Samsung Electronics said it will spend about $4 billion renovating its chip factory in Austin, Texas. The plant is where Samsung produces system chips, which are used in smartphones and tablets.
The investment in the Austin factory comes on top of a $1.98 billion investment that Samsung announced in June in which the firm will build a new logic chip plant in South Korea and convert two memory chip lines into logic chip production to meet growing demand for chips from mobile device makers.
Samsung is shifting away from memory chips used in personal computers to logic chips, which are more complex yet more lucrative because of their importance to mobile devices. As the exclusive manufacturer of chips for Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone and iPad, Samsung has benefitted from the popularity of those devices as well as its own Galaxy phones.
Samsung has been steadily investing in the company's component business. Last month the company agreed to buy the wireless unit of British chipmaker CSR for $310 million.
As part of the deal, Samsung will get CSR's Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth units along with 310 employees. Samsung will also pay $34.4 million to take a 4.9 percent stake in CSR.
For more:
- see this Reuters article
- see this Bloomberg article
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