Samsung Electronics Company may delay the start of construction of a new factory Line-17 in their homeland, the launch of mass chips production which was scheduled for the first quarter 2014. Every month the company could produce up to 80,000 wafer size of 300 mm using 20-nm and 14-nm technology. It was originally planned that the construction of Line-17 will be completed by the end of 2013.
However, concerns about the decline of orders from Apple now forced Samsung to think about slowing down the pace of construction of new production facilities. Already in early 2013, TSMC will begin to explore production of 20-nanometer chips, and Apple may continue to switch to the services of this company to issue its own processors.
Construction of Line-17 would cost Samsung $ 3,7-5,5 billion. This entity should be the third for Samsung, focused on the production of chips for smartphones and other mobile devices. Of course, Apple world is large enough, but having a growing number of orders enabled Samsung to confidently build capacity. After consultation with customers building of Line-17 can start on time. Let's not forget that Samsung itself is a major manufacturer of smartphones, whose products are consistently increasing demand. Samsung processor also declared inside tablet Google Nexus 10. Consequently, the new factory is unlikely to be idle even if Apple will switch to TSMC.