Samsung selects China’s Xi’an as site for NAND flash factory

Samsung Electronics on Wednesday chose Xi’an, the capital of China’s Shaanxi Province, as its preferred city for building a next-generation NAND flash manufacturing factory in China.

The world’s No. 1 memory chip maker said it will embark on working-level discussions with Xi’an city government officials in signing a memorandum of understanding for the project.

If the deal is successfully completed, the China-based factory will be Samsung’s second overseas semiconductor manufacturing line. The first factory was built in 1996 in Austin, Texas.

Samsung in December sought the Ministry of Knowledge Economy’s approval for its plan to build the manufacturing line, and received the green light in January.

The Korean tech titan plans to begin construction of the factory within this year as soon as it completes the working-level discussions and obtains final approval from the Chinese government.

It wants to start running the factory as early as the end of next year, the company said.