Samsung head predicts rosy years for the firm

Hwang Chang-gyu, president of Samsung Electronics, boasted that the company would see its greatest performance in the semiconductor sector in the second half of this year, thanks to the development of its new chip. At a press conference held yesterday at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul, Mr. Hwang emphasized that the charge trap flash, or CTF, chip was “next-next generation” semiconductor technology. “CTF can solve problems in semiconductor development that involve increasing capacity and performance while making the chip more minute. This is the foundation for entering the tera-bit [1,000-gigabit] age after 2010,” he said. “Above all, with this technology, we can produce NAND flash chips in mass quantities at low prices. We expect the flash memory industry to grow even further.” Mr. Hwang said that Samsung’s semiconductor division was different from its competitors in terms of its investment in facilities and in research and development. “This year, we spent 2.8 trillion won ($2.9 billion) on semiconductor research and development. For CTF technology, we started developing it five years ago and created a separate developing team three years ago. We have 30 to 40 of these development teams, so imagine what kind of developments we will be coming up with in five to 10 years,” he said. Mr. Hwang predicted that the supply of NAND flash chips would see a temporary excess at the end of the first quarter of 2007, but that the market would stabilize when new products start being released. He also had rosy predictions for the DRAM and graphic DDR DRAM markets, saying they were diversifying and could lead to a supply shortage. “Even now, Samsung is only able to meet 70 percent of the demand. Prices will be good until 2009,” he said. “Samsung currently occupies 50 to 60 percent of the graphic DDR market and will provide 100 percent of the chips that go into Nintendo game players,” he said. by Wohn Dong-hee