DigiTimes is reporting plans from both Samsung and SK Hynix to slow down their fabrication capacity expansion plans for NAND and DRAM in wake of lower than expected demand projection for the first half of 2019. This move comes at a time where DRM pricing is still extremely prohibitive due to "higher demand than fabrication capacity output" - and we'd already seen the companies base their fabrication expansions on lower than expected demand increases, as a way to artificially keep pricing for the memory commodity high. NAND is another case - price per GB has been dropping like a rock. And now, the companies want to thwart expected lower demand with lower production values.

Samsung, for one, has reportedly put its plans for additional new production capacity for 1ynm DRAM chips at its fabs in Hwaseong and Pyeongtaek on hold. The chip vendor previously planned to build an additional 30,000 wafers monthly for DRAM memory starting the third quarter of 2018, the sources said - but is now looking to reduce that number to keep pricing from bottoming out. Sk Hynix is also reported to have slowed down its projected production, but details are scarcer on that side of the fence. All in all, it seems that whether there is demand or not, seeing DRAM prices falling to their previous levels is a dream in both name and, not paradoxically, reality.

TSMC's Board of Directors convened yesterday with the intention of defining the company's strategy for future developments and investment. The result was a commitment of $4.5B to investments ranging from construction of fab facilities; installation, expansion, and upgrade of advanced technology capacity; conversion of logic capacity to specialty technology capacity; conversion of mature technology capacity to specialty technology capacity; expansion and upgrade of specialty technology capacity; expansion of advanced packaging technology capacity; and fourth quarter 2018 R&D capital investments and sustaining capital expenditures. These values pale in comparison to Samsung's usual investment applications, of course; but let's not forget is an industry behemoth with more product lines and investment opportunities that TSMC's comparably "specific" domain of the market.

Samsung's management committee has reportedly convened this morning, February 7th, to officially approve an investment plan on a new semicondctor manufacturing facility. Reports say this new factory is expected to be built on Pyeongtaek, the same general location as Samsung's current Pyeongtaek Fab 1. The investment plan is being made with plans for the plant to start production of the "P2-Project" plant during the first half of 2019.

Giving credence to these industry reports is the fact that Samsung has already celebrate gas pipeline contracts with companies (such as Wonik Holdings), just last month, in preparation for this new fab construction. It's as of yet unclear what specific plan the company has for the new factory, though it will certainly inject extraordinary new amounts of volume to Samsung's various foundry businesses. With two years of construction since it broke ground in May, 2015, the original fabrication line at the Pyeongtaek campus is currently the largest single Fab in the industry; in the face of this, it seems that a "first half of 2019" starting date for semiconductor production at Samsung's new manufacturing facilities may be slightly optimistic. However, those plans start to sound a little more on the doable side if one considers these might actually be plans for an expansion of the current Pyeongtaek Fab 1 facilities, plans for which the company has already announced back in July 2017.

TSMC today held a groundbreaking ceremony for its Fab 18, Phase 1 facility at the Southern Taiwan Science Park. Led by Chairman Dr. Morris Chang, the event demonstrates TSMC's ongoing commitment to investing in Taiwan as well as to environmental sustainability, and marks another milestone in TSMC's 30-year history and its competitive advantage in technology leadership, manufacturing excellence, and customer trust. TSMC's Fab 18 will be its fourth 12-inch GigaFab in Taiwan and is scheduled for production of the advanced 5 nanometer process.

Following today's groundbreaking, the Company plans to complete construction of Phase 1 and begin equipment move-in in the first quarter of 2019, with volume production in early 2020. Phase 2 will start construction in third quarter 2018 and also enter volume production in 2020, while Phase 3 construction is scheduled for third quarter 2019 for volume production in 2021. Once all three phases enter production, the facility's estimated annual capacity will exceed one million 12-inch wafers, providing 4,000 high-quality jobs and becoming another bastion of TSMC's manufacturing excellence.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it is going ahead with a forward-looking plan for a new memory fabrication facility in Kitakami, Iwate prefecture. Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba, will establish a company to operate the facility, and invest approximately 7 billion yen in site preparation and initial construction work in FY2017. The new facility, announced on September 6, 2017, will produce BiCS Flash, TMC's proprietary flash memory. It will be TMC's seventh fab.