Austin, Texas Named New Home for Samsung Electronics

Austin, Texas - Today, Governor George W. Bush and Samsung Electronics formally announced that it has selected a site near Austin, Texas, for its first U.S. semiconductor manufacturing facility. The US$ 1.3 billion semiconductor facility, considered the largest single Korean investment in the United States, will be constructed in Travis County and will create approximately 1000 new high-tech jobs. 'The Austin area was chosen because of its many strengths, including a highly educated and experienced local work force, an outstanding semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure, efficient operating costs, and the especially impressive support and welcome from the Governor's office and local community,' said Y.W. Lee, President and CEO of Semiconductor Business, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. 'We are looking forward to working with the people of Travis County to build a solid business relationship and establish Samsung as a good corporate citizen and a vital and active member of the community.' Samsung expects to recruit primarily local and state employees to staff the new facility in Austin. They intend to implement special training and educational programs for new hires that will utilize local institutions and range in duration from 3 months to 1 year. Historical data based on employment patterns at the locations of other U.S. semiconductor facilities indicate that at least one other job will be created in the local economy for every employee Samsung hires. 'We are proud to be the winner of Samsung's long search for a perfect home for their new state-of-the-art semiconductor facility,' said Texas Governor George W. Bush. 'The new Samsung plant will benefit Travis County and all of Texas by stimulating the growth of existing and new businesses, and that means more than 2,000 new jobs in the state of Texas.' The decision to build near Austin was reached after the completion of a one year process thatn included an exhaustive survey conducted by a professional site search firm and through evaluation of many potential locations. A formal announcement was originally scheduled for 27 September 1995, however, Samsung postponed the press conference in order to finalize internal procedures prior to an announcement. 'Although many communities would have made a fine home for our new facility, we were chartered with determining the one site that best met the mix of favorable selection criterion,' noted Mr. Y. W. Lee. 'We certainly appreciate the time, effort, and professional level of cooperation that every community we considered put into assisting us with our evaluation process.' Samsung will retain a local design and engineering firm to ensure that its new facility fully complies with all local construction codes and regulations, and will start negotiations with local construction companies with the goal of selecting contractors by the end of February 1996. Samsung plans to break ground during the first quarter of 1996, complete construction by the second quarter of 1997, and begin production during the fourth quarter of 1997. 'Our new U.S. facility will be equipped with the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment available,' said Mr. Y. W. Lee. 'As we go forward, we plan to upgrade the plant on a regular basis so that we can maintain the ability to serve the U.S. market with our industry-leading process technology.' Regarding the future expansion of the manufacturing capacity, Mr. Y. W. Lee said, 'Even though it is pre-mature to say, we have a long-term plan to build several manufacturing facilities in Austin. But it will be dependent upon market situation and the successful operation of the initial operations.' Samsung will use the facility to produce advanced semiconductor products, including 16 an 64-megabit Dynamic Random Access Memories (DRAMs). The market for memory prroducts is currently expanding at an unprecedented rate, fueled by both the growth of the computer industry and the increasing popularity of memory-intensive applications such as high-end graphics and multimedia. Samsung's new plant will utilize .35 to .3 micron technology with 8-inch wafers in a Class 1 clean room. Recently, Samsung completed the prototype circuit design for the world's first 1-gigabit Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM) chip, considered the next major breakthrough in the semiconductor industry. The completion of the semiconductor fabrication facility will be a major step in Samsung's Globalization Plan, which calls for establishing manufacturing resources in the markets Samsung serves.