Samsung Foundry Contamination Leads to Millions in Losses
Contamination Affecting DRAM Production
While this just made the news over the weekend, apparently Samsung’s DRAM manufacturing issues happened “a few weeks ago” according to the report at ComputerBase (German), and have now been resolved.
The question at this point is simply how many of the 200mm wafers were defective. With losses estimated anywhere between $170 and $550 million USD it will be interesting to see what impact (if any) this might have on RAM prices in the near future.
"About the exact amount of damage is not known. Samsung acknowledged, according to media reports, a volume of "several billion South Korean won" . With a current exchange rate, in which 1 billion won correspond to 780,000 euros, but this is probably too low stacked. Insiders from the industry say that the damage is likely to be even higher, as Samsung has not yet fully estimated it, writes BusinessKorea . According to Samsung, the problems are now solved and production is back to plan. "
