Samsung and SK Hynix to Increase NAND Production in China Through Equipment Investments

According to ChainCatcher, citing ZDNet Korea, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix plan to continue investing in equipment for their NAND flash production lines in China through next year to strengthen their local manufacturing presence. Since the first half of this year, Samsung has been advancing its investment to transition its Xi’an X2 line to V9 NAND, a high-end process with approximately 280 layers of stacking, expected to achieve a monthly capacity of 40,000 to 50,000 wafers. To ensure stable mass production, the company has confirmed a supplementary investment plan focused on adding etching equipment; related procurement orders are expected to be finalized around the end of this year, with the supplementary investment scheduled to commence in the second half of next year. SK Hynix has been progressing equipment investments for upgrading its NAND products at its Dalian Plant 2 since the third quarter of this year, with a proposed scale of approximately 30,000 wafers per month. Key manufacturing equipment will begin arriving next month and is planned to be fully deployed by the first half of next year. The Dalian facility was acquired from Intel’s NAND business in the second half of 2020. Although a groundbreaking ceremony for Plant 2’s expansion was held in 2022, equipment investments were subsequently paused due to market conditions. Investment has now been restarted. Industry insiders note that these arrangements aim to gradually expand advanced NAND capacity within China to meet the rapidly growing demand for high-end memory in areas such as AI servers.