Samsung Upgrades Texas Plant to 2nm, Challenges TSMC

According to a report by South Korean news agency ETnews, Samsung has postponed equipment orders for its new wafer plant in Taylor, Texas. This delay is to consider upgrading the originally planned 4nm process technology to 2nm. The official announcement is expected in the third quarter of this year.

On April 15th, Samsung Electronics signed a non-binding Preliminary Memorandum of Terms (PMT) with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Under the CHIPS and Science Act, Samsung Electronics is set to receive up to $6.4 billion in direct subsidy funds to enhance the resilience of the U.S. semiconductor supply chain.

As part of the agreement, Samsung plans to increase its investment in Texas from the original $17 billion to $44 billion over the coming years. This investment aims to transform Samsung’s operations in Texas into a comprehensive ecosystem for developing and manufacturing advanced chips in the U.S. The expansion includes two new cutting-edge logic wafer plants, a facility for developing new process node technologies, an advanced packaging factory for 3D high-bandwidth memory and 2.5D packaging, and the expansion of their existing Austin plant. This initiative is expected to create over 20,000 jobs.

The two leading logic wafer plants under construction in Taylor, Texas, will focus on the mass production of 4nm and 2nm process technologies. Samsung had previously stated its goal to surpass TSMC in 4nm production capacity in the U.S., with plans to start mass production of 4nm chips by the end of this year.

However, with the intensifying competition in AI hardware and the rising demand for advanced process technologies, Samsung's competitor TSMC has also announced an expanded investment plan in the U.S., increasing to $60 billion. This includes the construction of a 2nm wafer plant in addition to the existing 4nm and 3nm wafer facilities. TSMC has received a $6.6 billion subsidy from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

It appears that Samsung now aims to upgrade the 4nm process in its Taylor, Texas, facility to 2nm, positioning itself to compete with TSMC in advanced process technologies. TSMC's advanced process clients, such as Qualcomm, NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel, are also major U.S. customers.