Issue



Japan


08/01/1997







Japan

Japan wafer fab spending to dip 2%. Japan`s top chipmakers are expecting an average 12.7% increase in semiconductor sales during the current fiscal year, which began April 1, but capital investment is seen shrinking by about 2% year-to-year, to 1,114 billion yen or about $9.6 billion (see table). Despite the slight dropoff, the largest companies will keep spending flat with last year, with the exception of Toshiba and Fujitsu, both of whom suffered losses in their semiconductor business in FY96. The firms expecting to increase spending are Sony, which will boost outlays by 40% to 70 billion yen (about $602 million) as it builds a 0.25-?m facility in Kagoshima Prefecture, and Sanyo, which will invest 58 billion yen (about $499 million), a 9.4% boost.

Despite recent reports of continued softness in DRAM prices, NEC has expressed an intent to kick up production of 64-Mbit devices from current levels of 1 million/month to 4 million by next March. The Kyodo news service reports 1.5 million parts/month will start flowing out the firm`s new Hiroshima fab by the end of the year, with production ramping at NEC`s Scotland facility to that same level by March 1998.

NEC`s new DRAM and ASIC manufacturing facility in Higashi, Hiroshima, has begun operation, after an investment of some 70 billion yen (about $900 million), and intends to spend an additional 400 billion yen (roughly $5 billion) over the next three years to expand facilities and add new equipment for production at 0.25-?m and below. The new Hiroshima fab, known as the A2 plant, has begun producing 0.35-?m devices including 64-Mbit DRAMs and ASICs with embedded memory (known as "System LSI" chips).

Kyocera Corp., Kyoto, Japan, is planning to form seven mounting technology R&D teams, up from an original two teams, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper. In addition, the company will more than triple staffing to 70 employees. The company reportedly sees the shift in R&D emphasis as a key to providing superior service to customers as semiconductor packaging becomes more and more specialized.