Designed in California, assembled where?
Apple and Samsung both have large and growing facilities in Austin, Texas. Additionally, OEM assembly partner Foxconn has plants nearby in Mexico. With so many familiar faces in shouting distance of each other, you’ve gotta wonder what they’re up to down there.
Austin Statesman reports that Samsung is close to completing a $3.6 billion expansion of its Austin, Texas chip manufacturing facility. Further, the company will add 300 engineers and technicians, bringing employment there to about 2,000.
“We are delighted to continue this positive hiring trend in 2011,” said Charmaine Winters, senior human resources manager, Samsung Austin.
The Korean electronics giant has invested more than $9 billion since arriving in the Austin area in 1996.
Designed where, manufactured where?
Samsung’s new $3.6 billion Austin fab.
The Austin Statesman and EE Times report that Samsung’s expanding (300mm?) fab in Austin has essentially one customer, Apple. Further, the facility produces both processors and memory.
Also, Apple has a campus in Austin, which the company expanded to 350,000 square feet of office space back in 2007. Samsung’s fab is about 8.3 miles — about 20 minutes with traffic — down Parmer Lane.
That said, long-time Apple OEM partner Foxconn (a.k.a. Hon Hai) has a facility in Juarez, Mexico — about 600 miles from Austin — where iPods and Macs are thought to be assembled. The contract manufacturer has another facility in San Jeronimo, Mexico (860 miles from Austin) where it’s likewise rumored that Macs are assembled.
So, there’s an expanded Samsung fab in Austin that makes processors and memory for Apple. It’s just down the road (relatively speaking) from Foxconn Mexico, where Macs, iPods and what else are assembled.
Apple’s products all say, “Designed in California, Assembled in China.” There seems to be a disconnect here if only in the available information…
What’s your take?
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November 18th, 2011
If you are assuming that due to Samsung’s geographic location in relation to apples corporate offices and the rumored assembly plants in nearby mexico is because apple uses Samsung’s chips would be wrong. In fact SAS (Samsung Austin Semiconductor) ships all their wafers back to Korea for final assembly and testing. So not to sure where your going with that.