Published :10/14/2019 4:19:44 AM
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South Korean media reported that Samsung Electronics, the global NAND leader, is considering investing in a second Xi'an NAND Flash factory that is still under construction. The industry believes that in the memory market oversupply, Samsung's move may add uncertainty to the market conditions, affecting the operation of NAND-related businesses such as PHISON, ADATA and Transcend.
Korean media BusinessKorea reported that securities and semiconductor industry sources revealed on the 9th that Samsung Electronics plans to increase the capital expenditure of the memory chip factory to 6.5 billion US dollars next year. The increase is expected to be invested in the second semiconductor factory in Xi'an, which will be announced at the end of the year. plan.
Samsung's first Xi'an plant, which was completed in 2014, is producing the first generation of V-NAND flash memory. However, Samsung signed a memorandum with the Xi'an provincial government to build a second factory in August 2017, and announced plans to invest $7 billion by 2020, because even if the first factory had full capacity, the supply of NAND chips was insufficient.
In order to comply with the commitment to the mainland, Samsung is facing the pressure to complete the second Xi'an plant and fully operate it by August next year. Citi analyst Li Shizhe said: "It is expected that Samsung Electronics will expand its investment and process up to 40,000 wafers per month."
The industry believes that Samsung's expansion will increase market uncertainty. Different from the DRAM market, the NAND market is gradually showing signs of recovery. The price of 128Gb MLC NAND flash memory products remained at 4.11 US dollars at the end of September, which was the same as that in August. At the end of July, the first price rebounded in two years, August. Write down more than 2% of the increase.
Under the current circumstances, Samsung's additional investment and expansion will not significantly impact the market conditions, but when SK Hynix and Micron and other manufacturers cut production, Samsung will take the opportunity to win more market share. City researcher IHS Markit said that Samsung's NAND market share has risen to 38.6% in the third quarter of this year, an increase of 6 percentage points from the first quarter.
