Samsung considers four sites in U.S. for $17 billion chip plant: documents

By Joyce Lee

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is considering two sites in Arizona and another one in New York in addition to Austin, Texas, for a new $17 billion chip plant, according to documents filed with Texas state officials.

The documents dated Feb. 26 also estimated tax abatements concerning the plant will be about $1.48 billion over 20 years from Travis County in Texas and the city of Austin, up from the $805.5 million previously mentioned.

Samsung is in talks with the sites at Arizona and New York, with each offering property tax abatement and "significant grants and/or refundable tax credits" to fund infrastructure improvements, the documents said.

The new plant Samsung plans to build would produce "advanced logic devices" for Samsung's chip contract manufacturing business, and could create 1,800 jobs, according to previous documents filed with Texas state officials.

Samsung already has a chip plant in Austin, which due to shutdowns caused by a winter storm last month is expected to need some weeks to resume production.

Samsung's U.S. customers for its contract manufacturing chip business include Tesla Inc, Qualcomm Inc and Nvidia.

Samsung is considering a number of possibilities in terms of expansion, a spokesman for the South Korean firm told Reuters on Wednesday, without elaborating.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Sam Holmes, Himani Sarkar and Louise Heavens)