To boost the production of NAND flash memory chips, Samsung Electronics will increase funding to its Chinese chip factory by $8 bln.
Samsung’s investment comes at a time when the global memory market is expected to rebound. Due to limited supply and rising demand for 5G equipment and networks, the global memory chip market will rebound next year.
Samsung is the largest manufacturer of NAND flash memory chips in the world. NAND flash memory chips can permanently store data. They are commonly used in mobile devices, memory cards or USB flash drives․
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Samsung announced in 2017, that it would invest $7 bln in the Xi’an factory. At present, produces NAND flash chips. In previous years, Samsung invested $10.8 bln in a testing and packaging facility in Xi’an.
In addition, in the second phase, Samsung invested $8 bln for Xi’an flash memory chip. The previous $10.8 bln was in the first phase. The total investment for the second phase of the project is $15 bln․ The first phase approximately $7 bln and $8 bln in the second phase.
The second-phase project is expected to be completed in the second half of 2021. After the completion, it will add 130,000 products per month, with an added output value of 30 bln yuan ($4.273.138.800).
Samsung’s competitors in the NAND flash field include South Korea’s SK Hynix, US Micron Technology and Japan’s Toshiba Corporation. In addition, several Chinese companies have tried to enter the market.
In September this year, Changjiang Storage Technology Co, Ltd, a subsidiary of Ziguang Group, announced that it has started mass production of 64-layer 256 Gb TLC 3D NAND flash memory. These chips use Xtacking architecture to meet the mainstream market application needs.