October 16, 2006 – A dearth of available real estate in northern Taiwan is putting the Central Taiwan Science Park to the top of the list of locations being considered for Inotera Memories Inc.’s third 300mm fab, according to the Taiwan Economic News.

Inotera already runs a 300mm fab and is tooling up another one in the northern city of Linkou in Taipei County, and the memory chipmaker’s board has passed a proposal to build one more 300mm fab, projecting costs at $2.4 billion and with projected maximum output of 60,000 wafers/month. Inotera co-owner Nanya plans to tool up its inaugural $2.5 billion 300mm fab in mid-2007.

The paper noted that the Central Taiwan Science Park is quickly becoming the hub for Taiwan’s memory chipmaking industry — Winbond Electronics and ProMos Technologies already operate 300mm facilities there, and PowerChip Semiconductor Corp. has plans for two sites in the park.