Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Seoul, South Korea has signed a letter of intent with Texas Instruments Inc to invest in the Portuguese semiconductor assembly and test plant that was established by Texas in Porto way back in 1973. It was originally opened to assemble and test high-volume linear and general purpose logic integrated circuits but […]
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Seoul, South Korea has signed a letter of intent with Texas Instruments Inc to invest in the Portuguese semiconductor assembly and test plant that was established by Texas in Porto way back in 1973. It was originally opened to assemble and test high-volume linear and general purpose logic integrated circuits but the two will now raise capital and to upgrade capacity of the plant and convert it for assembling dynamic memory chips and advanced logic products. No financial details of the agreement were given. According to Reuter, Samsung is keen to have a plant within the European Community from which to ship its memory chips to customers in Europe. It is initially planning to assemble and test 1M and 4M parts, and is considering making 16Ms there later. It reckons that it is the world’s largest producer of the largely superseded 1M-bit parts, and the third-largest producer of 4Ms. The joint venture is expected to start production in the second half of next year.
