The world's top maker of memory chips is throwing huge amounts of money at its semiconductor production lines, spending more than $2.87 billion this year alone.

It is betting the battered technology sector is bottoming out after a severe downturn in recent years.

"We see flash memory chips as a new growth driver and will further boost flash output to compensate for declining profitability of other memory chips such as DRAM," the South Korean company said in a statement.

Prices of flash chips have remained relatively stable compared with DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chips, as they are used in a wide range of electronics products, while DRAMs, the most common type of memory chips, are generally used to run computers.

Flash chips are popular in digital cameras because they are capable of storing and erasing information quickly. In addition, the chips do not require power in order to retain information and can be used in removable memory for easy printing or downloading.

Samsung expects the global flash chip market to also grow 20 percent to $12.6 billion next year.

"We aim for more than a 21 percent market share of the world's total memory chip market estimated at $47 billion in 2004," the statement said.

Shares of Samsung rose 2.4 percent to 439,000 won, outperforming a 2 percent gain in the broader market.