Choi Si-young, President of Samsung Electronics, "Foundry Investment to Increase 10 Times by 2024"

Focus on Expanding Capacity to Strengthen Foundry Business
"Triple Capacity by 2027"
Secured 10 Domestic and Overseas Fab Sites

Choi Si-young, President of Samsung Electronics, is speaking as a speaker at the Samsung Foundry Forum 2022 held in Silicon Valley, USA, on the 3rd (local time). / Provided by Samsung Electronics

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Pyeonghwa] Samsung Electronics plans to increase its investment scale by about 10 times by 2024 to expand production lines in the foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) sector. It has secured 10 sites for domestic and overseas production lines. Through this, it aims to triple its production capacity by 2027 to meet customer demand.

On the 20th, Samsung Electronics announced this plan at the 'Samsung Foundry Forum 2022' held at the InterContinental COEX in Samseong-dong, Seoul. The Samsung Foundry Forum is an event where Samsung Electronics introduces its foundry vision and latest technologies to its customers. Following the United States (4th), Germany (7th), and Japan (18th), Samsung held the fourth foundry forum domestically.

Choi Si-young, President of Samsung Electronics' Foundry Business Division, delivered the keynote speech and emphasized efforts to expand capacity to strengthen the foundry business. Samsung currently operates advanced process foundry lines in Pyeongtaek and Hwaseong in Korea and Taylor in the United States. Mature (legacy) process mass production is underway in Hwaseong and Giheung in Korea and Austin in the United States. Going forward, the plan is to expand capacity across all sectors, including both advanced and legacy processes.

President Choi stated, "Investment in production lines is expected to increase about 10 times by 2024," and "the production capacity of advanced processes will expand about threefold by 2027." He also announced, "In addition, the production capacity in the mature and specialty sectors will expand about 2.3 times by 2024," signaling active response to diverse customer demands.

Samsung Electronics plans to concretize the 'Shell First' strategy during this process. Shell First means proactively constructing clean rooms and securing stable production capacity through flexible facility investments linked to future market demand, thereby actively responding to customer needs. Samsung plans to proceed with the second line investment at the Taylor foundry in the U.S. according to the Shell First strategy, following the first line. There is also potential for expanding global lines domestically and internationally in the future.

President Choi also shared the status of site acquisition for capacity expansion. He explained, "It is important to secure production capacity that customers can trust regardless of market conditions," and added, "We have secured more than ten fab sites including Pyeongtaek in Korea."

With this foundry business progress, Samsung Electronics plans to increase its customer base more than fivefold by 2027 compared to 2019. Having opened the gate with the world's first application of Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistor technology in the 3-nanometer first generation in June, the company also announced plans to advance to 2-nanometer in 2025 and 1.4-nanometer in 2027, pursuing a technological super-gap.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.