Samsung Elec to invest more than $1 bln in U.S. chip production

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Tuesday it planned to invest more than $1 billion by the end of June 2017 to boost production of system chips at its Austin, Texas, facilities in the United States to meet growing demand.

The South Korean firm, the world's second-largest chipmaker behind Intel Corp, said in a statement its investment would boost output of chips for mobile and other electronics devices from its existing facilities in the city.

The investment comes after Samsung said last week its capital expenditure for 2016 would rise to a record 27 trillion won ($24 billion), with 13.2 trillion won earmarked for its semiconductor business.

While most of Samsung's semiconductor profits come from memory chip sales, it has been trying to boost earnings from other products including its own Exynos mobile processors and contract manufacturing deals with clients such as Qualcomm Inc and Nvidia Corp.Samsung did not give further details for its investment plans in Austin, such as how much production capacity would be added.

($1 = 1,141.6600 won)

(Reporting by Se Young Lee; Editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter)