborating with the growing RISC-V industry in the market, as per a report from Business Korea.

According to Business Korea, legacy processes are a key revenue driver for Samsung Foundry, with those above 7nm contributing to approximately 70% of the division’s revenue. Samsung has reportedly demonstrated the company’s strength in legacy processes, like producing Tesla’s autonomous driving chips with 10nm, as indicated by Business Korea.

China: the Third Largest RISC-V Ecosystem Globally

The Business Korea report suggests that Samsung’ research lab in Beijing has started recruiting RISC-V specialists recently. This initiative is viewed as a strategic effort for Samsung to tap into China’s RISC-V ecosystem, which includes 69 national members of RISC-V International, making it the third-largest after the European Union (EU) and the U.S, as noted by the report.

According to the report, Samsung is conducting RISC-V research both in China and the U.S. The company has established the Advanced Processor Lab (APL) in Silicon Valley to focus on AI chips using RISC-V, the report notes.

“RISC-V” stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) and the “V” represents the fifth version of the RISC architecture. It is an open-source instruction set architecture (ISA) which offers free access to its architecture, unlike ARM’s paid intellectual property. According to the foundation’s website, there are more than 4,500 RISC-V members across 70 countries.

Notably, companies like SMIC and Hua Hong Semiconductor are challenging Samsung’s operations in China by deploying aggressive low-cost strategies, driven by the sharp increase in local demand for legacy semiconductors. The collaboration with China’s RISC-V ecosystem, therefore, implies a critical move for Samsung to break out the competitive market, where local foundry companies have a strong presence, the report notes.

According to a previous report from Reuters in April, the U.S. Department of Commerce is examining the national security implications of China’s involvement in open-source RISC-V chip technology, which has the potential to be used in a wide range of devices, from smartphone chips to advanced processors for artificial intelligence.

At present, RISC-V has become the preferred CPU architecture in many fields in China, as it gradually gains a foothold in the CPU field and compete with x86 and ARM. It is expected that by 2025, the number of RISC-V cores will increase to 80 billion.

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(Photo credit: Samsung)