Samsung's cash burning chip factory is finally seeing better days

Samsung had invested billions in its foundry division but the chipmaking orders never came, at least not in the quantity that it may have hoped. This meant that the division burned enormous amounts of cash as the company hoped for a turnaround.

Things are finally looking up for Samsung Foundry. According to a new report, the utilization rates of its chipmaking factory hit 80% in the first quarter.

Samsung Foundry faced difficulties in securing orders from leading customers such as NVIDIA and Qualcomm, particularly on its advanced 3nm process technology. This particular process had several gremlins that Samsung couldn't quite work out before TSMC pulled in all of the orders.

This left the company with very few options. Reports suggested that the vast majority of production capacity was sitting idle and cost Samsung billions of dollars. The company ultimately decided to shut down 50% of production capacity to stop the bleeding.

A new report out of South Korea highlights that orders for leading-edge nodes have pushed utilization rates to 80% at the company's Pyeongtaek Campus P2 and P3 foundry lines. Samsung's newest HBM4 memory and Exynos 2600 chips have also inspired confidence in the foundry from major tech companies.

Samsung has already received major orders from several top companies, including Apple and Tesla, while many others are reportedly eyeing its 2nm process as well. This may work out very well for the division that has been in stormy seas for many quarters.