Samsung’s chipmaking division posts first monthly profit in three years

Samsung Electronics’ chipmaking division, Samsung Foundry, has been going through a rough patch over the past few years. It lost major customers, including Nvidia and Qualcomm, to TSMC. However, after securing a $16.5 billion chip manufacturing contract from Tesla earlier this year, the company’s fortunes appear to be improving. It has now reportedly posted its first monthly profit in three years.

According to a report from Bloter, Samsung Foundry turned profitable on a monthly basis in June 2026, marking its first profitable month in the past three years. The turnaround was reportedly driven by significantly higher utilization of its 4nm process, thanks to increased production of HBM base dies and improved manufacturing yields.

Yield refers to the percentage of chips that successfully pass quality control. If this trend continues, Samsung Foundry could also post a quarterly profit in the third quarter (Q3) of 2026.

An HBM base die is the logic chip located beneath the stacked DRAM layers in an HBM package. It manages communication between the HBM memory and the GPU. Samsung Foundry manufactures these base dies for Samsung’s memory division, which produces DRAM and HBM chips used in AI accelerators. Samsung’s HBM chips are supplied to companies such as AMD, Google, and Nvidia for use in AI hardware.

Samsung Foundry has struggled in recent years due to a combination of low yields on advanced process nodes, customers shifting to TSMC, and low fab utilization.

Although Samsung doesn’t disclose separate financial results for its foundry business, analysts estimate that the combined operating loss of the Foundry and System LSI divisions was KRW 2.5 trillion in 2023, KRW 5.3 trillion in 2024, and KRW 6 trillion in 2025.

It was recently reported that Samsung Foundry could secure chip manufacturing contracts from AI companies such as Anthropic and Meta. If those deals materialize, the South Korean firm’s profitability could improve further.

Still, the company faces significant challenges, as Intel Foundry has emerged as an unexpected competitor. Apple is also reportedly considering Intel Foundry for the production of some of its future chips.