Advertisment

Toshiba says may boost NAND chip output by 150 p.c.

author-image
CIOL Bureau
New Update

TOKYO: Japan's Toshiba Corp. said on Monday it may boost its monthly output capacity of flash memory chips used in electronic devices such as digital cameras by 150 percent to become more competitive in the growing market.

Advertisment

Without specifying timing or the size of the investment, the world's seventh-largest chip maker said it may increase the processing capacity at its jointly owned NAND flash plant in Mie prefecture, central Japan, to 100,000 300-mm silicon wafers a month from a planned 10,000 wafers in September 2005.

Combined with Toshiba's NAND output capacity at its 200-mm wafer plant, also in Mie prefecture, its total NAND flash production capability would come to the equivalent of 150,000 300-mm wafers per month, up from 60,000 wafers next month.

Toshiba competes with industry leader Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. in the fast growing market for NAND flash memory, which is also used in photo-snapping phones and portable music players such as Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod shuffle.

Advertisment

Toshiba estimates the market to grow 1.9 percent to 2.15 trillion yen ($19.46 billion) in the year to March 2009 from 2004/05.

A Toshiba spokesman said its 300-mm NAND plant, jointly owned with U.S.-based SanDisk Corp., has space to boost monthly output to 100,000 wafers but that a decision on when to increase capacity would be made according to market conditions.

Announcing its medium-term business strategy earlier this month, Toshiba said it planned to allocate half of its 1.1 trillion yen ($9.96 billion) capital expenditure in the three years to March 2008 for its microchip business, its biggest earnings driver accounting for more than half of its operating profit.

Advertisment

The electronics conglomerate that offers products ranging from nuclear power systems to notebook PCs had also said improved production efficiency had made it possible to raise the maximum monthly production capacity at the 300-mm plant to the equivalent of 100,000 wafers from the originally estimated 62,500 wafers.

The Nihon Keizai business daily reported on Sunday that Toshiba would spend about 200 billion yen to boost the NAND flash memory output capacity by 150 percent in three years.

The paper did not specify whether the expansion would be carried out by Toshiba alone or with its U.S. partner. Toshiba had announced in April 2004 that it planned to jointly spend about 270 billion yen with SanDisk in the 300-mm NAND plant by the year to March 2007.

tech-news