Tuesday, 7 August 2007

Samsung To Boost Chip Production After Disruption

Samsung Electronics has said it will meet its monthly production target of semiconductor chips despite Friday's power outage, but it will take around 40 days to fully verify...

Samsung Electronics has said it will meet its monthly production target of semiconductor chips despite Friday's power outage, but it will take around 40 days to fully verify the quality of the affected products.

The world's largest memory chipmaker said that it will be able to catch up with its original production schedule within this month by increasing production volume and tightening its quality inspection procedure.

``Many people are concerned about the aftermath of the accident, but let me put it this way - the third-quarter earnings will tell it all,'' Hwang Chang-gyu, president of Samsung's semiconductor division, said. ``I am sure that the quarterly result will exceed the market's expectations. Our customers are showing full confidence in us, too.''

Four memory chip lines 7, 8, 9, 14 and two non-memory chip lines 6 and S, were halted for as long as 22 hours between Friday and Saturday as electricity went out at the factory complex in Giheung, Gyeonggi Province, due to an overheated transformer unit.

Samsung reacted swiftly to restore the power unit by Saturday noon. But it has to wait for weeks to check whether production has reached normal levels since semiconductor wafers stay on a line for about 40 days while being processed, it said.