Samsung has announced that it will begin mass production of NAND flash memory chips at its newest manufacturing facility in the United States starting in December.

The company said that it will make the chips from 300-millimeter wafers using advanced 50-nanometer level process technology at its new plant in Austin, Texas. Samsung formally opened the US$3.5 billion (euro2.4 billion) facility in June.

Samsung will initially produce 20,000 wafers of 16 gigabit NAND flash chips per month. It will gradually increase production to 60,000 wafers per month.