Seoul [South Korea],: South Korea's leading semiconductor companies are increasing investment in production facilities due to strong forecasts for rapid growth in the artificial intelligence chip market, the Korean Herald reported.
Samsung Electronics is reviewing plans to resume construction of a Korean chip manufacturing plant, but SK Hynix has recently begun construction of a new back-end processing facility.
Citing industry sources, the Korean English daily newspaper said tech giant Samsung is preparing to resume work on the PyeongChang campus four line, which was suspended last year.
P4, the fourth major tipping facility on the company's website, is divided into four phases. Phases 1 and 3 are approaching completion, but sources report that work orders for phases 2 and 4 have been recently issued, where full-scale structures are expected within two to three months.
The two areas of the P4 facility, which were originally planned to produce the foundry, will be converted into a DRAM production line. These manufacture sixth generation 1C DRAM using a 10 nanometer process. Samsung has confirmed that it has been successfully developed for the next generation of high-bandwidth memory chips.
Vice-chairman Jun Yang Hyun, who oversees Samsung's semiconductor division, visited the US last week to meet Nvidia to signal the company's commitment to filling the gap with its competitors and secured new HBM chip orders.
Phase 4 is projected to have a monthly capacity of 80,000 wafers, accounting for 40% of the P4's total capacity of 200,000 12 inch wafers.
Although not officially confirmed, the report suggests that Samsung is considering reopening the construction of its fifth factory at the Pyeongtaek campus, known as the P5. The P5 foundations began in 2023, but stopped early last year, the news platform added.
The P5 facility requires an estimated investment of over 30 trillion won and is designed to be a complex fab for the production of DRAM, NAND Flash and Foundry.
“We are continuously reviewing various scenarios to resume construction of the facility,” said a Samsung official, cited by the South Korean Herald.
The report added that SK Hynix is also expanding its production capacity. Chipmaker is expected to complete construction of the new M15X factory in Cheongju later this year. The facility will begin production of fifth generation 10nm class DRAM chips for next-generation HBM4 products and plan monthly capacity of approximately 90,000 wafers.
Additionally, SK Hynix is investing in a new back-end production facility called “P&T 7” in Cheongju. This site enhances packaging capabilities to improve performance and energy efficiency of advanced chips.
The DRAM market is expected to remain strong in the second half of the year, with demand for HBM chips, which play a key role in harnessing the power of AI processors.
The global AI semiconductor market is projected to grow from USD 41.1 billion in 2022 to USD 133 billion by 2028, according to the Korea Export Bank.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any text changes.
