Smartphones, smart TVs, smart refrigerators, smart washing machines. Samsung Electronics wants to put a chip in everything it makes—and in things made by other companies, too.
The world’s largest smartphone maker today debuted a new series of all-in-one chip modules, called Artik, that help developers build internet-connected products, including wearables, faster. “Our point of view is, if it’s not connected, it’s not really relevant to your lifestyle,” said Yoon Lee, Samsung’s vice president of consumer electronics, at the Internet of Things World conference in San Francisco.
Packing in a processor, flash memory, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and encryption, the chip modules come in three sizes and range in price from less than $10 to about $100 (depending on the order volume):
The chips, which will be used in Samsung’s own connected products, will support multiple operating systems and cloud platforms. In January, Samsung CEO Boo-Keun Yoo declared that most of the products the company makes in five years—and all of them by 2020—will be connected to the internet.
Samsung’s chip business is helping offset its slowing smartphone sales. In the first quarter, overall profits for the company fell 40% in the first quarter, dragged down by its mobile division. All the while, its semiconductor business saw a 50% rise in earnings year over year. According to Gartner, Samsung is the second-largest semiconductor supplier, with 10.4% market share behind Intel $INTC’s 15%. In 2014, Samsung’s semiconductor revenue increased 15% to $35.3 million worldwide. Samsung also reportedly won a contract in April to manufacture the A9 processor chip for Apple $AAPL’s upcoming iPhones, and earlier this month, the company broke ground on a new, $14.3 billion chip plant in Korea.
