Samsung is planning to invest $1.7bn to expand its operations in Kunshan, China.

Samsung, which is the second largest semiconductor vendor behind Intel, has been expanding its operations in mainland China in order to meet demand for its own products and those of its customers, which still include Apple. Now Zinhua is reporting that Samsung will invest $1.7bn to expand and kit out its plant in Kunshan.

According to the Chinese newspaper, Samsung will use its capital to build new workshops, buy equipment and set up research operations that will be run by Samsung Electronics Mechanics. The firm reportedly is going to use the facilities to support a chip carrier project. Chip carrier is the term given to technology used to mount chips onto circuit boards.

Samsung is reported to have over 250 supplier factories in China and it is no surprise that the firm is expanding its own operations in the country. The firm opened its Kunshan plant back in 2008 and since then has enjoyed success in the consumer electronics market, thanks in no small part to its smartphone range.

While Samsung is now known for its ARM system-on-chip (SoC) processors, the Korean firm is still the world's largest DRAM memory maker and a big player in the NAND flash data storage market.