May 3, 2007 – Fuji Electric Holdings Co. says it will spend 230 billion yen (US $1.92 billion) through fiscal 2008, 40 billion yen ($333.4 million) more than it already planned and twice what it spend in the previous three-year period, on new plants and equipment for semiconductor and disk-drive production, notes the Nikkei daily paper.

Fuji had originally earmarked 190 billion yen ($1.58 billion) for its next three-year phase, but strength in its business both domestically and overseas for heavy electric machinery and industrial equipment convinced the company to increase investments, according to the paper.

Most of the extra funds in the new budget will go into a new specialty semiconductor plant (either in Japan or overseas) targeting power applications in machine tools and hybrid cars. These chips are already produced at a site in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, but expansion there would be difficult, the paper noted.

Other new funds will go toward new technologies targeting hard-disk drives, such as equipment for perpendicular-recording hard disks and disks made using glass instead of aluminum.