Samsung Electronics is expected to open a new memory semiconductor fabrication plant in September, according to industry sources. Dubbed Line-16, the facility will be focused on the production of NAND chips, the sources said.
Samsung broke ground on the new fab located at its Nano City Complex in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province (South Korea) in May 2010. The company previously revealed that Line-16 would be capable of processing 200,000 12-inch wafers a month.
Fellow company Toshiba recently announced the opening of Fab 5, the third 12-inch fabrication facility at its operations in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture (Japan). Fab 5 is focused on 24nm process technology with the first batch of wafers to be delivered in August. The new plant will also transition to a newer 19nm process, Toshiba said, without giving a timeframe.
With new capacity coming online, competition between Samsung and Toshiba is expected to heat up, industry observers believe, Toshiba trailed Samsung by only 0.3pp in the first quarter of 2011, the observers indicated.
In other news, Toshiba noted that Fab 5 "incorporates advanced earthquake-absorbing structures and integrates multiple power compensation techniques for protection against unexpected disruptions."