Samsung aims to develop chip materials faster with AI
The South Korean group is targeting a reduction from five years to two.
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Samsung wants to use artificial intelligence to develop new materials for semiconductors more quickly. The company says it may be able to reduce development time from five years to two, but has not yet presented that target as an achieved result.
Samsung announced the plan on Monday during a forum organised by the Korea Industry Association Forum. An executive at the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology said there that AI should help researchers select and test new combinations of materials.
Samsung describes an approach to semiconductors in which multiple thin layers are applied on top of one another. According to Samsung, a structure of seven layers produces more than 100 million possible combinations. The company says researchers can carry out about 50 experiments a month, making it impractical to test all the options.
The proposed system should make better use of existing research data, including when experiments fail to produce a usable material. AI can then rank potential candidates before laboratories test them. Samsung says this would allow it to reduce the number of experiments required by more than 80 per cent.
The figures announced are company targets, not independently measured performance. The reduction from five years to two is a Samsung objective; whether it is achievable remains to be seen. It is also unclear which production lines or materials will be tackled first.
The development of chip materials is important to the semiconductor industry because new production techniques often depend on coatings, insulators and other thin films. Faster testing could speed up the introduction of new chips, but only if the AI models make reliable predictions and laboratory tests confirm those results.
Samsung expects to be able to use the same approach for other materials later, including battery materials. That too is the company's expectation. The announcement therefore says mainly something about Samsung's research strategy, rather than a product that is immediately available or a proven breakthrough.
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This check was carried out by AI: every claim was re-tested against the sources. Even an approved article can contain errors — stay critical.
All concrete figures are presented as Samsung targets, not as proven results. No independent second source was found to confirm the technical claims.
- confirmed Samsung wants to reduce the development time for new chip materials from five years to two. — Yonhap attributes this to a Samsung executive. source
- confirmed Samsung refers to more than 100 million combinations in a seven-layer structure. — This appears in Yonhap's account of the presentation. source
- confirmed Samsung wants to reduce the number of experiments by more than 80 per cent. — This was reported as a Samsung target. source
Editor's note
The reporting is based on Samsung's own targets as reported by Yonhap. Independent validation of the stated time saving is lacking.Sources
- Samsung aims to cut chip material development time using AI — Yonhap News Agency
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