This photo provided by Samsung Electronics Co. on May 21, 2020, shows the company’s chip plant in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul.
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Samsung Electronics Co. said Sunday its second semiconductor fabrication plant in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, has started mass production of its latest mobile DRAM chip.
Pyeongtaek Line 2 commenced mass production of the industry’s first 16-gigabit (Gb) Low Power Double Data Rate (LPDDR) mobile DRAM using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology, Samsung said.
Pyeongtaek Line 2 is the world’s largest semiconductor production line, according to Samsung, as its total floor area spans more than 128,900 square meters, equivalent to about 16 football fields.
The construction of Pyeongtaek Line 2 began in January 2018. Samsung plans to spend more than 30 trillion won (US$25 billion) on its second fab in Pyeongtaek, which will also have a foundry fabrication line and a NAND flash manufacturing facility.
Both facilities are expected to be fully operational in the second half of 2021.
“The new Pyeongtaek line will serve as the key manufacturing hub for the industry’s most advanced semiconductor technologies, delivering cutting-edge DRAM followed by next-generation V-NAND and foundry solutions, while reinforcing the company’s leadership in the Industry 4.0 era,” said Samsung, the world’s largest memory chip maker.
The South Korean tech titan has been trying to establish its Pyeongtaek Campus as its main production base for its next-generation semiconductors. Its Pyeongtaek Line 1 commenced mass production in June 2017.
Based on its third-generation 10 nm-class (1z) process, the new 16Gb LPDDR5 from Pyeongtaek Line 2 is Samsung’s first memory to be mass produced with EUV technology.
The latest LPDDR5 chip boasts a data rate of 6,400 megabits per second, which is about 16 percent faster than the 12Gb LPDDR5 found in most of today’s flagship mobile devices, according to Samsung, adding that its LPDDR5 can transfer about 10 5 GB-sized full-HD movies, or 51.2 GB of data, in one second.
(Yonhap)
