Samsung’s smartphone business may be in a bit of disarray, but that doesn’t mean it can’t find success in other areas of the mobile world. In fact, it seems as though the company is betting its chips on, well, chips.
The company recently made a statement, saying that it would be investing more than $1 billion in its processor business by the end of 2017. Most of that investment money will be going toward the production of chips at its Austin, Texas, facilities.
The move makes sense. While the company is best known to the public as a manufacturer of smartphones, televisions, and so on, it also builds a lot of the internal components of those products, unlike some other companies. Its processor business in particular has grown over the past few years, and many of its phones do away with the industry standard Qualcomm Snapdragon chips in favor of Samsung’s own Exynos processors.
“We are committed to Austin and our contributions to the community,” said Catherine Morse, general counsel and senior director of public affairs at Samsung Austin Semiconductor. “This is our home, and we want to ensure our community is healthy and prospering. These investments will support this, while also ensuring our customers’ growing needs are met.”
Samsung isn’t the only chipmaker dedicating increasing resources into processors and chipmaking, especially for internet-of-things devices, which are expected to ship in the billions of units by 2020.
The news is also notable because of the location. While most of Samsung’s processor efforts are based in South Korea, it opened up a plant in Austin in 2007. Initially, that plant was opened for the creation of NAND flash chips, but it now looks like it will increasingly focus on processors as well.
