Post a CommentSamsung Invests $33B in Hwaseong Plant
Online staff -- Electronic News, 9/29/2005
Seoul, South Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. held a ground-breaking ceremony today to kick-off its second round of investments in its Hwaseong semiconductor plant, marking the next step in a seven-year investment plan for the site.
Samsung said it would invest $33 billion in this phase of the Hwaseong plant, which will be located on a 230 acre site that will house an R&D facility and eight fabrication lines by 2012.
Chang-Gyu Hwang, president and CEO of Samsung’s semiconductor business said in a statement, “By successfully executing on leading-edge R&D and manufacturing technologies, we are driving the adoption of innovative semiconductor technology solutions in the marketplace.”
The company is also launching a next-generation R&D line scheduled to begin operations in May 2006. The line will be a double-tiered clean room structure with adjoining office space for R&D of next-generation technologies including nano and process technology, and other materials for memory and system LSI semiconductors, the company said.
Samsung expects to invest approximately $860 million in this second 300mm R&D line, which is the newest of Samsung’s five existing dedicated R&D lines on which advancements in memory and logic technologies such as PRAM, FRAM, DRAM, Flash memory, and CMOS image sensors take place.
Samsung expects its total R&D workforce to add 5,000 more engineers by 2012.
Hwaseong is part of Samsung’s main semiconductor fabrication site, Giheung that was established in 1983. Following the installation of 15 fabrication and R&D lines in Giheung, the company expanded to nearby Hwaseong in 2000, giving the entire site the name Giheung-Hwaseong. When completed in 2012, Samsung believes its Giheung-Hwaseong complex will be the world's largest semiconductor fabrication facility.
The first fabrication line is currently under construction in the second-phase of Hwaseong. Line 15 is slated to be introduced in the first half of 2006.
Out of eight new fabrication lines, Samsung expects four to be designed for capacities higher than conventional lines with the possibility of a 300mm or larger wafer-unit. The entire expansion project is expected to bring about 14,000 new jobs to Korea.
Phase one of the Hwaseong plant housed five fabrication lines and one R&D line, on a total area of 150 acres, the company noted.
