Samsung held a ground-breaking ceremony to kick-off the company's second round of investments in its Hwaseong semiconductor plant. This activity marks the next step in the company's seven-year investment plan for the site. Hwaseong's second phase will be located on 230-acres/960K-m(2)/290K-pyong that is slated to house one R&D facility and eight fabrication lines by 2012, calling for an estimated capital expenditure (CapEx) of $33billion.

Samsung's Next-generation R&D line (NRD line) is scheduled to begin operations in May 2006. The NRD line will be a double tiered structure clean room with adjoining office space for research and development of next-generation technologies including nano and process technology, and other materials for both memory and system LSI semiconductors. The company's total investment for the second 300mm R&D line is expected to be approximately $860million.

The NRD line is the newest addition to Samsung's five existing R&D dedicated lines where future advancements in memory and logic technologies such as PRAM, FRAM, DRAM, Flash memory, and CMOS image sensors are currently taking place. Samsung expects its total R&D workforce to add 5,000 more engineers by 2012.

Samsung's main semiconductor fabrication site, Giheung, was established in 1983. After installing a total of fifteen fabrication and R&D lines in Giheung, an expansion was initiated in nearby Hwaseong, giving the entire site the name Giheung-Hwaseong. When completed in 2012, Samsung's Giheung-Hwaseong complex will be the world's largest semiconductor fabrication facility.

As part of the second-phase at the Hwaseong complex, the first fabrication line is currently under construction. Samsung will introduce line no. 15 in the first half of 2006. Out of the eight new fabrication lines, Samsung expects four to be designed for capacities higher than conventional lines with the possibility of a 300mm or larger wafer-unit. The entire expansion project is expected to bring about 14,000 new jobs to the Korea economy.

The Hwaseong plant was first established in 2000. Phase-one housed five fabrication lines and one R&D line, R2 line, on a total area of 150-acres/630,000-m(2)/190,000-pyong. After opening its first 300mm-fab MPS line in 2001, Samsung experienced a steep growth in global memory semiconductor market share from 18 percent in 2001 to 25 percent in 2002.