Popular Keywords
News
[News] Samsung Faces Struggles Ahead as Foundry Investment Reportedly Slashed by Half for 2025
Another bad news for Samsung ahead of its earnings call next week. While it is trailing behind SK hynix and Micron on HBM development, the company’s foundry business may still be struggling in the year ahead. According to South Korean media outlet Sedaily, Samsung’s foundry division has planned to cut its facility investment by more than half compared to 2024.
The report indicates that Samsung’s foundry division has set its budget for facility investment in 2025 at around KRW 5 trillion (roughly USD 3.5 billion), a sharp decline from KRW 10 trillion in 2024.
Additionally, this year’s budget is notably much lower compared to the aggressive investments Samsung made from 2021 to 2023. During that period, primarily at the Pyeongtaek site, Samsung’s foundry division spent KRW 15 to 20 trillion annually, according to the Sedaily report.
Samsung Foundry has struggled with yield issues in its advanced nodes, which further limits its customer base. A previous Sammy Fans report suggested that the company’s 3nm process yield may be under 20%, which could affect the mass production of its Exynos 2500 mobile processor.
In its previous earnings call, which took place in October, 2024, Samsung announced its total planned capex for 2024 would be approximately KRW 56.7 trillion, with KRW 47.9 trillion allocated to Device Solutions and KRW 5.6 trillion to Samsung Display.
According to Sedaily, Samsung Foundry’s investment in 2025 will focus on the Hwaseong S3 site and the Pyeongtaek 2nd factory (P2). At the S3 site, some of the 3nm lines will be converted to 2nm, which is not considered to be a large-scale new investment.
At the P2 site, a 1.4nm test line with a monthly capacity of 2,000 to 3,000 wafers is scheduled to be installed by the end of 2025, the report adds.
On the other hand, Taiwan’s foundry giant TSMC has set a capex target of USD 38-42 billion for 2025, with 70% directed towards advanced technology production. In 2024, the company spent USD 29.76 billion on capex.
Read more
(Photo credit: Samsung)
