Samsung accelerating plan for new chip fab

SAM Mobile reports Samsung is reportedly accelerating its plan to build a third chip production line in in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. The South Korean tech giant has asked government bodies to grant permits swiftly, as it wants to start construction as early as September.

The Pyeongtaek Line 3 (P3) plant is a 30 trillion won investment (about $25.2 billion), and will be Samsung's biggest facility at the site. Samsung won't stop there though. In its effort to become the biggest chip firm by 2030, the company plans to expand the number of facilities at its Pyeongtaek campus to a total of six.

Samsung hasn’t revealed what kind of chips will be manufactured at the P3 facility or its production schedule. The company is aggressively pushing to become the world’s largest chip company by 2030 and is planning to invest $115 billion to achieve its goal. It also plans to start building three more chip plants—P4, P5, and P6—one after another and has asked the government to secure more industrial water for the construction.

Besides production to meet its own needs, Samsung is also one of the only two cutting-edge foundries left. With GlobalFoundries and Intel out of the foundry business race, TSMC and Samsung are the only options left for fabless chip designers who need the newest process nodes.