Trident, Samsung set deal

Electronic News, May 6, 1996

Mountain View, Calif.--Trident Microsystems will license its mixed-signal, multimedia RAMDAC and clock technology to Samsung Electronics as part of a new, three-year manufacturing partnership in exchange for a guarantee of foundry space to aid Trident in its ongoing thrust into the OEM graphics market.

Samsung will include Trident's designs in its ASIC library, incorporating them, for example, with digital signal processor (DSP), CPU and mixed-signal cores, which Samsung will then be free to license according to its own OEM agreements.

According to Amir Mashkoori, Trident's VP of operations, Samsung will commit 3,000 wafers per month to Trident at its wafer fab in Kiheung, South Korea, providing 0.6-/0.5-micron process technology. It is expected Samsung will ramp up the first of a number of Trident products later this quarter, a 32-bit, 2-D graphics accelerator for the desktop, Electronic News has learned.

For Trident, the move enables the company to branch out from its exclusively Taiwanese foundry relationships with United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Winbond Microelectronics, further diversifying its manufacturing base. The addition of Samsung as a foundry partner also will advance Trident's ongoing strategy of building its reputation as a global OEM graphics supplier and add to its strengths in the Asia/Pacific market as an add-on card vendor.

Specifically, the expanded geography of Trident's wafer sources should afford it broader appeal to OEMs by protecting it from the vagaries of a localized market, while encouraging its foundry partners to engage in competitive pricing.

"It's not so much a product issue," said Mr. Mashkoori of the Samsung agreement. "If you look at Trident and what we're trying to do, what Samsung allows us to do is balance our manufacturing capacity. If we have multiple sources of supply, it will make for a better cost structure over time."

While it initially will come on line as a second source of silicon, Trident did not rule out the possibility that a planned shift by Samsung to 0.35-micron process and other factors could elevate that status. In the meantime, Trident said it is in the first year of a three-year, $60 million joint venture with UMC which is expected to yield products manufactured on 0.25-micron process technology. Trident also has paid TSMC for capacity rights through 1999.

For its part, Samsung stands to gain from Trident's strengths in 2-D and 3-D graphics and video acceleration by folding Trident's RAMDAC and clock into its growing ASIC library, although special consideration will have to be given when optimizing the analog circuitry for new graphics designs.

"The main intent of the agreement from Samsung's side is to have a long-term agreement for our ASIC services which allows us to penetrate the multimedia graphics segment very heavily," said Ajay Lalwani, senior manager of Samsung's ASIC group. "We will offer these cells as part of our ASIC library to ASIC customers. This allows us to complete another piece of the puzzle."