News US Govt's sluggish Chips Act payouts slam the brakes on Samsung's fab — company delays mass production at Texas fab to await further CHIPS funding:...

[Admin]

Samsung's Texas fab will be operational in 2024, but won't have mass production capability until 2025 at the earliest.

US Govt's sluggish Chips Act payouts slam the brakes on Samsung's fab — company delays mass production at Texas fab to await further CHIPS funding:... : Read more

 

[SemiChemE]

Doesn't Samsung already operate a fab in Austin, Texas? Sure, it's older technology (65nm down to 14nm), but it should still count as a fab. So, unlike TSMC, Samsung already knows how to build and operate a fab in the U.S. This seems to be more of a response to recent market forces (Semiconductor slowdown since 2H22), and possibly some lobbying to get a larger share of Chips Act money.

 

[JamesJones44]

I'm not so sure the US has made a soft landing yet. There is a lot of soft areas in the economy and we are in the time of year where if you have budget you are going to spend it or lose it. The real test will be Q1 2024 and we won't know until Q2 2024 if there was a slow down after the start of the new year. If we get past those gates without a recession then I would consider the US to have engineered a "soft landing".

Samsung is right to be cautious on the economic/government outlook until we can see clearly through the clouds of gov stimulus and monitory tightening.

 

[phead128]

Doesn't Samsung already operate a fab in Austin, Texas? Sure, it's older technology (65nm down to 14nm), but it should still count as a fab. So, unlike TSMC, Samsung already knows how to build and operate a fab in the U.S. This seems to be more of a response to recent market forces (Semiconductor slowdown since 2H22), and possibly some lobbying to get a larger share of Chips Act money.

TSMC has a fab in Washingston state (TSMC Fab 11) since 1996, the first pure-play foundry fab in the US.

https://www.wafertech.com/en/about/index.html

TSMC finally puts its name on its aging Northwest chip factory

Chipmaking giant TSMC says its WaferTech plant in Camas will now be called TSMC Washington.

www.oregonlive.com

So TSMC has been building and operating fabs in US for decades before Samsung even arrived. TSMC had admitted it knows full well it's US fabs will never be as productive as Taiwanese fabs, due to work culture difference. To act like TSMC is some newbie is disingenuous.

 

[kjfatl]

It is likely that Samsung is delaying the fab as a result of equipment availability delays. Intel, in particular has filled the pipeline of fab equipment suppliers. By delaying a few months, or even over a year, Samsung may end up with a better, more profitable fab.

 

[Joseph_138]

Doesn't Samsung already operate a fab in Austin, Texas? Sure, it's older technology (65nm down to 14nm), but it should still count as a fab. So, unlike TSMC, Samsung already knows how to build and operate a fab in the U.S. This seems to be more of a response to recent market forces (Semiconductor slowdown since 2H22), and possibly some lobbying to get a larger share of Chips Act money.

14nm isn't good enough. That fab may be able to produce chips for low and medium tech devices, but for the high tech devices, that we depend on, we need the newest fab processes, like 7 and 8nm, and we don't have those.

 

[djcalligraphy]

"...slam the BREAKS on Samsung's fab"​

Wouldn't that be "brakes?"

 

[thisisaname]

Governments may be quick to promise cash but they are not quick to hand it over.

 

[SemiChemE]

TSMC has a fab in Washingston state (TSMC Fab 11) since 1996, the first pure-play foundry fab in the US.

https://www.wafertech.com/en/about/index.html

TSMC finally puts its name on its aging Northwest chip factory

Chipmaking giant TSMC says its WaferTech plant in Camas will now be called TSMC Washington.

www.oregonlive.com

So TSMC has been building and operating fabs in US for decades before Samsung even arrived. TSMC had admitted it knows full well it's US fabs will never be as productive as Taiwanese fabs, due to work culture difference. To act like TSMC is some newbie is disingenuous.

True, but the TSMC fab is a very old 200mm fab that hasn't been significantly upgraded in over a decade. The Samsung fab is a state-of-the-art 300mm facility and one of the largest fabs in the U.S.

 

[SemiChemE]

14nm isn't good enough. That fab may be able to produce chips for low and medium tech devices, but for the high tech devices, that we depend on, we need the newest fab processes, like 7 and 8nm, and we don't have those.

I never said Samsung shouldn't be building a new fab, just that they know how to operate a high-end state-of-the-art fab in the U.S. Note, that 14nm was state of the art until TSMC rolled out 7nm in 2018 (just over 5 years ago). Further, 28nm is still even today, the highest volume node in the industry due to the significantly lower costs compared to finfet. The high-end 7nm and beyond nodes are really only needed for very high-end, products and the retail volumes needed to justify such a high-end fab, aren't there. That is why the Texas fab is so small (60K wafers per year is tiny, tiny). That's why I'm arguing that the Samsung slow down is due to market forces, rather than slow Chips Act payouts as the article implies.

Most of those outside the industry, don't seem to understand how the skyrocketing design costs of Finfet really caused most of the industry to stall at the 28nm node. The lower geometry nodes can only be justified either for very high-end niche products (eg. server chips & GPUs), where customers are willling to pay a large premium, or for extremely high-volume products (like cellphone chips from Apple and Qualcomm), where steep design costs can be spread across billions of units. Unfortunately for Samsung, TSMC has locked down most of the high-volume business, which leaves Samsung pursuing the niche applications in a small fab.

 

[phead128]

14nm isn't good enough. That fab may be able to produce chips for low and medium tech devices, but for the high tech devices, that we depend on, we need the newest fab processes, like 7 and 8nm, and we don't have those.

90% of the semiconductor market is <14nm and below. Most of your everyday items like automobiles, jet fighter planes, etc...use legacy nodes. Only iPhones or mobile phones things that need exceptional battery life need 7-8nm.