Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong met with the chief executive officer (CEO) of Taiwan fabless corporation MediaTek to work on strengthening the global supply chain.
According to the industry on the 22nd, Lee is said to have visited MediaTek's headquarters in Taiwan the previous day with senior Samsung Electronics executives for a closed-door meeting with CEO Rick Tsai and other key management.
Right after Samsung Electronics management and labor reached a wage agreement that had come to the brink of a strike, Lee appeared to personally allay concerns about potential semiconductor supply disruptions by visiting a global client.
The visit was reportedly made to explore foundry (contract semiconductor manufacturing) cooperation with MediaTek. MediaTek currently outsources chip production to Taiwan's TSMC, the No. 1 global foundry corporation, and analysis says Samsung Electronics is moving to expand its foothold in the foundry market by leveraging the memory chip shortage triggered by surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers.
As Samsung Electronics' foundry competitiveness has recently strengthened, it secured large-scale foundry orders last year from major global big tech companies such as Tesla and Qualcomm. It is also exploring a foundry business partnership with AMD.
The industry also raises the possibility that concrete order discussions took place, given that Lee met directly with MediaTek's management this time.
In addition, it is highly likely the meeting discussed expanding the supply of application processors (AP), a key component for mobile devices. To cut manufacturing costs, Samsung Electronics is increasing the share of MediaTek's next-generation AP, the Dimensity chipset, in Galaxy budget smartphone lines and tablets.