Battered by the economic crisis in Asia and the need to lick its electronics unit into shape, South Korea’s Samsung Group is expected to announce on Monday an investment from Intel Corp in its Samsung Electronics unit and a plan to stabilize its ailing memory chip business. The economic crisis provides Intel with some rich pickings abroad and the ability to get out from under the watchful eye of the US Federal Trade Commission at home. Samsung was recently installed as DEC’s lead partner on the design, development and marketing of the Alpha RISC which Intel is to build for DEC as part of a wide ranging patent settlement between those companies. It would come as little surprise if Intel were to provide capacity for Samsung’s expanded Alpha campaign through the Hudson, Massachusetts facility it is buying from DEC for $700m. The talks follow news that Intel is seeking stronger links with other DEC partners including the UK’s Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. Under the DEC deal Intel also takes over development of the company’s StrongARM implementation of ARM’s embedded RISC design. Intel owns a 10% stake in the one operational production line at Samsung Semiconductor Inc’s Austin, Texas-based memory fab. Samsung Semiconductor – Samsung Electronics’ US subsidiary – has been seeking additional investment in its fab for some time now. It has delayed by at least a year plans to open a second production line at the fab due this year because of the collapse in DRAM pricing. Samsung, which has effectively taken over the marketing of Alpha RISC to third parties from DEC, says no decision has been made about yet about whether Samsung will develop a low-power version of the latest 21264 chip like the 21164PC DEC co-developed with former Alpha acolyte Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Samsung makes its Alpha chips in South Korea.
