After meeting with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger on May 30, Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong recently visited Europe non-stop to start a new round of cooperation and negotiation.

According to South Korean media reports, Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong left for Europe yesterday (7th) and will visit the Netherlands, Germany and France successively for a period of 12 days to June 18th, but the purpose of his visit and the specific itinerary Issues were not disclosed.

However, South Korean media have interpreted Lee Jae-yong's first overseas trip after half a year.

Seoul News in South Korea believes that Lee Jae-yong will negotiate an investment and acquisition case during his trip to Europe. Yonhap News Agency reported that Li Zaiyong’s visit may be to understand the resident business and meet with strategic partners such as European chip equipment manufacturers to discuss strengthening cooperation.

Buying a car chip giant?

According to Seoul News, South Korea, because he is optimistic about the automotive semiconductor market, Lee Jae-yong's visit to Europe this time will negotiate the acquisition of NXP, the automotive chip semiconductor giant NXP, one of TSMC's major customers.

According to the data, NXP was formerly the semiconductor division of Philips of the Netherlands, which was spun off from Philips in 2006 and acquired Freescale in 2015. At present, it has become the largest automotive chip manufacturer in Europe, and its products are widely used in secure connected cars, mobile devices, industrial Internet of Things, smart cities, smart homes, communication infrastructure and other fields.

It is reported that as early as 2021, South Korean media reported that Samsung was considering the acquisition of German chip maker Infineon and Dutch semiconductor company NXP, but due to the epidemic and other reasons, Samsung’s merger plan has not yet made substantial progress.

In addition to targeting investment or acquisition of NXP, according to the Korea Herald, Li Zaiyong will also meet with representatives from British chip design companies Arm, Siemens, and German automotive chip maker Infineon.

Snap up EUV lithography machine?

Yonhap News Agency believes that Li Zaiyong is not only likely to visit ASML, a world-class semiconductor equipment manufacturer headquartered in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, to discuss the supply of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines. The outside world has also interpreted that Samsung’s move may be to snap up ASML’s EUV equipment and the cooperation of the next-generation EUV lithography machine in order to compete with TSMC in wafer foundry.

As we all know, currently, in order to compete with TSMC in the foundry market, Samsung has begun to actively purchase EUV equipment. It is reported that among the 48 EUV equipment that ASML will ship in 2021, Samsung and TSMC have purchased 15 and 20 respectively.

At the Q1 earnings meeting this year, ASML said it would maintain its production capacity forecast of 55 EUV lithography machines. According to supply chain news, Samsung will order 18 EUV lithography machines this year, while TSMC will order at least 22.

In addition, some people in the industry believe that the equipment used by Samsung and TSMC to mass-produce the 3-nanometer process this year is ASML's new generation of EUV lithography equipment.

It is worth mentioning that it is reported that TSMC has previously purchased a new generation of high numerical aperture (High-NA) EUV lithography machine EXE: 5000 from ASML. Now, Samsung's visit to Europe to negotiate with ASML may set off a new round of EUV lithography machine competition.