As the world\u2019s largest provider of data storage products, Samsung plays a pivotal role in allowing data storage and high-performance compute for AI\/ML applications. The company is the leading manufacturer of DRAM memory chips, with 39% market share, used in data centers across the globe and is at the leading edge of innovations in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI\/ML applications. With the company playing a crucial role in the semiconductor undergirding of the data analytics revolution, the firm itself is utilizing data analytics to enhance its business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two divisions have seen data analytics impact their operations in recent years: the electronics division and device solutions division which houses their semiconductor segment. While the semiconductor arm supplies chips to data centers, in 2021, Samsung launched a big data center of its own to help its electronics division better analyze and forecast sales of its products. Samsung intends to utilize the data analysis from the center to help guide both its strategy and product development. A Samsung official describes the center\u2019s responsibility as \u201cdevising strategies on product development and sales based on big data.\u201d Samsung\u2019s recent BESPOKE refrigerator and its Sero auto-rotating flat screen TV are both examples of products birthed from its big data analysis. Other areas in Samsung\u2019s electronics segment that are utilizing big data are its Bixby virtual assistant product and SmartThings home automation software platform. The big data center will serve as a central hub to consolidate data center expertise. This is a strategic approach different to an embedded approach that other companies have taken, wherein individual data scientists are housed in different departments throughout an organization. The investment in the big data center serves as a central node of the company\u2019s capitalization of data as an asset generating value to the company\u2019s business units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Samsung\u2019s semiconductor business is vertically integrated, spanning design and fabrication. On the fabrication end of the semiconductor ecosystem, Samsung\u2019s top competitor is TSMC, which recently began pre-production of the latest semiconductor die shrink \u2013 2 nm mode process manufacturing. Samsung has not yet started pre-production and is projected to be behind TSMC in commercializing this latest generation of the fabrication process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To better compete with TSMC, in August of 2023, Samsung announced that it would use generative AI and big data analytics to improve its chip production efficiency. The goal is to use generative AI analysis of their manufacturing processes to yield insights to improve wafer yields and decrease defect rates. Here again, Samsung has taken an interesting approach on how to operationalize this strategy. The company is working with Naver Corp. to develop its generative AI capabilities and eliminate reliance on developers such as ChatGPT. While the use of this generative AI, data analytics nexus will start in the Device Solutions division to improve semiconductor yield and defects, the company plans to expand this to approach to other division especially to the company\u2019s cash-cow, smartphone manufacturing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The use of AI in semiconductor manufacturing will rapidly increase in the next decade as engineers hit a wall on human capabilities to identify defects and improve equipment efficiency and use. An interesting thought is the regenerative interdependency that this dilemma presents: improvements in AI software system require improvements in the semiconductor hardware layer used in high-performance computing data centers, both in performance and efficiency; now, improvements in the semiconductor hardware layer will require improvements in the AI abilities to improve the semiconductor layer itself. Is this a non-circular interdependency? Will this positive feedback loop have an asymptote? These are crucial considerations, not just for Samsung executives, but for the semiconductor industry as whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Samsung use of data analytics in electronics product development and semiconductor manufacturing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19388,"featured_media":17802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[],"class_list":["post-17800","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/assignment\/competing-with-data-4\/","yoast_head":"\n