August 8, 2001 – Irvine, CA – Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), with its parent company Toshiba Corp. is set to realign its memory production strategy.

In response to continued excess supply, weak market demand and related pressures on pricing, Toshiba will close production at its Yokkaichi operations fabrication line number 1 (Fab 1). Yokkaichi operations fabrication line number 2 will remain open. The majority of Toshiba’s 300 employees working on the Fab. 1 line will be transferred to a different fabrication line.

“Present market conditions make it difficult to manufacture DRAM cost-effectively at 0.20-micron and above,” stated Jamie Stitt, director for DRAM products at TAEC. “So, this move enables Toshiba to refocus efforts on producing DRAM at more advanced lithographies.”

Yokkaichi currently produces approximately 70,000 200mm wafers/month. Fab 1 contributes to about half of this output. Current production details for Fab 1 are approximately seven million pieces/month of DRAM (measured in 64 megabit (Mb) equivalents) at 0.20-micron and one million pieces per month of SRAM (measured in 4Mb equivalents) at 0.40-micron.

Fab. 2 will continue to produce memories at 0.175-micron and lower process technologies. Toshiba is concentrating its DRAM efforts on bringing to production 0.13-micron 512Mb devices in 4Q01.