Nov. 18, 2002 – Tokyo, Japan – Hitachi Ltd. and NEC Corp. plan to inject an additional 44 billion yen ($365.6 million) into their chip venture, Elpida Memory Inc., by the end of March.

Hitachi and NEC will purchase new shares to be issued by Elpida, their 50-50 joint venture, to help expand output at Japan’s producer of standard computer memory chips, reported Reuters.

The fund injection will boost Elpida’s capital to 66.5 billion yen from 44.5 billion yen as of the end of September, as well as push up its capital reserves to 29.5 billion yen from 7.5 billion yen, Hitachi and NEC said.

Elpida, set to start production at a plant in Hiroshima, western Japan, in January, plans to use the funds to increase output at the plant.

Earlier this month, Yukio Sakamoto, the new chief of Elpida, said the company needed to boost capacity substantially to be competitive and that Elpida was hoping for equity investments from three other firms, probably chipmakers or users, to help fund capital spending.

Mitsubishi Electric Corp., which plans to shift its DRAM operations to Elpida, and Taiwan’s PowerChip Semiconductor, which has signed a supply and technology deal with the company, said they might consider taking an equity stake.