Samsung reopens Austin chip plant after shutdown from winter storm
Samsung's semiconductor plant in Austin, Texas has resumed operations after being shut down for more than a month due to power outages arising from blistering cold weather.
"Samsung Austin Semiconductor has reached production close to normal levels as of last week," the company said in a statement to ZDNet.
The South Korean tech giant was ordered to shut down the plant by the city last month, due to the severe winter storm that affected millions of homes and businesses in Texas.
Power returned near the end of February and Samsung has been working towards normalising plant operations since then.
The company didn't share how much loss it suffered in sales and products from the shutdown.
NXP Semiconductor, which was also forced to shut down its plants in Austin due to the winter storm, said earlier this month it could lose up to $100 million in revenue from the impact. In turn, Infineon Technologies, which also resumed operation of its facilities, said it didn't expect full year revenue to be negatively impacted.
According to Samsung's regulatory filings in South Korea, Samsung Austin Semiconductor recorded 3.91 trillion won in sales in 2020. The plant manufactures various logic chips and controllers for solid-state drives.
Meanwhile, Samsung also announced that it was providing its 700MHz solutions for Japanese telco KDDI's 5G services.
The 700MHz band network will boost the telco's 5G coverage in Japan, the South Korean tech giant said. KDDI already offers 5G services that use mid-band and mmWave spectrums, which Samsung also supplies the equipment for among other vendors.
Last week, Samsung announced it had been chosen to supply its 5G solutions to NTT Docomo, Japan's largest telco.
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