IBM expands partnership with Samsung to include 7nm chip manufacturing

The agreement combines Samsung's semiconductor manufacturing with IBM's high-performance CPU designs. This combination is being designed to drive systems performance, including acceleration, memory and I/O bandwidth, encryption and compression speed, as well as system scaling. "At IBM, our first priority is our clients," says John Acocella, Vice President of Enterprise Systems and Technology Development for IBM Systems, in a press release. "IBM selected Samsung to build our next generation of microprocessors because they share our level of commitment to the performance, reliability, security, and innovation that will position our clients for continued success on the next generation of IBM hardware." This announcement also expands and extends the 15-year process technology R&D partnership between the two companies which, as part of IBM's Research Alliance. "We are excited to expand our decade-long strategic relationship with IBM with our 7nm EUV process technology," says Ryan Lee, Vice President of Foundry Marketing at Samsung Electronics. "This collaboration is an important milestone for Samsung's foundry business as it signifies confidence in Samsung's cutting-edge high performance EUV process technology."