According to Korean media reports, Samsung Group President Lee Jae-kyo is visiting the United States. Korean industry speculated that this may be to facilitate Samsung to invest in Intel's packaging business.

According to Korean media Business Post, Samsung Electronics is considering investing in Intel's relatively superior packaging field in the later process, and leveraging Intel's packaging line in the United States. In addition, it was also reported that Samsung is evaluating the possibility of adopting Intel's glass substrate.

The industry believes that Samsung may cooperate with Intel to promote investment in packaging production lines. The cooperation between the two parties will help shorten the distance from Taiwan Power, because the latter has invested large funds to advanced packaging due to AI needs.

Industry insiders said, "As far as I know, Samsung is carefully considering establishing strategic partnerships with Intel, and is likely to be concentrated in the packaging field. Intel has advantages in packaging and is also leading the way in glass substrate technology."

The foundry of the wafer is divided into two stages. The first stage is to engrave the circuit on the wafer to make the wafer, and the second stage is to package and test the finished wafer. Although Samsung is ahead of Intel in the previous process, Intel in the later process is more advantageous.

Another source revealed that the core of Samsung Electronics' cooperation with Intel will be packaging. Intel's round-country foundry is introducing Hybrid Bonding packaging technology in 18A process production. Although the technology of the previous process was behind, the packaging is indeed obvious.

Hybrid Bonding does not need to create "bumps" between the wafers, but rather packages the wafers directly through copper. Although not currently used in high-frequency wide memory (HBM), Intel and Telco have introduced this technology in packages such as CPU and image sensors (CIS).

Market research organization Counterpoint Research survey showed that based on the first quarter of 2025, Taiwan Power ranked first with 35.3%, Intel ranked second with 6.5%, and Samsung ranked fourth with 5.9%, behind Taiwan's packaging manufacturer Sun and Moonlight (ASE).

At the same time, the outside world also predicts that the cooperation between Samsung and Intel may extend to the next generation of semiconductor "glass substrate".

Compared with traditional plastic substrates, the glass substrate has a smoother surface, lower thermal expansion, higher thermal stability, thinner thickness, and better electrical performance. Therefore, it is regarded as a key material for high-performance AI semiconductors.

Industry insiders believe that Intel has recently converted the Glass Core Substrate technology into a licensed model to establish a new collection structure. Since Intel has invested more than 10 years to develop glass substrates, its cooperation with Samsung Electronics will be able to be more smoothly promoted due to its technological opening.

In addition, Samsung Electric recently worked as the senior high-level Jiang Dou'an (강두안 audio translation) in Intel for a long time, and served as vice president of Samsung's technology marketing and application engineering department.

Reports that the cooperation between the two parties may be in equity investment, or the establishment of a joint venture that jointly invests, shares technology and human resources for specific businesses.

If Intel joins Samsung, Intel can benefit from Samsung's professional capabilities in advanced processing, and Samsung can benefit from Intel's advantages in advanced packaging.

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