South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. vowed new leadership in foundry, automotive organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display and large-storage memory to power datacenters on top of its dominance in computing memory and smartphones.

The world’s leading chipmaker in an IR forum in Singapore on Monday drew investors’ attention to its new business focuses.

It has been investing heavily in the foundry business to achieve its goal to generate more than $10 billion from the contract-based chipmaking, twice more than last year’s $4.6 billion. Foundry is a business that manufactures and packages chips upon client orders. Although unrivalled in commercial chips, Samsung is ranked fourth in customized chipmaking.

“The global foundry market is projected to grow 5 percent from last year to reach $63 billion this year,” the company said. If it makes $10 billion in sales, it would be second after pure-play industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

The company also said that it would focus on auto OLED panels business as it expects the market to grow rapidly from 100,000 sheets this year to 1 million by 2020 and 3 million by 2022 as applications for flexible displays grow amid the spread of embedded computing in devices and wearables. Its affiliate Samsung Display dominates in small and mid-sized OLED field.

Upon unveiling its new products including a steering wheel equipped with an OLED panel, curved center information display (CID) and transparent head-up display (HUD), it said it is confident to take the lead in the auto display market with its technological prowess in producing thinner and lighter panels with outstanding picture quality and power efficiency. German luxury carmaker Audi installed Samsung Display’s OLED panels in its fourth-generation A8 models.

In addition, the company said its wafer output through extreme ultra violet (EUV) chip making process would increase from 1,100 wafers this year to 1,300 by 2019 and 1,500 by 2020 with its own technology to minimize recess time. EUV refers to 7-nano or lower micro processing technology. In nanometer technology, smaller number represents generation in greater yields and more powerful chips.

Samsung Electronics is building a new foundry at a cost of 6 trillion won capable of mass-producing 7-nanometer or lower chips from the second half.

Shares of Samsung Electronics closed Tuesday up 0.39 percent at 51,300 won.

By Lee Jae-chul and Choi Mira

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]