Samsung Electronics has announced plans to invest US$7 billion in a semiconductor factory in China, that will focus on chips for mobile devices and music players, the company confirmed in a stock market filing.
The investment will be staged over several years, with an initial US$2.3 billion going on a factory in Xi'an, the capital of the Shaanxi province in central-northwest China. The site will start production of NAND memory chips from next year.
The Xi'an factory marks Samsung's largest investment in an overseas factory to date, and could be the largest single factory producing NAND chips when it goes on line.
The site also continues the Chinese government policy of encouraging new factories to be set up away from the coastal regions and further inshore.
Samsung has other semiconductor production facilities in South Korea and Texas, USA.