Oct 30, 2001 Hoping to extend its lead in DRAMs and other chip products, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. here today announced that it has begun mass production in its initial 300-mm wafer fab.
The Korean memory giant has begun producing 512-megabit, double-data-rate (DDR) SDRAMs in the 300-mm, 0.12-micron fab, which is located in the Hwasung Industrial complex here, according to Samsung, the world's largest DRAM maker.
The move towards 300-mm production is aimed to boost the company's competitiveness and leadership in the memory markets. In general, a 300-mm wafer line has 2.5 times the capacity of an 8-inch (200-mm) plant, paving the way for lower production costs.
It is also designed to propel Samsung into the world's second largest chip maker by 2005, with worldwide sales of $20 billion, said Chang-Gyu Hwang, president of Samsung's Memory Division.
"Our semiconductor operations will achieve annual sales of $20 billion in 2005 by diversifying our memory product portfolio and maximizing our competitiveness," Hwang said. "We are nowapplying 300-mm wafers to our memory chip mass production and have begun mass-producing 512-megabit DRAMs to upgrade our lineup and satisfy demand for higher-capacity memory products," he said.
In July, Samsung started up the test operations within the 300-mm wafer line, and by September, the first commercial products were coming off the line, according to the company.
By 2003, Samsung will move its 300-mm fabs to the 100-nm (0.10-micron) node. It will produce 512-Mbit DRAMs and other products.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., with 1999 sales revenue of US$22.8 billion is a world leader in the electronics industry. Headquartered in Korea, the company has operations in about 50 countries with 54,000 employees worldwide. The company consists of three main business units: Digital Media, Semiconductors and Information & Communications Businesses.
