Samsung Electronics Co has postponed taking deliveries of ASML Holding NV chipmaking equipment for its upcoming factory in Texas as it has yet to win any major customers for the project, three people familiar with the matter said.
Samsung has been also holding off on placing orders to some other suppliers for the US$17 billion factory in Taylor, prompting them to look for other customers and send staff deployed on site back home, three other people familiar with the matter said.
The delay in equipment deliveries is a fresh setback to the Taylor project, which is at the heart of Samsung chairman Jay Y. Lee’s ambition to expand beyond its bread-and-butter memory chips into contract chip manufacturing, which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) dominates.
Photo: AFP
ASML, the world’s biggest chipmaking equipment supplier, on Tuesday cut its sales forecast for this year, citing weakness in markets other than artificial intelligence and delayed fabs.
The Dutch company did not name clients who have delayed their fabs. Reuters is the first to report that Samsung has pushed back deliveries of some ASML equipment.
Two of the sources said the delayed shipments to Samsung’s Taylor factory involve ASML’s advanced chipmaking equipment called extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography.
One of them said the deliveries were scheduled earlier this year, but the machines have not been shipped yet. The third source said Samsung has pushed back delivery of some ASML equipment to the factory, without elaborating on the equipment or the revised delivery schedule.
EUV machines, which cost about US$200 million each, create design features on silicon wafers by using beams of light, and are widely used to manufacture advanced chips found in smartphones, electronic devices and AI servers.
Samsung in April said that production at the Taylor plant would begin in 2026 instead of this year.
Lee told Reuters earlier this month that the company was facing challenges on the factory.
Sources and analysts said there was a risk of further delays.
“Without new volume clients, even the 2026 timetable looks challenging... We see a possibility of a further delay and an asset write-off,” Macquarie analysts said in a report last month, adding that the fab could be “a stranded asset.”
BNK Investment & Securities analyst Lee Min-hee said that if Samsung does not place orders for other equipment by early next year, it could signal further delays, given the lead time required to start production.
The South Korean firm aims to complete construction of the building by early next year, a person familiar with the matter said.
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