Samsung – whose glitzy new Santa Clara chipmaking headquarters is within clear view of major chipmaker Intel’s headquarters – has been making life hard for Intel by turning its top two floors into a giant digital billboard extolling the virtues of its memory chips and processors.
It’s a niggle Intel execs could do without. Samsung has been gaining ground on the No 1 chipmaker for several years, now controls the memory chip market and is gearing to produce server chips that will compete with Intel’s.
“We are proactively entering that space,” said Kelvin Low, Samsung’s senior director of foundry marketing. “The reasons are obvious.”
Low said Samsung has already signed contracts to make server chips, but wouldn’t name any customers.
Meanwhile Samsung has struck a deal to produce chips designed by Apple for the iPhone – Samsung’s biggest rival – and Qualcomm.
The whisper is it is working on other chips for the Internet of Things. You can bet their arrival will be trumpeted on Samsung’s giant Santa Clara billboard
