LONDON – South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has broken ground on a wafer fab for NAND memory production in Xian, in northwestern China.
Initially Samsung is investing $2.3 billion to bring the Xian fab into operation in 2014, as part of a planned total investment of $7 billion. Samsung did not indicate the manufacturing capacity it expects to achieve at various times in the wafer fabs development.
The fab, which will follow on from Samsung's Line 16 memory fab in Hwaseong, Korea, is set to use of 10-nm class production processes – that is somewhere between 10-nm and 19-nm – to make memories for IT equipment, smartphones and tablet computers, Samsung said.
Samsung said the opening up of chip manufacturing in China would help it "balance" Samsung's global production network and make it easier for customers in the region to expand.
At the groundbreaking ceremony Samsung also started a program for collaboration with several local universities that will include scholarships to nurture local talent. Xian is home to 37 universities and 3,000 R&D centers focused on information technology, Samsung added.
Related links and articles:
Fundamentals of memory
News articles: Samsung to spend $7 billion on NAND fab in Xian, China
Samsung's Chinese wafer fab gets OK
Samsung plans China NAND flash wafer fab
Samsung fires up world's biggest memory fab
Samsung makes logic leap to boost foundry profile 