Samsung Electronics Co Ltd announced on Wednesday that it will invest approximately 300 trillion won ($230 billion) by 2042 to develop what the government refers to as the world’s largest chip-making base, as part of efforts to boost South Korea’s chip industry.
The sum accounts for the majority of the 550 trillion won in private-sector investment announced by the government on Wednesday, as part of a strategy to increase the competitiveness of high-tech industries such as chips, displays, and batteries by expanding tax breaks and infrastructure support.
According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy, Samsung Electronics will expand manufacturing to five chip factories and will attract up to 150 materials, parts, and equipment manufacturers, fabless chipmakers, and semiconductor research and development organisations.
Other countries, including the United States, have announced plans to boost domestic chip industries, including the CHIPS Act, which offers billions of dollars in subsidies to chipmakers who invest in the country.
South Korea, which is home to the world’s two largest memory chip makers, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix Inc, is attempting to improve supply-chain stability in order to become a major player in the non-memory chip market, which is currently dominated by chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd and Intel Corp.
According to the most recent BusinessKorea report, Samsung Electronics will begin mass production of its third-generation 4-nm chips in the first half of 2023. This comes after it was revealed last year that Samsung’s 3nm chip mass production had been delayed due to low yield.
Samsung Electronics announced on March 12th that they would begin mass production of chips in the first half of this year using a 4-nm 2.3-generation process. This comes after a difficult yield management period that resulted in the loss of their largest customer, Qualcomm, to TSMC.
However, they have seen steady improvements in their 4-nm process yield, which is now estimated to be at 60%. Though still lagging behind TSMC’s yield, which is in the 70-80 percent range, experts say their yield is rapidly improving, and mass production is speeding up.
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