Samsung Builds 14nm and 20nm Chip Manufacturing Plant

While Intel's engineers are receiving honors for inventing 3D Tri-gate transistors, Samsung is setting up a new semiconductor fabrication line in Hwaseong, South Korea.

Since the semiconductor industry is still in a bit of a bind, chip makers have to step up their technological advancement. UMC has already begun working on 28nm chips, and has set up a 14nm plant too. Now, Samsung is doing something similar. With an investment of 2.25 trillion Korean won, it hopes to build a new fabrication line by next year. According to exchange rates, that sum is the equivalent of $1.9 billion and 1.5 billion Euro. The plant will be located in Hwaseong, South Korea. It will produce chips based on the 20nm and 14 nm manufacturing process technologies. “With the construction of our new System LSI fabrication line, Samsung will be able to respond to the demand of the global IT industry and strengthen our ability to support our customers’ requirements even further,” said Stephen Woo, president of Samsung Electronics’ system LSI business.

Samsung new fabrication line will produce 300mm wafers. The chips will be mostly smart mobile solutions (tablets, phones, maybe even Mini PCs. The chip industry has been suffering because of years of weak DRAM demand and, more recently, a decrease in NAND Flash chip sales too. As such, the companies involved had to become more creative in their efforts to rekindle interest. Toshiba and SanDisk revealed 19nm SSDs, for example. There were, of course, companies who did worse than the rest. Elpida would be one of them. Even though it overtook Micron on the DRAM market, it is about to be bought by the latter, after essentially going bankrupt.

Samsung isn't exactly in such danger, but it had to make some changes to its plans regardless. Meanwhile, its many lawsuits continue.

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