Dec. 19, 2002 – Tokyo – Mitsubishi Electric Corp. will likely split off part of Trecenti Technologies into a unit owned jointly by several Japanese chipmakers, in a bid to pool resources, reported Edmund Klamann of Reuters.

Trecenti, a Hitachi Ltd. subsidiary, operates Japan’s only plant making standard microchips from 300mm wafers, which yield twice as many chips and thus cut costs compared with standard 200mm wafers.

Trecenti will move to a Hitachi-Mitsubishi joint venture set for launch next April to take over the bulk of the two conglomerates’ chip operations.

Koichi Nagasawa, head of Mitsubishi Electric’s semiconductor company, is set to become chief executive of the planned venture, Renesas Technology Corp. He said a final decision on the matter was likely by March.