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Samsung to build eight 300mm production fabs by 2012 |
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Sep 29, 2005 at 05:02 PM |
Samsung Electronics has announced major new 300mm fabs planned to be
built over the next seven years. The capex budget has been set at $33
billion US dollars, which will be spread over eight (8) 300mm fabs and
one advanced R&D facility. Samsung stated that the next generation
R&D line "NRD" will cost $860 million US dollars and will be
completed in May 2006. The NRD facility will be dedicated to nano and
advanced silicon processes for both memory and logic devices below the
50nm node. The eight production facilities would include "Line 15"
through to "Line 22."
The company had announced at the end of May 2005 that the first
"wafer-out" at Line 14, had occurred, one month ahead of schedule.
Samsung's Line 14, would initially produce 4,000 wafers starts per
month (wspm) and gradually ramp up to 15,000 wafer starts by the end of
2005, according to the company. Line 14 was set to fabricate 70nm node
4Gb NAND and 90nm 2Gb NAND flash memory.
Samsung was also increasing its ramp rate at Line 13. Capacity
had been increased from 5,000wspm to 45,000wspm for the 3Q05 period.
The ramp was to continue upwards to 50,000wspm by the end of 2005,
8,000wspm higher than originally planned by the company, earlier in the
year.
This meant that without further fab announcements, Samsung would enter
a period of capacity constraint and possible market share loss to
Hynix, Elpida and PSC.
Not surprisingly, Samsung highlighted that construction was already
underway for "Line 15," its next volume production 300mm fab. The new
fab is expected to be completed and ready for first phase tool install
in the "first half of 2006," according to Samsung. This would indicate
that groundbreaking for Line 15 took place sometime in the 1Q05 period
as construction typically takes 12 months, even with fast-track
construction techniques. This would give Samsung a level of capacity
ramp capability at Line 14 before volume production could start at Line
15, sometime late 3Q06, we estimate.
Samsung is calling the latest fab announcements "Phase 2" of its
Hwaseong complex, where its current 300mm fabs are also located. Phase
2 will house all eight 300mm fabs as well as the new NRD facility.
Samsung stated that the Phase 2 site would occupy 960,000 square acres,
making it the single largest company fab cluster in the world!
Little detail was actually given on the actual cleanroom sizes of the
production fabs planned, though Samsung did remark that four (4) of the
eight (8), would have larger capacities than previous 300mm fabs.
Samsung's current 300mm fabs officially have capacities of 40,000wspm,
though 50,000wspm now seems to be the realistic figure for those fabs
already in production. Considering DRAM competitors such as Inotera
Memories and Elpida have fabs with 60,000wspm to 80,000wspm capacities
respectfully. It would not be surprising that Samsung is planning four
(4) fabs to be in this range, if not larger!
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