Samsung PC head to shake up AST range

The eventual merger between Samsung and AST moved closer last week as the Korean giant announced it had moved its head of PC development to revamp AST's product line.

NB Park has become head of PC development at AST, where he will head a team of 35 Korean engineers briefed with reshaping AST's range, according to US sources.

At Comdex Fall, the two companies exhibited at large stands right next to each other.

Although Samsung owns 46 per cent of AST's shares, it has options for 61 per cent and has replaced most of the former AST executives in the company boardroom. It has already invested more than $600 million in the company.

For the past few months, persistent rumours have circulated in the industry that senior Samsung staff have replaced former AST executives in the UK and at AST's Limerick plant. But both companies have declined to comment.

Texas Instruments (TI) and Samsung have ended a lawsuit over semiconductor patents and have struck a deal which will generate about $1 billion in royalties for TI over the next 10 years. A complex cross-licensing deal will allow each company to make use of the other's technologies.

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