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The BIG Boom! (from 17
to expand its Line 1, where it will focus on
64-layer vertical NAND chips, and began
volume production later that year. Line 2
at Pyeongtaek began mass production of
advanced DRAM ICs last year.
New Xi’an facility
Samsung is also working to complete its
second Xi’an, China memory facility, which
will include assembly and test, as well as a
wafer fab. Samsung located its initial Chi-
nese memory fab in Xi’an in 2012 and be-
gan production there in 2014.
In 2019, construction was completed on a
new line using extreme UV single nanome-
ter process technology at the company’s
Hwaseong, Korea site. This line began de-
livering chips in 2020.
Samsung’s Hwaseong, Korea facility, site of its EUV line. Last November, Samsung announced that
(Samsung)
5nm EUV line
In May 2020, Samsung announced it
would boost its foundry capacity — prob-
ably in light of the chip shortage — at its
Pyeongtaek location.
Samsung placed its focus on EUV-based
5nm and below chips. It should be in full
operation now. The company is tagging its
memory for such applications as 5G, high-
performance computing and artificial intel-
ligence.
JANUARY 2022
While two years ago, pre-COVID 19, many
chip makers were content with their exist-
ing production capacity, that’s all changed.
Now giants like Samsung are jumping in to
capacity expansion with seemingly unlim-
ited funds.
$206 million investment planned
Just when you thought there was no more
money to be spent by South Korean chip
makers, Samsung announced in August
2021 that it planned to spend $206 billion
by 2023 for post-pandemic growth.
This will not all be semiconductor-related
spending, but a good portion of it will.
An undisclosed amount will go toward the
expansion of Samsung’s bio-pharmaceu-
ticals, robotics and other areas, the com-
pany said.
Safety plate
According to Reuters, this spend is 30%
larger than the company’s earlier three-
year plan floated in 2018. As far as semi-
conductors go, “The chip industry is the
safety plate of the Korean economy,” Sam-
sung said in a statement.
“Our aggressive investment is a survival
strategy in a sense that once we lose our
competitiveness, it is almost impossible to
make a comeback.”
Taylor, Texas had won over the competi-
tion — Arizona and New York state — for
the site of a new Samsung wafer fab.
This fab will represent a $17 billion invest-
ment for Samsung, where the company
aims to boost their sales in the advanced
logic semiconductor market.
The Taylor site will be only 36 miles by
car from Samsung’s Austin, Texas facility
— probably a key factor in the Lone Star
State’s selection.
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