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The
move contrasts with the scaling back of investment by rival
chipmakers amid falling demand and a glut of chips.
Analysts have said that Samsung's persistence with investment
plans will likely help it take market share in memory chips and
support its share price when demand recovers.
Samsung plans to expand its P3 factory in Pyeongtaek, South
Korea, by adding 12-inch wafers capacity for DRAM memory chips,
the Seoul Economic Daily reported, citing unnamed industry
sources.
It will also expand the plant with additional 4-nanometre chip
capacity, which will be made under foundry contracts - that is,
according to clients' designs - the paper said.
P3, which started production of cutting-edge NAND flash memory
chips this year, is the company's largest chip manufacturing
facility.
Samsung is planning to add at least 10 extreme ultraviolet
machines next year, the newspaper said.
Samsung declined to comment on the report.
In October it said it was not considering intentionally cutting
chip production, defying the broader industry's tendency to
scale back output to meet mid- to long-term demand.
"We plan to stand behind our original infrastructure investment
plans," Han Jin-man, executive vice president of memory business
at Samsung, said then.
In contrast, memory chip rival Micron Technology Inc said last
week it would adjust down its investments in fiscal 2023 to
between $7 billion and $7.5 billion, compared with $12 billion
in fiscal 2022. It would also be "significantly reducing capex"
plans in fiscal 2024, it said.
Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC in October cut its 2022 annual
investment budget by at least 10% and struck a more cautious
note than usual on upcoming demand.
"The chip industry downturn will add to the difficulties of No.
2 and below chip companies, and have a positive impact on the
market control of top companies such as Samsung," Greg Roh, head
of research at Hyundai Motor Securities, said in a client note
on Monday.
(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim and Joyce Lee; Editing by Bradley
Perrett)
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