Fujitsu Ltd left Newton Aycliffe in County Durham and Gresham, Oregon on tenterhooks yesterday when it announced that one or other of its chip plants would be the beneficiary of a new $875m to $1,000m investment to put in a complete new 16M-bit memory chip line, and said it would make up its mind about the winner by the middle of the year. Durham, where the company has already has about $625m invested, should not hold its breath however – Fujitsu is said by the Nippon Keizai Shimbun to be leaning towards Oregon. The new plant will start production with 16Ms in 1997, before moving on to 64Ms later, and will be designed to employ several hundred people to make over 1m parts a month. Oregon is currently making 1.5m 4Ms a month and Durham 2m 4Ms and 100,000 16Ms. Assembly is done in Malaysia, Singapore and Ireland. Separately, Fujitsu said it would start making Flash memory chips in Malaysia this summer.
