To maintain its number-one position in the memory semiconductor segment and to cope up with the soaring demand, Samsung has decided to invest around $8.7 billion. The South Korean semiconductor giant will use this capital to build new production lines for DRAM chipsets. The semiconductor market is said to change every month rapidly, and the choice of products to be manufactured at a plant is decided after its completion.
Samsung will start manufacturing 18nm or more advanced DRAM chips from its new line in Hwaseong in the next couple of years. The company is currently assembling a task force for the said expansion. It plans to exclusively produce NAND flash chips at its Xian plant in China, Pyeongtaek, and partially in Hwaseong of South Korea. Processing chipsets would be fabricated at its plants in Austin (the US), Giheung (South Korea), and Hwaseong (South Korea).
A Samsung official was quoted saying, “Considering the construction period of about two years, the speed of company’s research and development (R&D) and the yield rate of process conversion, it is not clear whether products from the new line at Hwaseong plant will be 18nm DRAMs, which are mass produced currently, or more advanced products.”
