Samsung Electronics, the world's leading chipmaker, will be strengthening a part of its operations in China by injecting an additional $500 million into its envisioned plant under construction in the city of Xian.

The move came after the company started work on a semiconductor plant in the central Chinese city in September 2012 as a part of its move to diversify production lines and meet growing demand for NAND flash memory chips.

The construction project was aimed to be completed by next year, producing 10 nano-level NAND flash memory chips. NAND flash memory chips are used for smartphones and other mobile devices.

Following the firm's latest decision, the combined investment on the construction will reach up to $7.5 billion, making the project Samsung's single largest overseas investment for a chip-making plant.

Meanwhile, Samsung added it also opened another research and development center in the city Thursday, which marks the company's eighth research center to be under operation in China.

Samsung said earlier it had selected Xian because the region has good industrial and information technology infrastructure.


By Kim Ji-hyun and news reports