Two South Korean fabless chip design companies, Sapeon and Rebellions, have announced a merger plan with a focus on developing AI processing chips. Both companies have significant investors from large South Korean companies, with SK Telecom and SK Hynix backing Sapeon, and KT backing Rebellions.
The challenge for AI chip design companies in South Korea lies in competing with the global market dominated by NVIDIA, holding over 97% market share. The current products are not meeting the demand, leading to increased prices. This presents an opportunity for other chip design companies to step in and meet the demand through business consolidation to improve efficiency.
Details of the merger deal, including the share distribution, are still under review and due diligence process involving approximately 230 employees from both companies.
Sapeon, founded in 2016 as a spin-off from SK Telecom, focuses on NPU chips and full-stack software. Their latest product is the X330 NPU chip at 7 nanometers for automotive use. On the other hand, Rebellions produces the Rebel chip using Samsung’s 4-nanometer technology, incorporating Samsung’s HBM3E memory unit and Atom chip for data center operations supporting 7B parameter models.
TLDR: South Korean fabless chip design companies Sapeon and Rebellions announce merger plan to develop AI chips, facing challenges in competing with NVIDIA’s market dominance. Details of the merger are still being finalized through due diligence with a focus on improving efficiency in chip production.
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