Samsung to unveil vision for chips resembling human senses at Tech Day

Chipmakers around the world have long aspired to develop semiconductors that can replicate human senses such as smell, hearing, vision, taste and touch.

Some semiconductors, called system-on-chips, already mimic human behaviors. High-resolution image sensors, for example, perform the role of the eye.

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s top memory chipmaker, is one of those companies that delve into system-on-chips to create more human-like robots or "semicon humanoids."

The South Korean tech giant’s chipmaking unit, Samsung Semiconductor Inc., is hosting Samsung System LSI Tech Day 2023 in San Jose, California on Oct. 5.

Unlike last year’s Tech Day forum, which also covered new memory chip technologies, this year’s event will focus on logic and system chips, according to Samsung.

At this year’s forum, Samsung will showcase a variety of devices or solutions that can maximize the power of artificial intelligence, 5G communications and machine vision to ignite the future of technology, it said.

John Yong-in Park, president and head of System LSI Business at Samsung Electronics, will give a keynote speech under the title “Semicon humanoid is around the corner.”

Other Samsung speakers include Benny Katibian, senior vice president and head of Samsung’s R&D center in Austin.

Katibian, a former Qualcomm executive who joined Samsung early this year, will speak about graphics processing unit (GPU) and neural processing unit (NPU) technology trends.

Choo Hyuck, executive vice president and head of Samsung’s new business task force, will give a speech on “Medical humanoid: Samsung bio-processor alliance.”

GENERATIVE AI

Lim Sukwhan, executive vice president of Samsung’s LSI Business, will participate in a panel discussion with a focus on generative AI and large language models.

The guest speaker will be Martin Ashton, vice president of AMD Radeon Technologies Group (RTG). He will talk about collaboration on graphic processing technology.

Samsung’s LSI Business division offers more than 900 products, including image sensors, system-on-chips (SoCs), modems, display driver ICs (DDICs) and power management ICs (PMICs).

“In an age that requires machines to learn and think as people do, the importance of logic chips, which play the roles of the brain, heart, nervous system and eyes, is growing to unprecedented levels,” Park, the System LIS Business chief, said at last year’s Tech Day.

“Samsung will converge and combine its technology embedded in various products like SoCs and DDIs to lead the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

XCLIPSE & EXYNOS

In partnership with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), Samsung is jointly developing a next-generation mobile GPU, called Xclipse, for use in Samsung’s smartphones.

In April, Samsung also inked a strategic partnership with AMD to develop next-generation automotive chips using the US chip designer’s GPU.

Industry watchers said the tech industry will be keen to know at this year’s Tech Day if Samsung will reveal its intention to use Samsung’s application processor chip Exynos, developed by its LSI Business, in its Galaxy S24 smartphone series to be launched in early 2024.

For its flagship Galaxy S23 series smartphones unveiled in February, Samsung used Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile AP because of some technical glitches with the Exynos chip.

Samsung’s memory chip division will hold a separate tech day in the US in October or November.

Write to Ik-Hwan Kim at lovepen@hankyung.com

In-Soo Nam edited this article.