Samsung said faster-than-expected restoration would cap production losses at less than W40 billion (US$1=W923). That is fortunate, considering some earlier forecasts that restoration could take more than a month, while losses may surpass W500 billion. But the losses could become bigger than Samsung expects. That’s because the process of producing semiconductors is so sensitive that even a speck of dust can lead to defective products. And that’s why experts forecast it’s going to take some time before the rate of defects falls to pre-blackout levels.

The cause of the blackout was damage to switchboard equipment inside a transformer substation Samsung had built and operated on its own. There was reportedly nothing wrong with the supply of electricity by KEPCO. Something went wrong inside the plant. Samsung Electronics says it is still looking into the matter.

The Giheung plant can withstand earthquakes measuring 6 on the Richter scale and is equipped with various safety and emergency equipment including uninterruptible power supply. But the entire system was undone by a device as primitive as a fuse that burned out. There have been production stoppages in Taiwanese and Japanese semiconductor plants due to earthquakes. But a stoppage due to a blackout is unprecedented in the industry. Samsung may be smarting from the production losses, but it’s probably more stung by the shoddy operational procedures that came to light.

Samsung Electronics is the world’s largest memory chipmaker. News of the blackout drove NAND Flash chip prices up 7 percent. That’s why it is imperative that a company like Samsung Electronics gets to the bottom of the cause of the blackout and comes up with safety measures to ensure that such an accident does not happen again to tarnish the company’s reputation.