With an investment of $14.7 billion, Samsung plans a new chip plant in South Korea.
Samsung Electronics has set aside $14.7 billion to build a new chip manufacturing facility in South Korea as part of its growth plans apart from the smartphones sector. The company stated on October 6, 2016 that the decided facility will ensures its lead in the memory card market.
Samsung’s smartphone business currently accounts for 60 percent of its total profit, but is currently struggling in face of low-cost competitions from Chinese handset makers. Hence, the company is rebuilding its focus on its memory card business, as its still has a tight hold of the market, considering the limited competition.
The new plant will be located in Pyeongtaek, a city south of Seoul. Although the construction of the facility will begin in 2015, with operations slated to start in 2017, the company has not revealed the types of chips that will be manufactured there.
As such, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is one of the leading rivals of the company in manufacturing logic chips (more for operation of gadgets than for storage) for Apple’s iPhones.
Currently, the smartphone maker is known to invest the most in high-tech chip-manufacturing facilities, as compared to its competitors. It is the world’s biggest manufacturer of dynamic RAM chips (for PCs and smartphones). It also produces NAND flash-memory chips for mobile devices, including digital cameras.
Samsung already has memory-chip production lines in Hwaseong and facilities in Giheung that focus on logic chips in South Korea. The company also has chip plants in China and the US.
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