Samsung has revealed plans to invest nine trillion won in the memory-chip business, compared with an earlier budget of 5.5 trillion won. Spending on LCDs will rise to five trillion won from three trillion won, it said.

Market speculation on the size of the investment has grown since the South Korean firm said two weeks ago that its chip unit would sharply raise capital spending for 2010, with some media reports penciling in a record 20 trillion won (US$17.7 billion).

GlobalFoundries, Samsung and TSMC appear to be engaged in a new capital spending race in an effort to gain share in current and future cycles. They will survive, observers said, adding that UMC and SMIC could hit the wall and/or may get acquired.

Abu Dhabi-backed foundry Globalfoundries is planning to spend US$2.5 billion to increase its 300mm wafer manufacturing capacity by 50% in 2010, according to Udo Nothelfer, company VP and general manager of Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany.

Hynix Semiconductor has said it would invest 465 billion won (US$410 million) to expand and upgrade its production capacity and research and development.

MoneyToday, citing unnamed industry sources, said that Samsung was expected to set this year's capital expenditure for the semiconductor business at about 7 trillion won (US$6.1 billion). The Korean vendor is also planning a new chip production line in its domestic plant, marking the first time in years that it would add a line.

"Our goal is to pay back a significant amount of debt while at the same time being able to invest in what we require," said company CEO Kim Jong Kap. "2010 will be a good year for the memory chip industry and the possibility of oversupply seems low."

"Samsung Group will invest 26.5 trillion won (US$23.61 billion) and Samsung Electronics will spend 18.4 trillion won," said the official who declined to be identified.

Hynix Semiconductor has revised upward its capex budget for 2010 to 2.3 trillion won (US$1.95 billion), according to its company filing with the Korea Exchange. In October, it set a goal of more than 1.5 trillion won.

Hynix Semiconductor plans to invest about 2.3 trillion won (about US$2 billion) in its semiconductor business – 1.5 trillion won in DRAM and 800 billion won in NAND flash memory and logic – in 2010, a 130% jump from one trillion won this year.

Japan's economy in third-quarter 2009 grew sharply less than initial estimates as cautious companies decided to save, not spend.

Samsung Electronics has set its 2010 capital expenditure at 8.5 trillion won (US$7.4 billion), up from this year's planned seven trillion won, the Maeil Business Newspaper reported in its early Thursday edition.

"Even if Taiwanese and Japanese players ramp up production, the possibility of oversupply is slim as worries over a double-dip in the global economy are easing," says chief executive of Hynix Semiconductor. Sources estimated Hynix' capex for 2010 will double to 2 trillion won.

"Despite positive earnings pre-announcements, the overall tone from companies remains relatively muted and cautious," said Doug Freedman, an analyst for Broadpoint AmTech.

Toshiba has slashed a forecast for operating profit and sales next fiscal year made before the global recession drove the company to post its first net loss in seven years. It will also cut capital spending to 1.1 trillion yen for 2009 to 2011, from 1.64 trillion yen in the preceding three-year period.

Samsung plans to spend 70% of its total chip investment projected in the second half to sharpen the next DRAM chips, while Hynix will also use a great portion of its investment budget for the chips.

Robert Rivet, AMD's CFO said in a conference call that capex for subsidiary Globalfoundries would be trimmed to US$690 million.

Samsung Electronics said it will press ahead with its research and development effort. The world's biggest producer of DRAM chips is to spend some US$2 billion on chips R&D for 2009.

The market for TFT-LCD equipment may have grown 30% in 2008, but it is expected to drop 41% in 2009, according to The Information Network.

A combination of 200mm fab closures and slowing capacity expansions at existing 300mm fabs is expected to result in a NAND flash capital expenditure decline of 58.9% in 2009, according to DRAMeXchange. In 2008, NAND flash capex declined 27.7%.

Singapore's chip-packaging and testing firm STATS ChipPAC has said that it will not proceed with an exercise to reduce its capital because it was unable to obtain debt financing amid the financial turmoil.

A slowdown in technology node migrations at the major DRAM producers is adding to the expected capital expenditure cuts manufacturing as companies struggle to combat increasing losses and preserve cash, according to the latest report from DRAMeXchange. The spending cuts are a direct result of the combined DRAM industry losing approximately US$8 billion in 2008.

Samsung Electronics denied a report saying it may cut its 2009 investment in semiconductors by more than half from last year amid a lingering downturn. "At this point, we have not made any decisions on our investment plan, and even if we had a plan it would be contingent on different economic scenarios that will be possible during this year," Chu-Woo-sik, Samsung's executive vice president of investor relations, told Reuters.

Chu Woo-sik, the Korean electronics giant's executive vice president in charge of investor relations, said at an investor conference that capital expenditures will drop from about 10 trillion won (US$6.91 billion) expected this year to a range of 7 trillion won (US$4.84 billion) to 8 trillion won (US$5.53 billion) next year.

Market research group Gartner has lowered its forecast for semiconductor equipment manufacturing gear sales in 2009, just weeks after a previous downgrade.