Samsung Foundry to Triple Production Ability by 2026

Samsung stated on Thursday that its foundry division will triple generation potential by 2026 in a bid to fulfill at any time-expanding need for chips. To do so, Samsung Foundry will develop at the very least 1 new fab and will also expand capacities at existing types. The transfer will make Samsung Foundry substantially far more competitive towards both equally existing makers of semiconductors like TSMC as nicely as the newcomer, Intel Foundry Solutions.

“We plan to extend our capability about three periods by 2026 to satisfy customers’ desires as a great deal as achievable by growing capability in Pyeongtaek as perfectly as thinking of creating a new plant in the U.S.,” said Samsung govt Han Seung-hoon on the company’s earnings conference call, reports Nikkei.

We’re not confident what the “taking into consideration” refers to below, considering the fact that Samsung Foundry is now set to build a brand-new fab in the U.S. It will also increase its S5 EUV fab in close proximity to Hwaseong, South Korea. Meanwhile, the firm has in no way disclosed real capacities of its existing superior and major-edge fabs, so it truly is tricky to keep track of what the “3 times” promise essentially usually means for people plants.

Samsung is the world’s greatest chipmaker by capacity. As of December, 2020, it experienced mounted capability of all around 3.060 million 200-mm equivalent wafer starts for each thirty day period, in accordance to IC Insights. Nevertheless most of its semiconductor creation potential is committed to DRAM and NAND memory. Even though Samsung Foundry is the world’s No. 2 agreement maker of chips by profits (in accordance to TrendForce), it is the world’s No. 4 foundry by put in potential (in accordance to Counterpoint Analysis) mostly for the reason that the corporation is focused primarily on major-edge and highly developed fabrication systems. 

Desire for chips produced applying innovative and foremost-edge fabrication processes is expanding as different rising technologies demand really capable processors. Counterpoint Analysis indicated previously this 12 months that at minimum seven businesses would use a 5 nm-class engineering in 2021, but this class of nodes is only accessible from TSMC and Samsung Foundry these days. Even so, as Intel is now partaking in a foundry race, its major-edge procedures will before long be obtainable to other fabless developers of chips and its Intel Foundry Providers division will compete specifically in opposition to TSMC and Samsung Foundry.

Boosting Samsung Foundry’s ability by a few situations by 2026 signifies that either the company expects need from current prospects to triple in about 4 several years, or to attain share from TSMC (and to not reduce just about anything to Intel). Samsung Foundry has causes to be optimistic right here. It only served all over 35 buyers in 2017 (and by that time Apple ceased to be SF’s major shopper), but now it serves more than 100 customers, like Nvidia and Qualcomm. If Samsung Foundry carries on to attain consumers, it will clearly want additional potential. Meanwhile, not all of Samsung Foundry’s buyers will need foremost-edge technologies, so when developing new state-of-the-artwork fabs for 3GAA and subsequent generations (S5, S6) is critical, the corporation will have to offer enough ability for earlier-technology nodes.