Samsung’s semiconductor division on Thursday started up what it says is the world’s largest memory plant. Line-16 in Hwaseong, South Korea will represent about $10.2 billion in investment and should be capable of making 10,000 12-inch chip wafers every month. Its first product will be two gigabit (512MB) DDR3 RAM based on a cutting-edge 20 nanometer process.
The smaller chip design process is 50 percent more efficient to make than 30nm and uses 40 percent less power than its predecessor. It’s also key to significantly expanding capacity per chip, Samsung said. The company expects a four-gigabit chip before the end of 2011 that could lead to DDR3 memory sticks for computers that start at a minimum 4GB and scale up to 32GB.
In launching Line-16, Samsung chairman Kun-hee Lee argued that the plant was a way of overcoming “fierce cyclical volatility” by pushing his company out in front for memory production.
