Samsung Electronics has announced that its new memory semiconductor fabrication facility, Line-16, at its Nano City Complex in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, has commenced operations.

The company claimed it is the industry's largest memory fabrication facility, which occupies 198,000 square meters of land.

Samsung began construction of Line-16 in May 2010, and completed installation of equipment for cleanrooms a year later. The new facility started trial production in June 2011, according to the company.

While celebrating the opening of the new facility, Samsung also remarked that mass production of its 20nm-class made 2Gb DDR3 memory has kicked off.

Samsung said it plans to build 4Gb chips using the newer 20nm-class process by the end of 2011, and will broaden its memory product lineup with mass production of 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB DDR3 modules in 2012.

In addition, Samsung revealed that starting September, it started to produce 20nm-class NAND flash memory chips with a projected volume of more than 10,000 12-inch wafers monthly. The company will also begin production of chips using 10nm-class process technology in 2012.

Samsung previously said that Line-16 would be capable of processing 200,000 12-inch wafers a month. The facility will house production lines for DRAM, NAND and next-generation memory products.

Source:digitimes