Samsung Electronics is reportedly planning a new 2nm and 4nm foundry fab on its Giheung campus in South Korea, a project codenamed Kairos that is meant to expand output of the logic chips at the base of high-bandwidth memory. The plan comes from a 4 November report in Seoul Economic Daily citing industry sources. Samsung has not confirmed it.
What the report says
Seoul Economic Daily reports that Samsung has finished demolishing the former SR5 research institute and CDI engineering college buildings at Giheung to clear the site, and that the Kairos fab will make chips on 2nm and 4nm-class processes. It describes a plan for four production phases, similar to Samsung's new Pyeongtaek plant, with Samsung E&A handling engineering, procurement and construction.
The newspaper puts the cost at about 25 trillion won, with several dozen extreme ultraviolet lithography machines accounting for an estimated 8 to 10 trillion won of that. It adds that observers say converting part of Giheung's Line 6 into an advanced packaging facility for HBM could lift the total to about 30 trillion won. East Asia Brief converts the 25 trillion won estimate to about $18.7 billion. All of these figures are estimates from unnamed sources. The report gives no completion date and no capacity numbers, and the EUV figure reflects internal purchase quotes rather than confirmed orders.
Samsung has not said how the project would be financed or when the first chips could come off the line, and the report does not say whether the 2nm line is an immediate target or a later option.
The one part that is on the record
Samsung E&A did file a related disclosure last week. Seoul Economic Daily reported on 29 October that the company won a 407.1 billion won construction contract from Samsung Electronics for a "Kairos complex building, green building and substation construction project" at Giheung. The original contract was signed on 14 September, and an amendment on 28 October pushed the value over the threshold that triggers a public filing. The contract runs to 31 December 2028, and Samsung E&A said the period and value could change.
That filing confirms that a Kairos project exists at Giheung and that building work has been contracted. It does not say the site will house a chip fab, what processes it will run or how much Samsung will spend in total. The fab details, the 2nm and 4nm nodes and the 25 trillion won price tag all rest on the newspaper's sources. East Asia Brief says tool deliveries are expected in the first half of 2029, but that outlet rates its own account as medium confidence and Samsung has published nothing to support the timeline.
Why HBM base dies matter
High-bandwidth memory is stacked DRAM that sits next to AI accelerators, and each stack sits on a logic chip called a base die. According to the report, Samsung currently makes HBM4 base dies on a 4nm process at only some lines in Hwaseong and Pyeongtaek, while the memory core dies are produced separately. A dedicated fab would let base-die output keep pace with core-die production. The report adds that HBM4E is slated for mass production next year and that the next-generation HBM5 base die may use 2nm.
Demand is the driver for the whole effort. The industry expects Samsung's HBM bit supply to grow about 52 percent a year on average through 2028, according to the same report. Moving Giheung from mature processes to leading-edge production would also reuse an existing campus, which can shorten the delays that come with new power and permitting work.
Why it matters beyond Korea
Memory has become the choke point for much of consumer electronics. Chip designers such as Qualcomm and device makers such as Apple have warned in recent weeks that memory costs are squeezing margins, and phone makers in India, including Lava, have announced price rises. Samsung's HBM expansion shows where manufacturing capacity is heading, with AI memory taking priority over the chips that go into phones and PCs. A new fab would not ease that for years, given the 2028 contract date and the lead time for EUV tools.
What to watch next
Watch for any Samsung confirmation of Kairos, including a formal investment announcement or a regulatory filing that names the fab and its processes. Further filings from Samsung E&A and equipment orders for EUV machines would show whether the plan is moving ahead. Samsung's own comments on HBM4E and HBM5 timing, expected as customers qualify those parts, will indicate how soon the base-die capacity is needed.
Published 6 November 2026. Gadgets365 will update this article as more information becomes available.
