April 27, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Samsung Electronics, the world’s maker of DRAM chips used for short-term data storage, is expected to increase investments to US$12.5 billion in 2017, up 11 percent from last year, market research firm IC Insights said on March 7.

The proposed spending is the highest among global chip makers, followed by US chipmaker Intel that plans to increase its spending by 25 percent on-year to US$12 billion. 

Taiwan’s TSMC is expected to spend US$10 billion won, down 2 percent from a year earlier, while SK hynix, the nation’s No. 2 chipmaker, will spend US$6 billion to upgrade the current production facilities and build new ones this year.

For the past couple of years, Samsung has been making all-out efforts to widen the gap with rivals in memory chips, pouring considerable resources into adopting advanced chip manufacturing technologies.

It is currently building the world’s largest semiconductor complex in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, where it plans to mass produce V-NAND flash memory chips, which stacks cell vertically inside for better efficiency, in the latter half of the year.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)