Samsung Electronics' $250 million expansion of its U.S. factory in Austin, Texas (www.sas.samsung.com), is significant for more than the size of the investment. The Texas expansion marks the first time a Korean company has made a large overseas investment since the International Monetary Fund's 1997 bailout of South Korea.

Samsung's expansion unfold at its $1.3 billion, 750-employee fab in northeast Austin, the company's first U.S. manufacturing plant, which was completed in 1998. Heretofore stalled by the Korean won's collapse, the Texas expansion will increase the Austin plant's chip-manufacturing capacity by 33 percent, upping production to 4 million units per month in fourth-generation, 64-Mbit DRAM design in 0.23-micron process technology.

Asia's economic woes have left many Asia-based chipmakers, including Samsung, looking for capital to fund next-generation DRAM technology. That search for capital prompted Samsung's recent agreement with Intel. The agreement provides for Intel to acquire convertible bonds that can be exchanged for 1 percent of Samsung Electronics' common stock. And, as part of the agreement, Intel is investing $100 million in Samsung.

However, in a sign some analysts interpret as a healthy sign for Samsung, the company had already announced its Austin expansion before the Intel agreement was formalized. Samsung's Austin unit generated some $100 of the investment, with the remaining $150 million guaranteed by Samsung Electronics.