Samsung-ASML research center to be located in Dongtan

Samsung Electronics and ASML will open a one trillion won ($762 million) research center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi, where Samsung's chip cluster is being planned.

Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong arrives in Korea from the Netherlands at Seoul Gimpo Business Aviation Center in western Seoul on Friday. [YONHAP]

Samsung Electronics and ASML will open a one trillion won ($762 million) research center in the Dongtan area in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi, where Samsung's new chip cluster is being planned.

Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and CEO Kyung Kye-hyun detailed the plan on Friday as they arrived in Korea after a visit to the Netherlands with President Yoon Suk Yeol and other business leaders.

Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong, third from left, and CEO Kyung Kye-hyun, second from left, arrive in Korea from the Netherlands at Seoul Gimpo Business Aviation Center in western Seoul on Friday. [YONHAP]

"We will build a joint research center in Dongtan, Gyeonggi, where engineers from ASML and Samsung will work together for technological development using High-NA lithography machines," Kyung told reporters at Gimpo Business Aviation Center. A High-numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet lithography or High NA EUV system is a chip manufacturing process designed to develop and produce chips at nodes smaller than 2 nanometers.

"[The project] will put Samsung in a preferential position to secure the High NA EUV technology," Kyung said.

Speaking about his achievements from the trip, Lee said, "Semiconductors account for 90 percent."

The research center project was announced Tuesday as Yoon made a tour of the clean room at the headquarters of ASML in Veldhoven, Netherlands, along with Lee and SK Chairman Chey Tae-won.

Samsung Electronics is planning to establish a megasized chip cluster spanning the Dongtan area in Hwaseong and other neighborhoods in Yongin, Gyeonggi, with a 300 trillion won investment announced in March. The company will inject the funds into the site by 2042.

A 7.1-million-square-meter (76.4-million-square-foot) site dubbed the Korea Silicon Hills will host five chip fabrication plants and 150 suppliers of parts and materials to manufacture a wide range of processors powering computers, cars and appliances.

If the project goes as planned, the Yongin complex will be the world's largest semiconductor manufacturing site in terms of production capacity, according to the chipmaker, the Industry Ministry and the Land Ministry.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]