Samsung Announces Advanced Chip-Making Plant to be built in Texas
Samsung has announced it is building an advanced chip-making plant in Taylor, Texas. Taylor is about 30 miles away from Austin, who is host to an existing Samsung facility. The new plant is estimated to cost nearly $17 billion and create nearly 1,800 jobs. The new facility will be approximately 1,200 acres, which will make it larger than the existing plant in Austin.
Vice chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics Device Solutions Division, Kinam Kim, said in a statement that “With greater manufacturing capacity, we will be able to better serve the needs of our customers and contribute to the stability of the global semiconductor supply chain.” He continued, “In addition to our partners in Texas, we are grateful to the Biden Administration for creating an environment that supports companies like Samsung as we work to expand leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. We also thank the administration and Congress for their bipartisan support to swiftly enact federal incentive for domestic chip production and innovation.”
Samsung plans to break ground on the new facility next year. The production of chips will begin in 2024. Eventually, Samsung plans to use the new plant to product processors for its own use, and for use in other companies’ products.
The city of Taylor offered Samsung incentives to locating their plant there. The Wall Street Journal reported that the city offered property tax breaks of over 90 percent for its first ten years.
The new Samsung plant in Taylor will likely be used to manufacture advanced chips for other companies based on their designs. Previous reports indicate that the new plant could produce chips as advanced as 3nm. Samsung has previously produced chips for companies like Qualcomm and Nvidia.
The Samsung expansion comes as the global shortage on semiconductors continues to cause major issues. Everyone from console makes and car manufacturers have been affected, and it’s unlikely to let up until at least 2023 according to reports.
In response to this, the Biden administration is attempting to ramp up U.S. chip production. The Senate recently approved $52 billion in subsidies for new chip-making plants.
There are planned increases in chip-making production planned to help with the supply chain issues, but many of the new plants aren’t expected to start production any time soon. TSMC and Sony’s new plant in Japan won’t begin production until the end of 2024. TSMC’s Arizona plant is set to being production around the same time. TSMC is planning to invest over $100 billion in new chip factories over the next three years. Intel is planning to spend a similar amount on plants in the U.S. and Europe over the next 10 years.
Story via The Verge
