Samsung Electronics Co., Asia’s largest maker of semiconductors, will put in $3.6 billion to enlarge its capacity at 12-inch chip facility in Austin, Texas.

Bill Cryer, a Samsung spokesman, said yesterday in an interview that the new plant will be utilized to make big scale assimilation, or LSI, chips.

The corporation also aims to add up 500 jobs. He said that the plant, operated by the Samsung Austin Semiconductor LLC unit, will be in full swing by late 2011.

On May 17, Samsung said that it will more than twofold its expenditure on the semiconductor plant to around 11 trillion Won ($8.7 billion) this year, from 4.5 trillion Won the year before.

The firm, based in Suwon, South Korea, and opponents together with Tokyo-based Toshiba Corp. and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. of Ichon, South Korea, are increasing production of chips to cater to the demand of their use in smartphones, cameras and devices.

According to a statement by the division, the Samsung expenses declared yesterday takes its overall investment in Austin to over $9 billion.

Cryer said that the chip producer first started a plant in Austin in 1997, then created another one in 2007.

The statement said that the unit has been utilized to make NAND flash memory chips.