Samsung Electronics restarts new semiconductor business and advances future investment plan

[ Gearbest Technology News]Recently, according to Korean media reports, Samsung Electronics is restarting its new semiconductor business, which has previously slowed down, involving next-generation NAND flash memory, compound semiconductors, advanced packaging and substrates. News shows that Samsung Electronics’ DS department has begun discussions on the restart of next-generation semiconductor R&D and investment, focusing on coordination around R&D direction and equipment investment timing, and has shared relevant information with some partners.

Samsung

Among the businesses currently included in the restart discussion, investment planning for high-level NAND flash memory above 400 layers, as well as advanced packaging and substrate projects have entered a more specific stage. These areas have previously been included in Samsung Electronics' future technology roadmap, but the pace of advancement has been relatively slow over the past year or so. The reason is that the company has previously focused more resources on repairing the competitiveness of DRAM and HBM.

Starting from the second half of 2024, Samsung Electronics will continue to strengthen DRAM design improvements and thereby improve HBM performance. At that time, its core storage business once faced DRAM performance and quality problems, and HBM supply also encountered resistance. Therefore, the company prioritized investing a lot of resources in restoring the basic competitiveness of the storage business. Affected by this, some new businesses failed to advance quickly.

With the recent improvement in DRAM and HBM yield rates and capacity utilization, as well as significant growth in market demand, Samsung Electronics' main storage business has gradually returned to a relatively stable track, which has also provided conditions for the restart of new business investment. The industry generally believes that this means that Samsung Electronics has begun to re-promote future-oriented growth layout after making certain progress in repairing its core storage business.

However, there are still variables in the specific investment timetable. As issues related to the union strike have not been completely eliminated, Samsung Electronics has not yet finalized the detailed time point. The market expects that after labor conflicts are alleviated, the company's investment in new growth businesses is expected to further accelerate.