Samsung to up Austin fab capacity

SAN JOSE: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is likely to expand the capacity of its 300-mm fab in Austin, Texas with a $3.6 billion investment. In the recent past, Samsung had opened an R&D center in Austin.

The expanded fab is intended for the production of logic devices for Samsung's System LSI business. Formerly, they only made NAND flash memory chips and the production of those chips will continue with the new expansion being undertaken.

With the investment in new manufacturing lines, Samsung expects to hire 10,000 new employees in 2010, including 3,000 for the semiconductor business and 4,000 for the LCD business.

CMOS image sensors, system-on-chip devices and other products are the main products that are rolled out from by the chip maker’s fabs. The company has acquired a major SoC design win for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPad.

Samsung has also undertaken measures to get into many non-memory markets and has already made a move to re-enter the power IC sector. However, it has been struggling to gain a foothold in these markets.

In the recent past, Samsung closed its 200-mm fab, a move that impacted 500 jobs and planned to upgrade the 200-mm plant into a 300-mm fab. At the same time, fab expansion in Austin has come about on expected lines. In 1997, Samsung opened its 200-mm DRAM factory in Austin. In 2007, Samsung opened a 1.6-million-square-foot 300-mm NAND flash memory wafer plant in Austin. By the end of 2011, advanced 45-nm logic process technology and beyond, is expected to be completed. Equipment move-in and build-out of the clean room will begin almost immediately. The facility is expected to be operational by the second quarter of next year.