Samsung has filed a plan to build the next plants at its Pyeongtaek campus as a three-story fab, a design shift that could add 50 percent more clean-room space at a site already billed as the world’s largest semiconductor factory.
The amendment, submitted this week, raises the allowed floor-area ratio from 350 percent to as much as 490 percent, the ceiling Korea set for high-tech industrial complexes in 2023. P5 plants 1 and 2 would become a triple-fab housing up to six clean rooms, compared with four in the current double-fab design.
Construction on P5 began in 2022 and targets completion in 2030, with as many as 50,000 workers on site during peak building periods. The nearby P4 plant, which recently came online, uses the two-story layout Samsung now plans to leave behind.
Going vertical lets Samsung add capacity where land, power and water are scarce. Counterpoint projects the global memory market will roughly quadruple this year as AI demand outpaces supply.
