Samsung foundry utilization has climbed to an impressive 80% this quarter after many years of struggling to achieve a good utilization rate, narrowing the gap with competitors such as TSMC that have led adoption of newer nodes and built a larger customer base. The foundries are now operating at about 80% of total capacity and are consistently producing silicon, with the Pyeongtaek Campus P2 and P3 fabs highlighted as key contributors to the recovery.
The turnaround follows a period when these production lines were only achieving a 50% booking rate last year and even struggled with insufficient production volume in the second half of 2024. Samsung uses the Pyeongtaek facilities to manufacture 4 nm, 5 nm, and 7 nm process nodes, which are now classed as mature technologies as the industry’s leading edge moves to sub-3 nm production. Higher utilization on these nodes signals stronger, more stable demand for non-leading-edge capacity.
A major factor in the foundry revival is strong demand for Samsung’s 6th-generation HBM, which arrives as HBM4 with a custom base die built on the 4 nm node. While rival manufacturers are producing HBM4 base dies on older nodes, Samsung is deploying a 4 nm custom base die that provides higher design density for any logic that ASIC makers want to implement, including data processing blocks that support main accelerators in Artificial Intelligence workloads. This differentiated HBM4 approach has driven high demand for Samsung foundry products from external customers, who are now keeping production at high capacity.
