According to reports from the Korean financial industry and Samsung Group on the 18th, Lee Jae-yong had left the day before yesterday. This is due to the fact that the governments of South Korea and China have established a fast-track channel for important business personnel from this month, and entrepreneurs who test negative for the new crown virus are exempted from 14-day quarantine measures.

It is mentioned in the report that Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong will inspect the Xi’an semiconductor factory on May 18 and restart global business activities after being dormant for four months under the epidemic.

The Xi’an factory is Samsung’s only semiconductor memory production base overseas. Samsung is still expanding its second semiconductor factory as scheduled under the epidemic. Li Zaiyong’s visit to China despite the epidemic seems to reflect his determination to realize the semiconductor development blueprint “Semiconductor Vision 2030” released in April last year.

Samsung plans to invest 8 billion US dollars in flash memory chips in Xi’an to promote the production of NAND flash memory chips. It is reported that the factory can process 120,000 wafers per month. After the expansion, it will start processing 130,000 wafers per month.

The Samsung Phase II project has a total investment of US$15 billion and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2021. Previously, the company also invested $10.8 billion in a testing and packaging plant in Xi’an, the first phase of Samsung’s Xi’an flash memory chip project.

Currently, Samsung produces 3D NAND in three locations: Hwaseong and Pyeongtaek in South Korea and Xi’an in China. The company has been producing NAND chips at its factory in Xi’an since 2014. Recently, the company added a second production line at its plant in Pyeongtaek, which is expected to start production next year.

Some analysts said that in order to combat domestic independent memory, Samsung is increasing investment to ensure sufficient innovation. In September this year, Yangtze Memory Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Tsinghua Unigroup, announced that it has begun mass production of 64-layer 256 Gb TLC 3D NAND flash memory based on the Xtacking architecture to meet the needs of mainstream market applications such as solid-state drives and embedded storage.