Samsung shifts Apple A5 chip production to Texas

A $3.6bn $9bn investment

Apple's A5 chips are now being made in Texas, not Asia as was its predecessor the A4, according to a report from Reuters, citing "people familiar with the operation".

The chips that power the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S areproduced by Apple's smartphone competitor Samsung in its huge fab in Austin, capital of the Oil State. Samsung previously made iOS-powering silicon in its South Korea facility.

The devices that the A5 powers are still being assembled by Foxconn in China.

The 1.6 million square foot factory cost $3.6bn, but the total investment is closer to $9bn, according to Austin Chamber of Commerce, making it the largest foreign investment in Texas. According to Reuters, the fab ramped up to full production at the beginning of December.

Samsung makes the chips for Apple based on designs from two UK firms, ARM and Imagination Technologies. The chip contains a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore CPU and an Imagination PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU. ®