Last updated: March 13th, 2025 at 12:54 UTC+01:00
It's no secret that Samsung's foundry has had a tough couple of years. Much has been written about its [yield issues on the 3nm process](https://www.sammobile.com/news/heres-how-shockingly-bad-samsungs-3nm-yields-currently-are/), which made TSMC run away with the order book, as Samsung lost out on billions in chip manufacturing contracts.
While the company holds out on hope that things would be better on the 2nm process, there may be more pain on the horizon. TSMC is reportedly considering a joint venture with leading chip companies in the US that would most certainly reduce Samsung's already minor market share.
Samsung's worst nightmare, starring major chip companies
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TSMC has [reportedly](https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10440969) proposed a joint venture with NVIDIA, AMD, and Broadcom to manage Intel's semiconductor facilities. The Taiwan-based chipmaker is taking the lead on this, committing to no more than a 50% stake in the venture. Qualcomm was reportedly involved in the discussions as well but has since taken a step back.
If such a deal is struck, it would end up being disastrous for Samsung, as these are some of the biggest chip companies in the industry. They spend billions of dollars every year to get their chips made from foundries.
The way TSMC reportedly views this deal is that it wants these investors to also become customers of Intel's foundries, thus becoming a worst case scenario for Samsung. If these players team up, they'd effectively be distributing the orders among themselves.
TSMC remains the world's leading contract chip manufacturer with a 67.1% market share in Q4 2024. Samsung's share fell to 8.1% during the same period. Even saying that Samsung is a distinct second to TSMC in the contract chip manufacturing market would be an understatement.
Geopolitics is also not on Samsung's side. The proposal for this joint venture is reportedly based on President Donald Trump's wishes as he wants TSMC to enable Intel to become the flagbearer for American chip manufacturing.
With TSMC already producing almost 90% of the world's advanced chips and Samsung finding it difficult to close the gap, this joint venture would only cause more pain to the Korean giant.