Samsung resumes chip production, minifies losses

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 4th 2007 at 3:01AM

Merely hours after Samsung was staring at "at least" $54 million in losses from an unexpected power outage at its Giheung complex, the firm is now reporting that the half dozen production lines are "fully operational." Moreover, the outfit is now projecting losses to peak at around $43 million, which actually doesn't sound too horrific compared to prior estimates. It was noted, however, that the disruption could extend a shortage of NAND flash memory through "at least the first half of August," and reports are already claiming that prices of select NAND chips have risen "6.3-percent to a record $19.02."

Filed under: Storage

Tags: flash memory, FlashMemory, power outage, PowerOutage, price, prices, pricing, samsung, shortage, supply, supply chain, SupplyChain

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Jkl @ Aug 4th 2007 3:54AM

Wow, I didn't even know "minify" was an actual word. Sounds like something right out of a final fantasy game.

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VikoRasmussen @ Aug 4th 2007 8:31AM

I wondered about that too.

Just read about the simpsons word "embiggen", and how it has come to "common" use. Maybe Eangadjout is trying the same thing?

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Crayola @ Aug 4th 2007 5:14AM

Me too! We want the $54 billion truth! Where's money, show me the money!

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Chris @ Aug 4th 2007 10:11AM

I am sure Samsung's insurance will cover a healthy portion of that.

Neutral

CapWKidd @ Aug 4th 2007 11:14AM

Ok, someone explain to me how they could loose so much money is so little time? Lets see the math! This is just a BS excuse to raise prices because they have been dropping... like how gas prices start to drop, then something will happen to cause them to rise....

Neutral

Povl @ Aug 5th 2007 1:28AM

A price hike is great news for Apple, as they have long term contracts. This will hit competitors, helping Apple further

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CobraRob @ Aug 4th 2007 1:53PM

What I explained in the first post..

As people have stated yes its 54 Million USD..

Second they consume WAY too much power and Samsung is very integrated with the Korean Govt so there is no need to build thier own power. They do have their own substations but if the main grid goes dark they are screwed.

There is PLENTY of backup power but that is not ment to sustain fab production.

a LARGE part of the cost is not necessarly product lost but cost of consumables on the equipment. Going to some EXTREAMLY unhappy techs this weekend.. TONs of wetcleans. Any kind of dep or etch tool is going down for a wetclean now.

Its not as simple as hitting start when the power comes back I figure it will take ATLEAST a week before most of the tools are back online and qualified for production. There will be some tools that most definatly have particle problems that will take much longer to qualify.

The product in loop will for the most part be scrapped or at best case have to be reworked some which is a labor and time intensive process.

The facility is not designed to cope with every tool needing a wetclean and consumables replaced at the same time either so that further complicates things.

I fully anticipate alot of robot errors as well when then tools come back up.. NOT a fun or cheap issue.

And yes Samsung does have a rediclious amount of capacity so loosing that many wafer starts will be a big financial hit.

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gshb @ Aug 4th 2007 4:46PM

i dont know what kind of tools youre talking about, but simply pulling the plug doesnt mean all the robots go crazy. but yah, having those wafers sit in the chambers and on platens doing nothing will create a lot of problems. i cant imagine how many new membranes will have to be installed and how many chambers have to be purged and cleaned. glad im not a tech LOL!

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