April 26, 2007 – Qimonda AG says it plans to build a new 300mm DRAM fab in Singapore, spending about 2 billion euros (~US $2.73 billion) over five years on the site that will boast 60,000 wafers/month when fully ramped.

Construction of the facility will happen this year, with initial capital expenditures coming from Qimonda’s own cash flow and later funded with “project-based financing.” Production is slated to start in 2009, and gradually ramp to 60,000 wafers/month by 2012.

The new site will be “a major step to expand our regional presence in the Asian market,” said Kin Wah Loh, president/CEO of Qimonda, in a statement. Other reasons he noted behind the expansion include local cost structures, manufacturing expertise, and better exchange rates vs. the US dollar. “The overall package of low taxation, incentives and factors such as highly skilled labor and strong infrastructure makes Singapore our place of choice to implement our fully-owned volume production in the Asian market,” he said.

Qimonda already has 300mm sites in Richmond, VA (source of most of the company’s 144M euros in fiscal 2Q07 capex, for expansion and 75nm tooling), as well as a 300mm site in Dresden, Germany.

The company also revealed its fiscal 2Q07 results (quarter ended in March), posting a profit of 57 million euros ($77.8 million), down from 177 million euros ($241.5 million) in the previous quarter, on 16% lower sales, as a weak DRAM market and punishing ASPs (-21% Q-Q) took their toll. Sales were up 6% from a year ago, when the company posted a small net loss. Bit shipments rose 7% Q-Q, though, and were up 30% Y-Y, with about half of shipments to non-PC applications.

Looking ahead, Qimonda expects projects bit growth to accelerate to 8%-12% sequentially, mainly due to additional capacity in Richmond and a JV with Inotera as well as improvements from more 80nm capacity coming online. More than 50% of bit shipment will be for non-PC applications.