Samsung to Issue Bonds, Expand Austin Fab
By David Lammers
Samsung Electronics Co. plans to expand its logic fab in Austin, Texas, issuing its first overseas bonds since 1997, according to a report by Bloomberg news service. Samsung plans to borrow about $1 billion to expand production at the Austin Main Fab, part of an overall plan to double capital investments in its overall logic IC operation to more than $7 billion.
Samsung employs about 2,400 in Austin, where it completed a $3.6 billion overhaul last year. The Main Fab produces logic ICs, primarily SoCs for mobile products from Apple Inc., as well as some NAND flash production. The former 200mm memory fab was turned into a 300mm copper back end, supporting the Main Fab.
Samsung Electronics and its affiliates will spend 31 trillion won this year in capital expenditures ($29 billion) on semiconductors and displays for mobile systems. According to a Samsung e-mailed statement, that represents a 12 percent increase from last year, Bloomberg reported.
Samsung has a 330-acre site in north Austin, with the Main Fab (earlier called Fab 2 or S2) achieved high yields soon after completion of the expansion project, according to Samsung executives.
A spokewoman at Samsung Austin said “it is business as usual here. There is no big change in Austin, we continue to invest in capital equipment to expand production.”
The company has worked to fill technical positions over the past two years as it ramped logic IC production at the enlarged Main Fab, increasing to 2,400 workers. That number will not increase much as new tools are brought in to the existing cleanroom. “We will remain at 2,400 for the foreseeable future,” she said.
“We have been extremely successful at staffing up, partly because our expansion came at a time of economic crisis in the larger economy,” she said. Samsung hired about 300 veterans with various skill sets, many of them who had been posted to the Fort Hood base north of Austin.
Last October, Samsung said it was processing about 40,000 wafers per month at the Austin facility.
C. J. Muse, an analyst with Barclay’s Capital, predicts that Samsung will need to add ~43,000 wafers a month of 32nm capacity in 2012 to support Apple’s A6 production and internal Samsung application processor demand.
Christian Gregor Dieseldorff, a research director at SEMI, said Samsung has “allocated much more spending for System LSI/Foundry-business, more than ever seen before.” Samsung will increase its installed capacity for System LSI and foundry by more than 30 percent in 2012, from ~530,000 wafers per month (in 200 mm equivalents) at end of 2011 to ~700,000 by the end of this year.
Tags: Austin, Samsung, semiconductor manufacturing