Samsung Considers Changing Process Technology in Texas Plant

TapTechNews June 18th news, according to Etnews report, Samsung Electronics is considering changing the process technology of its Taylor plant in Texas, USA from 4 nanometers to 2 nanometers to strengthen the competition with TSMC's US plant and Intel. Sources said that Samsung Electronics will make the final decision as soon as the third quarter.

The investment in the Taylor plant of Samsung Electronics was in 2021, and the construction started the following year, and it is planned to start phased operations by the end of 2024. Lee Bong-hyun, the former head of Samsung Electronics' DS division, once said, 'By the end of 2024, we will start shipping 4-nanometer products from here.'

Relatively, Intel plans to mass-produce Intel 20A and 18A processes in factories in Arizona and Ohio this year. In addition, TSMC is building three wafer fabs in the US and plans to put 4nm process into production in the first half of 2025 and 2/3nm process in 2028, and below 2nm process in 2030.

At the first-quarter earnings conference held in April, Samsung Electronics said, 'We are preparing to start the operation work of the US Taylor plant in phases according to customer orders, and it is expected to achieve the first mass production in 2026.'

Thanks to the Taylor plant, Samsung Electronics can obtain a subsidy of $6.4 billion (TapTechNews note: currently about 46.498 billion RMB) from the US government, and the total investment is expected to exceed $40 billion (currently about 290.615 billion RMB) by 2030. Whether the process change of the Taylor plant will affect the investment, we still have to wait and see.