Last week, we reported on the possibility that Samsung Foundry workers would go on an 18-day strike to protest their demands for proper compensation, given how Samsung is reaping windfall profits from producing DRAM memory chips for use in AI data centers.
The strike is set to begin on May 21st, and in preparation for the incident, Samsung Foundry has begun the process of reducing DRAM chip production at its factories in South Korea.
It is reported that 43,286 Samsung Foundry workers will join the strike, which is almost half of the company’s semiconductor manufacturing workforce. This is a big issue for Samsung Foundry because even though they have their own automation processes, most of the machines that need to operate to produce DRAM chips still need to be operated by humans.
Making matters worse for Samsung is that memory production operations are something that needs to happen around the clock, and shutting down a large part of this production process will leave them unable to meet demand from the AI sector which currently consumes almost all of their DRAM module output.
In fact, for Samsung Foundry, it will take about two to three weeks before their DRAM production plant will be fully operational again, and together with the strike period, they will not be able to produce DRAM components at full capacity for about six weeks. This is expected to cause Samsung a loss of 1 trillion Won.
