Samsung to spend US$635 mln on memory, LCD lines

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the world's biggest memory chip maker, said on Monday it would invest 617.6 billion won (US$635.1 million) on memory chip research and flat-screen production.

Samsung said in a filing to the stock exchange it would spend 388.2 billion won to expand research and development on dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and flash memory chips, as well as production of masks for semiconductors.

It will invest another 229.4 billion won in increasing production of small and medium-sized liquid crystal display (LCD) panels to meet growing demand, the South Korean company said.

Samsung is also the world's second-biggest maker of large-sized LCD displays after LG.Philips LCD Co Ltd.

The investment plans announced on Monday are part of an annual investment plan disclosed earlier.

Samsung had already said it planned a total of 9.23 trillion won in capital investment in 2006, including 5.63 trillion won earmarked for semiconductors and 2.37 trillion won for LCD.

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