Samsung’s Second 5nm Plant To Be Based In South Korea

Aside from smartphones and telecommunications, it’s easy to forget that Samsung is also a major player in the semiconductor business and will be one of the providers of 5nm chips in the future. Now, the Korean electronics giant has plans on opening a second 5nm factory in its home country of South Korea.

According to several sources, Samsung began construction of its second 5nm manufacturing plant in the city of Pyeongtaek, which resides south of Seoul. The plant is expected to be erected over a course of 10 years and will cost a mind-blowing US$116 billion (~RM506 billion) once completed.

Naturally, the new factory will be made to produce more than just the upcoming 5nm process node. Samsung says that the new factory will also produce 5G modems, as well as FPGA and ASIC solution, made with a focus for machine learning applications. Of course, it’s no secret that the other major reason behind the factory’s existence is due to Samsung’s desire to take on its direct competitor, the Taiwan-based foundry, TSMC.

Samsung is expected to begin taking orders for its 5nm production sometime in the second half of next year, with products running with the new chips expected to show up sometime after.