Yesterday, a Samsung manufacturing facility located in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, had to halt all operations for 2 to 3 days to restore production processes. The reason behind this incident was due to a sudden power outage lasting 1 minute, caused by the aftermath of an electrical cable explosion at a nearby substation.
This Samsung factory is responsible for producing RAM components and memory chips for SSDs. The South Korean media was subsequently informed that no significant damage was found. However, the entire production line is under strict investigation to ensure it can be ready to operate again by this weekend without causing any unforeseen incidents.
The most significant damage from this “power outage” incident at the Hwaseong factory is that all the wafers (a thin slice of silicon) used to manufacture memory chips will no longer be usable. Any damage, whether minor or major, renders the affected wafers useless and unrecoverable. Therefore, even though the power outage lasted only 1 minute, Samsung could face heavy losses.
Currently, no specific information has been released regarding the extent of the losses. Last year, a Samsung factory in Pyeongtaek also experienced a power outage lasting 30 minutes, resulting in losses of around 50 billion won, equivalent to about 43 million USD.
However, the prices of RAM and SSDs in 2018 were significantly higher than the average prices in 2019, so the total actual losses for the Hwaseong factory may be much lower than the Pyeongtaek factory incident last year.