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SEOUL — Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. will shortly decide on whether to build a 300-mm fab in the United States, according to The Korea Herald. In the report, Hwang Chang-gyu, president of Samsung’s chip business, was quoted as saying that “there have been many demands” for a fab in the U.S. The South Korean company is especially scrambling to meet demand for its flash-memory devices at Apple Computer Inc. Samsung is supplying 16-gigabit NAND-based flash to Apple, based on a multi-level cell technology. Arizona, Oregon and Texas are among the states in the running for Samsung’s new and proposed semiconductor wafer fab, according to reports. Samsung has been offered an attractive package to expand in north Austin, Texas, where it owns 300 acres. The only Samsung fab in the U.S. is located in Austin, where it employs about 950 people (see August 29 story). Meanwhile, LSI Logic Corp. is working with city and state government agencies in Oregon to help lure South Korean electronics giant Samsung to the state, according to a report (see Sept. 23 story). Samsung broke ground Thursday (Sept. 29) on a second round of construction at its Hwaseong semiconductor facility in Korea. The building is part of a $33 billion seven-year plan that calls for an R&D facility and eight fabrication lines to be built there by 2012, Samsung said (see Sept. 29 story).
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