Elpida Memory Inc, Japan's largest chipmaker, said on March 09, that it will invest 100 billion yen (960 million dollars) this year in a bid to catch up with its South Korean rivals. "This is part of our investment plan of 450-500 billion yen announced in June 2004," said Elpida Memory spokeswoman Tomoko Kobayashi. "As the semiconductor market is currently slowing, it is a good time to procure facilities for a reasonable price," she said. "We would like to catch up in production with our rivals as soon as possible," Kobayashi added.
In June 2004, Elpida said it would spend 450-500 billion yen to build a new large-scale DRAM (dynamic random access memory) plant in Hiroshima and boost capacity at its existing plant there.
Elpida, a joint venture between NEC Corp and Hitachi Ltd, said the new plant would begin producing chips with 85 nanometer-wide circuits by the second half of 2005.
Output would be increased in stages to a maximum capacity of 60,000 300-millimetre (12-inch) wafers per month.
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