Eastern expansion

Continued confidence and growth in the far east semiconductor sector has been emphasised this month with AXT announcing further expansion of its compound semiconductor substrate manufacturing facilities in China. On a larger scale, it is reported that Samsung is increasing its 2012 investments to $41 Billion. The money will be used for everything from building factories to R&D, as well as mergers & acquisitions and hiring new staff. Samsung expects to take on around 26,000 new staff in 2012, taking its global total to about 376,000. The company has not specified the R&D development areas but analysts widely expect it to raise investment in mobile chips for phones, tablets and digital cameras and to accelerate the production of next-generation OLED (organic light emitting diode) flat-screen displays.