Samsung Electronics has announced last Wednesday that they are planning to double their NAND memory output capacity in china. The announcement, done at a groundbreaking ceremony in its Xi'an fabrication facility in inland Shaanxi Province, should see some $7 billion invested over the course of three years. With this investment in both facilities and machinery, Samsung expected production capacity to roughly double from current values to some 220,000, 300 mm 3-D flash memory wafers by 2020.

The motives for this increased Samsung investment in mainland China are being put forward as a way for the South Korean giant to temper relationships with China, one of its greatest importers of NAND memory. Further investment into China likely assuages the country's protectionist policies, since at least it receives something back from its import volume. By investing further into a second assembly line at its Xi'an fabrication facility, Samsung is also looking to reduce risk derived from over-condensed manufacturing facilities in South Korea.