Samsung reportedly considering merging its semiconductor chip divisions

Samsung's chip division has been the major source of the company's revenue and profit over the past few decades. However, lately, its chip businesses have been struggling. System LSI, a sub-division of Samsung's chip business, has been struggling the most. Hence, the company is reportedly considering merging it with other divisions.

System LSI designs Exynos chips, ISOCELL camera sensors, and other types of sensors for several applications.

According to a report from SEDaily, the senior management at Samsung Electronics recently held a meeting to decide the fate of System LSI. After reviewing the performance of all the business divisions under Samsung Electronics, the high-level management team reportedly brought up three options:

After the meeting, a final decision was not made, but the report claims that the option of merging System LSI into Samsung Foundry is gaining weight. There might be additional meetings in the near future before a decision is made by Vice Chairman Chung Hyun-ho (vice chairman of Business Support TF) and Jeon Young-hyun (vice chairman of Samsung DS) after a final discussion with Jay Y. Lee (chairman of Samsung Electronics).

System LSI was already a part of Samsung Foundry until 2017 when the former was separated to reduce complications from Samsung Foundry's clients (like Qualcomm, Nvidia, and others). However, the option of merging them back together is gaining ground as there is internal opinion that the merger of System LSI into Samsung Foundry is important to succeed the short-term goal of succeeding in the sub-2nm chip design and fabrication.

Don't worry if you don't know Samsung DS, Samsung Foundry, Samsung MX, or System LSI is. We will give you a short idea about these divisions. All these business divisions come under the larger umbrella of Samsung Electronics.

If Samsung moves ahead with the merger of System LSI into Samsung Foundry, it could increase the risk of fabless chip clients like Qualcomm and Nvidia to move further away from Samsung to get their chips made, as they might think their chip designs could be stolen by System LSI.