Samsung has decided to temporarily shut down its chip plant in Austin, Texas. There has been heavy snowfall in Austin from the past few days, therefore, Samsung ordered to shut down its chip plant completely while ceasing the production of chips. Moreover, such weather conditions can cause damage million dollars.
According to the recent reports, Texas has ordered to shut down the plant which not only impacted Samsung but also NXP Semiconductors and Infineon Semiconductors. Back in 2018, when a 30-minute power shutdown occurred, it destroyed almost 3% of the NAND chip’s global supply. Similarly, last month there was a power cut at Samsung’s Hwaseong chip plant and it took the company a lot of days to restore power and continue with the production of chips.
If the company would have not taken the decision to shut down the chip plant, it would have destroyed thousands of products which would have caused heavy financial losses to the company. Even after shutting down the plant, it is not easy for the company to deal with the existing chips under production. One small mistake can cause the company to discard the entire batch of chips in production.
Globally, there is a shortage of chips and amidst these crisis, the shutting down of the Samsung chip plant in the USA is not a piece of good news. The fabrication plant by Samsung in Austin was started back in 1996. The second fabrication plant was installed in 2007 and expanded in 2017. The restart date for chip production has not been officially announced by the company yet but we hope that the conditions get back to normal as soon as possible.