DS Techopia is planning to expand its production capacity for hexachlorodisilane (HCDS), a precursor used in the production of NAND flash memory chips, by up to 50% during the third quarter.
The company said it was doing so as its customers such as Samsung are expanding their overall NAND flash production volume while at the same time applying more advanced processes such as 3D layers.
HCDS is used to form the silicon oxide (SiO2) and silicon nitride (SiN) layers on the silicon wafers.
The material is considered more stable and pure than other materials and is widely used in low-temperature deposition processes in the production of DRAM and NAND flash memory chips.
DS Techopia currently operates two factories for the production of HCDS and is planning to add a third, which started production mid-year in 2021.
The third factory is slightly larger than its two predecessors and the company could produce up to 90 billion won worth of HCDS a year when all three factories run at full capacity, a company spokesperson said.
NAND flash prices are rising again as vendors Kioxia and Western Digital saw production problems due to contamination of raw materials during the second quarter.
Meanwhile, Samsung had completed the expansion of its second factory in Xi’an, China, which has a capacity of 130,000 12-inch wafers per month.
This is larger than the capacity of the first factory in Xi’an which is 120,000 12-inch wafers per month.
Samsung’s new factory in South Korea, called P3, is also expected to manufacture 176-layer NAND flash memory chips when it starts operation during the second half of the year.
