July 27, 2005 – Elpida Memory Inc., a Japanese supplier of DRAM, has announced that it has reached an agreement with Advantest, Kingston Technology, and Powertech Technology on forming a new start-up company that will serve as reportedly the world’s largest wafer testing service. The new company, to be called Tera Probe, is expected to begin operations on October 1.
Hiroshima Elpida Memory, a wholly owned subsidiary of Elpida, and other semiconductor companies will order the new company to provide wafer testing for their DRAM products.
Tera Probe Inc. will be headquartered in Japan and have capital of 5.6 billion yen (~US$50 million) and about 300 employees.
The major shareholders (investment ratio) are Elpida Memory Inc. (33.0%); Advantest Corp. (17.0%); Kingston Technology Japan LLC (26.8%); and Powertech Technology Inc. (23.2%)
The company’s main business will be wafer testing operations, especially probe process development and other related testing business & technology development.