According to The Elec, Samsung plans to build new trial production lines at the P4 plant in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, and the Taylor plant in Texas, USA before the end of the year.
It is reported that the Taylor factory will be a foundry for the production of advanced chips such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing, while the P4 factory will be used to produce higher-level NAND memory and 4nm / 3nm logic chips. In addition, Samsung will begin commercial production at some point in 2024, provided the main production line goes well.
For fabs or chip production facilities, the pilot line is usually built three months before the main production line is built. Compared with the main production line, the pilot line usually only needs one or two machines, and the new fab will always have a trial production line before starting mass production, which is used to explore the way for the new process.
The P4 factory in Pyeongtaek is the main factory of Samsung. The factory currently has three wafer production plants, P1, P2, and P3, which can be called the most advanced wafer production area in the world. The newly built P4 mainly is responsible for manufacturing memory and logic chips. Considering the strategy of Samsung’s P3 factory, Samsung’s P4 memory production line is expected to be built first.
Foreign media believe that for some reason, Samsung is unlikely to significantly expand the production capacity of its Xi’an factory, and once the new production line is completed, Samsung is expected to start commercial production at the P4 and Taylor factories sometime in 2024.
