Samsung is the world’s second largest semiconductor manufacturer after Intel. Samsung is very diverse in its manufacturing and when it comes memory it is leading the market, and now intends to build a new fab in China for this very purpose. The new plant will produce 20nm grade, and smaller, DRAM and NAND circuits.
The market for memories is constantly growing and not the least NAND memory, often called “flash”, that is used in everything from smartphones to USB memories and SSDs. Samsung is currently the largest memory manufacturer in the world, but wants to expand with another plant. Samsung has sent in an application to the responsible South Korean department and started conversation with the Chinese authorities.
Its new manufacturing plant will be dedicated to making DRAM, NAND and next generation memories, 20nm grade and below. It has already started production of 20nm grade NAND memory back in September, is expected to move into 10nm territory in 2012. The fact it only mentions “20nm grade” is that it does not want to reveal exactly which node it is, it can be anything from 20nm to 29nm, 10nm grade will be 10nm to 19nm.
In September, its latest plant, Line-16 in Sydkorea started production. The new plant will be built in 2012 and go into production in 2013.
