Raising Speculation over Facility Expansion
Samsung Electronics has purchased a site as wide as 140 soccer fields combined near its foundry plant in Austin, Texas of the United States. The company’s move is seen as a preparation to expand its foundry plant in the United States.
Samsung Electronics' Austin subsidiary bought 104,089 square meters of land right next to its Austin foundry factory in October, according to foreign media outlets on Dec. 8. Recently, Samsung Electronics asked the Austin City Council to approve the development of the site. "We have purchased additional land around the plant and applied for a change of its use, but nothing has been decided on how we will use it," said a Samsung official.
Currently, the Austin foundry factory is producing chips with 14-nm, 28-nm, and 32-nm circuits for fabless customers. The plant is not yet equipped with EUV lithography equipment, which is used for 7-nm or sub-7-sm products.
Taiwan's TSMC, the world's No. 1 foundry company, announced in May that it will investment US$12 billion to build a new 5-nm plant in Arizona.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, Samsung Electronics' foundry sales are expected to reach US$3.715 billion, an increase of 25 percent from the same period of 2019, according to market research company TrendForce.
Taiwan's TSMC, the world's largest foundry company, is expected to see its sales reach US$12.55 billion in the fourth quarter, up 21 percent from 2019. TSMC's sales growth was led by 7-nano products for 5G smartphone processors and chips for high-performance computers.
Although Samsung Electronics is ahead of TSMC in terms of growth rates compared to 2019, some analysts predicted that the market share gap between the two companies will widen from the previous quarter. Samsung Electronics' fourth-quarter market share stood at 16.4 percent, inching down from 17.4 percent in the third quarter, TrendForce said. TSMC's fourth-quarter market share reached 55.6 percent, up from 53.9 percent in the third quarter.
Some securities firms expect Samsung Electronics' foundry sales to get close to US$15 billion in 2021 and account for 20 percent of the company’s total semiconductor sales.