Eighteen-inch wafers will replace 12-inch as the mainstream in 2015, according to Joo-Tai Moon, senior vice president of Samsung Electronics. Moon also noted that Asia is the fastest growing semiconductor market, and will digest 70% of global IC production by the end of 2011.

Moon believes phase-change RAM (PRAM), oxide-based memory and spin-torque-transfer magnetic-random-access-memory (STT-MRAM) will be tomorrow's stars, as these next-generation technologies could all be seen as high-efficiency and low-cost alternatives to today's memory standard.

Moon said the markets for automotive, medical and robots will be the targets for future technologies. These applications would require voice recognition, artificial intelligence and other sophisticated technologies.

But Moon noted a potential bottleneck in the memory sector's shrinking process geometries. When the number of bits per cell increases, performance and reliability will be an issue.

Moon made the remarks during the SEMICON Korea trade show held February 2 through February 5.

In other news, Samsung revealed on a recent conference call that its consolidated capex for 2010 will expand significantly from last year's 8.1 trillion won (US$7 billion). The vendor esimated a capex of more than 5.5 trillion won for its chip business compared to the 2009 level of 4.5 trillion won, attributing the rise to further transition to 30nm process technology.