The largest South Korean business conglomerate, which in the Korean language is known as a "chaebol," pronounced "
chay-bil." Founded as a trading company in 1938 by Lee Byung-chul, the Samsung Group, now comprising more than 75 companies, diversified into textiles, insurance, food processing and other businesses. One of the largest tech companies in the world, Samsung Electronics makes chips, consumer electronics and smartphones. In the U.S., Samsung is known for its TVs and line of Galaxy smartphones (see
Galaxy S). Samsung has also manufactured chips for Apple's iPhone and NVIDIA.
Samsung Chips in the U.S.
In 1997, Samsung began making memory chips in its semiconductor fab in Austin, Texas. A second fab opened in 2007 and flash memory was added to the product line. In 2011, system-on-chip (SoC) production began for mobile devices. See
SoC and
flash memory.
In 2021, Samsung broke ground for a new semiconductor plant in Taylor, Texas, about 30 miles from Austin. The 50-billion dollar foundry is one of the most complex manufacturing projects in U.S. history. Initial plans called for producing 2 nm chips in 2024; however, a floating foundation had to be built on top of a massive underground structure all the way down to bedrock for stability. Due to humidity and industrial emissions, a massive air filtration system also had to be built. In late 2026 or 2027, the fab is expected to make chips for Tesla (see
Tesla AI chips). See
foundry and
chip feature size.