Despite market sentiment suggesting the semiconductor industry is entering a downcycle, there is active activity seeking future growth opportunities. Samsung Electronics is focusing its efforts on strengthening its momentum in the system semiconductor sector, a key next-generation market.

Samsung Electronics held 'Samsung Tech Day 2022' in Silicon Valley, USA on the 6th and unveiled its next-generation semiconductor solutions and roadmap.

At this event, held offline for the first time in three years, Samsung Electronics revealed its future direction of finding business momentum in ‘integrated solution fabless.’

Samsung Electronics is known to have a portfolio of approximately 900 system semiconductors, including SoC (System on Chip), image sensors, modems, DDI (Display Driver IC), power semiconductors (PMIC, Power Management IC), and security solutions. The company announced that it plans to provide an integrated solution that meets market needs by utilizing this as a 'platform solution' that combines product technologies.

■Developing five-sense sensors in the 3-second era

Samsung Electronics predicted that the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution will require hyper-intelligence, hyper-connectivity, and hyper-data. To achieve this, it is expected that the development of cutting-edge system semiconductors that provide performance approaching human function will be necessary.

Samsung Electronics stated that it will focus on strengthening the competitiveness of SoCs by improving the performance of key IPs such as NPU (Neural Processing Unit) and modems while collaborating with global partners and developing industry-leading CPUs and GPUs.

Additionally, we plan to develop an ultra-high-resolution image sensor that is close to the human eye, and a sensor that can detect and implement the five senses of human taste, smell, and sight.
Next-generation system semiconductor products unveiled

Samsung Electronics showcased its cutting-edge system semiconductor products at its booth at this event.

△New products such as the next-generation vehicle SoC 'Exynos Auto V920', △5G modem 'Exynos Modem 5300', △DDI for QD (Quantum Dot) OLED, △premium mobile AP 'Exynos 2200', △200 million pixel image sensor 'ISOCELL HP3' with the industry's smallest pixel size, △fingerprint authentication IC products for 'biometric authentication cards' were also unveiled.

The Exynos 2200 is equipped with the latest mobile technology, next-generation GPU, and NPU along with the cutting-edge 4nm EUV process.It is expected that the product will be applied to various applications such as games, image processing, and AI.

The ISOCELL HP3, with its 0.56㎛ pixel size, reduces pixel size by 12% compared to existing products, enabling the size of camera modules to be installed in mobile devices to be reduced by up to 20%.

Samsung Electronics explained that the fingerprint authentication IC is a product that integrates the hardware security chip (SE, Secure Element), fingerprint sensor, and security processor, which were each installed on the card, into a single IC chip for the first time in the industry.

Park Yong-in, President and Head of System LSI Business Division, said, “In the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, where objects must learn and make decisions like people, the importance of system semiconductors, which play the role of the human brain, heart, neural network, and vision, will grow greater than ever.” He added, “Samsung Electronics will organically integrate the key technologies of its system semiconductor portfolio to become an ‘integrated solution fabless’ company that leads the 4th Industrial Revolution.”

Meanwhile, this year's 'Samsung Tech Day' was held with approximately 800 people in attendance, including global IT companies, analysts, media, and Samsung Electronics Memory Business Division President Lee Jung-bae, System LSI Business Division President Park Yong-in, and Americas General Manager Jung Jae-heon.