After a year of searching for the right place of its new U.S. fab, Samsung this week announced that it would build a fab near Taylor, Texas. The company will invest $17 billion in the new semiconductor fabrication plant and will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives from local and state authorities. Separately, Texas authorities have announced that Texas Instruments intend to spend $30 billion on new fabs in the state, as well.

Samsung to Spend $17 Billion on New Texas Fab

Samsung yet has to disclose all the details about its fab near Taylor, Texas, but for now the company says that the new fab site will occupy an area of over 5 million square meters and will employ 2,000 workers directly and another 7,000 indirectly. To put the number into context, Samsung's fab near Austin, Texas currently employs about 10,000 of workers. 

Samsung will start construction of the new fab in the first half of 2022 and expects it to be operational in the second half of 2024. It usually takes about a year to construct a building for a semiconductor manufacturing facility and then about a year to install and set up all the necessary equipment.

Samsung has not announced which process technologies will be used at its fab near Taylor, Texas, but says it will produce chips for 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC), and mobile applications, which implies that the fab will gain fairly advanced technologies. In fact, keeping in mind that all of Samsung's nodes thinner than 7 nm rely on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, it is reasonable to expect the new fab to be EUV capable. As a result, Samsung's customers from the U.S. (such as IBM, Nvidia, and Qualcomm) will be able to produce their chips in the U.S. rather than in South Korea, which might allow their developers to address systems used by the U.S. government. 

"With greater manufacturing capacity, we will be able to better serve the needs of our customers and contribute to the stability of the global semiconductor supply chain," said Kinam Kim, Vice Chairman and CEO, Samsung Electronics Device Solutions Division. "In addition to our partners in Texas, we are grateful to the Biden Administration for creating an environment that supports companies like Samsung as we work to expand leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. We also thank the administration and Congress for their bipartisan support to swiftly enact federal incentives for domestic chip production and innovation."

Samsung's new semiconductor production plant will be located 25 kilometers away from the company's fab near Austin, Texas, so the facilities will be able to share infrastructure and resources (such as materials and supplies).

Samsung says that it will spend about $6 billion on construction on the building as well as improvements of the local infrastructure. Tools that will be used by the fab will cost another $11 billion. Meanwhile, to build the new plant Samsung will receive hundreds of millions in incentives from the state, the county, and the city, according to media reports. Some of the packages have not been approved yet. 

Texas Instruments to Invest $30 Billion on New U.S. Fabs

Samsung is not the only company to build new fabs in Texas. The Governor of Texas recently announced the Texas Instruments was planning to build several new 300-mm fabs near Sherman. In total, TI intends to build as many as four wafer fabrication facilities in the region over coming decades and the cumulative investments are expected to total $30 billion as fabs will be eventually upgraded.

Texas Instruments itself yet have to formally announce its investments plans, but the announcement by the governor Greg Abbot indicates that the principal decisions have been made and now TI needs to finalize the details. 

Sources: SamsungAustin American-StatesmanTexas.gov

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  • AshlayW - Saturday, November 27, 2021 - link

    Mexican food is delicious, what are you talking about?
  • FunBunny2 - Saturday, November 27, 2021 - link

    "Mexican food is delicious, what are you talking about?"

    correct me if I'm wrong (the wife always gets mad...), but refried beans are
    a) putrid
    b) the basis of so much Mexican food
  • mode_13h - Sunday, November 28, 2021 - link

    Why not lookup the best area Mexican restaurant in your area and see for yourself if there's anything you like?
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, November 29, 2021 - link

    Why is the post about Texas being ranked 50th in education being deleted? It’s a simple fact. Are facts no longer welcome here?
  • FunBunny2 - Thursday, December 2, 2021 - link

    "Are facts no longer welcome here?"

    MAGA???
  • easp - Thursday, November 25, 2021 - link

    Big state. These fabs are around Austin, which is further inland and not subject to the direct effects of hurricanes, though it can get a lot of rain as the diminished storms move inland.

    As for the humidity, Austin isn't as bad as Houston. Plus pretty much everything in Texas has air conditioning, especially fabs. Also I'm not sure even coastal Texas is humid when compared to some other centers of semiconductor manufacturing, ie Taiwan.

    TX is relatively stable, geologically, though that's not an absolute requirement. Again, see Taiwan (and Oregon, and California).

    And, as others have noted, Austin has an educated workforce and a long history of semiconductor design and manufacturing.

    Oh yeah, TX politicians are proud lapdogs for big business.
  • imaheadcase - Friday, November 26, 2021 - link

    You are actually correct, it goes with risk assessment and incentives. Close to body of water, low environmental risks, work force, supply chain, and how much the state/country will kiss ass to them.

    The article is wrong on one point though, in no way is it going to allow them to produce chips in the USA for USA customers for most part, most of the growth is overseas, it will ship them out most likely, and just use US resources.
  • mode_13h - Saturday, November 27, 2021 - link

    > in no way is it going to allow them to produce chips in the USA for USA customers

    I think the main goal, in this regard, is to give military equipment makers a US-based fab for getting chips made on a cutting-edge process. I think Glo Fo served that role, until they decided to cancel their 7 nm node.

    This is a smart hedge against China invading Taiwan and seizing control of TSMC's fabs. Not enough, but it's something. And if that happens, the US could actually use the Defense Production Act to commandeer (some of) the Samsung fab's capacity and redirect it as needed.
  • meacupla - Wednesday, November 24, 2021 - link

    Building fabs in Texas is such a bad idea.
    You can't rely on Texas' power infrastructure, and having power that doesn't get unexpectedly cut off is one of most important aspect of fabs.

    In the past, entire batches were destroyed from unexpected power outages at DRAM fabs. I don't see how building a fab in a power network that is prone to failing, with no wider area power network it can fall back onto, is a smart business idea.

    (If you don't know what I am talking about, go google "texas interconnection" and "Texas power crisis")
  • mmrezaie - Wednesday, November 24, 2021 - link

    When someone spends 30B$, I would assume they have done studies about power network. I agree with you about Texas, though. I like the food, but I do not like to live there myself.

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