Samsung Electronics is planning to set up a flash memory
chip plant in China. The cost of the proposed plan may be around $4 billion.

The plant, if approved, would be Samsung’s second overseas chip manufacturing
site and reflects the growing importance of Chinese market.

 

Samsung, the world’s top maker of memory chips and flat
screens, is also planning to build a flat-screen production base in China.

 

The new line will enable Samsung to meet fast growing demand from its customers
and at the same time strengthen its overall competitiveness in the memory
industry. The company said it hoped to have the new line operating by 2013,
according to a report in Times of India.

The global NAND memory chip market is seen growing 20 per cent next year to $26
billion, according to chip price tracker DRAMeXchange.

 

China is expected to overtake the United States as the top market for
electronics products with its income levels growing.

 

Samsung, whose flash chips are used in Apple’s iPhone and iPad tablet, said it
had yet to decide the exact amount of investment or a site for the plant.

 

The move is widely seen aimed at catering to Chinese manufacturers such as
Huawei and ZTE, which have been steadily raising their global smartphone and
tablet market share.

 

Samsung is aggressively boosting production of flash
chips. In September, it started mass production at a new $10 billion chip line
in South Korea.

 

Samsung had filed an application for the foreign production base with the South
Korean government, which requires firms to make such requests for fear of
leakages of the country’s prized high technology.

 

Samsung is the world’s biggest NAND flash memory maker with around 40 per cent
of the market. It competes with Japan’s Toshiba Corp, Hynix Semiconductor Inc
of Korea and Micron Technology Inc of the United States.

 

Samsung’s sole foreign chip plant in Austin, Texas, has also raised production
to full capacity ahead of schedule for logic semiconductors, such as the
processing chips used to power mobile devices, after a $3.6 billion investment.

 

By Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]