Samsung to invest $4B in US chip plant

SEOUL—South Korea’s Samsung Electronics said Tuesday it would invest about $4 billion in its US plant to increase production of system chips, used in smartphones, tablets and other electronics products.

The investment will be made by Samsung Austin Semiconductor in Texas, the company’s only semiconductor plant outside Korea.

It will be used to renovate existing operations to accommodate full System LSI (large system integration) production, Samsung said in a statement.

Such chips are used in all types of electronics products including smartphones and tablets.

Work will start this month and mass production is scheduled to start in the second half of next year.

“We are extremely pleased to extend our presence in Austin and reinforce Samsung’s capacity for highly advanced logic products,” Woosung Han, president of Samsung Austin Semiconductor, was quoted as saying.

The Korean firm said its spending would represent the largest single foreign investment ever made in Texas. The company’s total investment in Samsung Austin Semiconductor since 1996 would exceed $13 billion, it said.