Samsung Electronics is deepening its relationship with Dutch chip startup Euclyd after the company reportedly reached the test-chip stage at Samsung Foundry, adding a manufacturing dimension to Samsung's recent investment in the two-year-old company.
Euclyd has completed a multi-project wafer (MPW) run for its data center processor at Samsung Foundry, according to Korean business broadcaster MTN. The startup had already been developing the chip using Samsung's foundry process before Samsung joined its latest funding round, while the scope of post-MPW development and any move toward mass production remain under discussion.
The development puts Samsung's participation in Euclyd's more than EUR200 million (approx. US$230 million) Series A in a broader context. Samsung co-led the financing alongside Somerset Capital Partners, the EQT-managed Scaleup Europe Fund, and Innovation Industries. Samsung's individual investment was not disclosed.
From design agreement to test silicon
Euclyd's relationship with Samsung Foundry began before the funding round through a development agreement with ADTechnology, a Samsung Foundry Design Solution Partner.
Under the agreement, ADTechnology took responsibility for backend design and manufacturing coordination for CRAFTWERK, Euclyd's data center processor, using Samsung Foundry's FinFET process technology. Euclyd's CEO has identified 8nm as the prototype process node.
The completed MPW marks a move from chip implementation to physical test silicon. MPW programs place multiple designs on the same wafer, allowing chip developers to fabricate early silicon at lower cost before committing to larger production runs.
The milestone does not mean CRAFTWERK has entered product qualification or volume production. Follow-on development and mass production have yet to be finalized.
What has changed is that Samsung's investment now builds on an existing foundry relationship that has already progressed beyond design work to fabricated silicon.
Euclyd takes aim at memory bottlenecks
Euclyd is developing an inference platform that combines programmable application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) compute, processor-memory co-design, and data center systems, targeting the power and performance costs associated with moving data between processors and memory.
Its CRAFTWERK architecture uses multiple custom VLIW/SIMD processors and is designed to integrate 1TB of custom Ultra-Bandwidth Memory, or UBM.
The product roadmap targets up to 8PFLOPS of FP16 compute and 32PFLOPS at FP4, together with memory bandwidth of up to 8,000TB/s. Those figures are design targets rather than measured results from the MPW silicon.
Euclyd's approach is to optimize compute and memory architecture together to reduce the cost and power associated with data movement, rather than treating memory as a separate subsystem.
The company plans to generate revenue through two channels: selling physical hardware and rack-level systems to enterprises running self-hosted inference, and licensing its intellectual property to companies developing their own chips.
Euclyd targets initial deployment of physical chip systems in 2028 and aims to serve thousands of enterprise customers by 2030. Its systems, however, have not yet been proven in large-scale commercial deployments.
Samsung gains an early position across the stack
For Samsung, the potential opportunity extends beyond foundry manufacturing if Euclyd eventually reaches commercial scale.
Samsung is already involved through its foundry ecosystem, while Euclyd's architecture places heavy emphasis on custom memory. Successful commercialization could potentially create additional opportunities for Samsung's memory and advanced-packaging businesses.
None of those downstream opportunities has been secured. There is no disclosed mass-production order, memory supply agreement, or advanced-packaging contract.
The investment could nevertheless give Samsung an early strategic position as Euclyd moves through silicon development and toward future sourcing decisions. It also gives Euclyd access to a semiconductor supplier with capabilities spanning foundry manufacturing, memory, and advanced packaging.
Samsung's participation comes as Euclyd prepares to expand beyond chip development. The Series A proceeds will be used to grow its engineering organization, accelerate its silicon and systems roadmap, and prepare for commercial deployment across enterprise, sovereign, and hyperscale AI markets.
Former ASML president and CEO Peter Wennink has joined Euclyd as chairman of the board as the startup works toward commercialization.
The more significant shift for Samsung is therefore not simply its move from non-investor to investor. Its relationship with Euclyd has progressed from foundry-linked development to physical test silicon and now equity participation.
Article edited by Ysi Chen
