[뒷북비즈]Samsung to bet 10 billion won on US semiconductor plant expansion…Background

Greatly strengthened foundry capacity by expanding the Austin plant in the US

TSMC, Taiwan’s No. 1 foundry, checks US investment

Opportunities such as expansion of chip outsourcing from Intel 2023

Samsung Electronics will invest more than 10 billion dollars (about 11 trillion won) this year to expand the semiconductor plant in Austin, Texas. This is to contain TSMC’s recent expansion of factories in the US. Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor company, also has more opportunities to expand commissioned production that entrusts chip production to the outside from 2023.

On the 22nd (local time), Bloomberg News reported that Samsung Electronics is investing more than 10 billion dollars (about 11 trillion won) to build a second plant in Austin, Texas. It is reported that construction starts this year and is pushing ahead with plans to start operation in 2023. Bloomberg News said that Samsung Electronics will produce semiconductors below 3 nanometers at this plant in the future. In response, Samsung Electronics said, “There is no set plan for the expansion of the second factory in Austin.”

The reason Samsung Electronics is considering the expansion of the Austin Fab 2 plant is to check this as Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest foundry, recently expanded its factories in the US. The’trade policy’ of the Joe Biden government’s urging domestic production also had an impact.

TSMC will build a 5-nano process fab by investing $12 billion in Arizona by 2029 with the goal of first operation in 2023 to capture the world’s number one semiconductor company, Intel. There is an Intel factory nearby.

Currently, Samsung Electronics’ Austin fab produces semiconductors through a 14-nano process. For this reason, the expansion of the Austin fab, where the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) process will be introduced, could be a positive signal for Intel’s future orders for central processing unit (CPU). Kim Sun-woo, a researcher at Meritz Securities, predicted, “By expanding the Austin plant in the future, it will be possible to mass-produce high value-added products in advanced processes of 5 nm or more.

Intel also formalized expansion of consignment production from 2023. On the 21st (U.S. local time), Intel stated in its 4Q earnings release that it could produce its own semiconductor core components, but leave more to the foundry. Pat Gelsinger, the next Intel CEO, said, “Intel has recovered the problems encountered with the 7nm process. I think most of the 7nm processors to be released in 2023 will be manufactured internally by Intel.”

Intel announced the expansion of consignment production on this day in the same vein as the recent activist fund’Threepoint’ urging to come up with a strategic alternative, saying that Intel’s technology has been pushed back to TSMC and Samsung Electronics. Until 2012, it was Intel, which had significantly advanced technology compared to TSMC and Samsung, but the gap has started to widen in recent years due to negligence in technology investment. TSMC and Samsung Electronics have already entered the 7/8 nano process three years ago. In contrast, Intel will not enter production until 2022.

Intel will reveal details after February 15, when Gelsinger’s CEO takes office. The industry predicts that Samsung Electronics will be included in Intel’s major foundry plans. Samsung Electronics is expected to begin production of 15,000 South Bridge (chipsets for motherboards) semiconductors from the second half of this year at its Austin, Texas plant, which has a 14nm production line. The industry evaluates that Samsung’s failure to win orders for graphics processing units (GPU) is “half-successful,” but it is positive that it can expand orders for CPUs in the future, starting with the beginning of the first transaction.

It seems that the GPU that has attracted the industry’s attention has returned to TSMC. Reuters reported recently that “Intel is going to make’DG2′, a PC GPU that will compete with Nvidia, and this chip will be made on the TSMC 7-nano process.”

There are no other companies other than TSMC and Samsung Electronics that can produce chips through microprocessing. According to Trend Force, a market research firm, the global foundry share in the fourth quarter of last year was TSMC (55.6%) and Samsung Electronics (16.4%).

The failure of Samsung Electronics to win orders for Intel’s GPUs can be read as a result of the determination that Intel still cannot give up its status as an integrated semiconductor company (IDM). He said he was concerned about the exposure of GPU design to Samsung, which is both designing and producing.

/ Reporter Byeon Byeon-yeon [email protected]

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