Samsung is reported to be planning a huge investment into its 10nm and 7nm production in order to prepare for the next few years. Only recently was it reported that Samsung was struggling with poor yields of its 10nm production process and now it appears the company is preparing to fix this. According to a new report, the company is preparing to invest 8.5 trillion won ($7.39 Billion) into its 10nm process in order to improve mass production. As well as this, though, the report also claims the company will be investing a larger amount of the money into a new 7nm process in order to prepare for the future.
Currently, Samsung uses its relatively new 10nm process in order to build the new Exynos & Qualcomm chips set to power its new 2017 flagship devices, the upcoming Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. To be more specific, the company has plans to expand its production by using its 17 Line located in Hwasung-si. By investing in the line, the company is set to be able to produce up to 18,000 extra chips per month based on the 10nm process by the second quarter, meaning work on the lines should begin pretty shortly. Regarding the 7nm process, this is where the majority of the investment will be spent, with the company set to spend up to $5.2 billion of the overall budget on preparation for the newer process. The new process utilizes Extreme Ultra Violet exposure equipment, something that is expected to drive up costs significantly. Nonetheless, once the new process is in use, it will allow Samsung to produce much more powerful yet efficient chips.
Although all investments will be completed by the beginning of 2019, the company is set to face extreme competition from TSMC and MediaTek, who are both reported to be well into development of a new jointly-developed 12-core processor based on the 7nm process, something that will be hard to compete with. It’ll remain to be seen how Samsung handles the pressure from competition over the next couple of years, but with the company set to build all-new facilities for its future 7nm process, it’ll be interesting to see which company comes out on top, be it Samsung or TSMC.