Despite growing concerns that too many new semiconductor plants will come on stream in 1997 and 1998, creating a disastrous glut, Hitachi Ltd is considering a major expansion of its memory chip fabrication capacity in the Far East – but in partnerships, rather than on its own. In Malaysia, it says it expects to form a joint venture with LG Semicon Co of South Korea by the spring. The joint venture would be capitalised at $450m, and the partners propose to spend $1,300m to build the new plant, in Kulim Kedah. It would be equipped for fabrication in a 0.3-micron CMOS process and would have capacity for 30,000 8 wafers a month; Hitachi said that the relative shareholdings between itself and the South Korean were not yet established, although LG Semicon said that the proposal on the table had Hitachi taking 51%, and LG the rest. Production of 16M-bit and 64M-bit dynamic random access memory chips is expected to start at the beginning of 1998. Hitachi is also in talks with Nippon Steel Corp and Singapore’s Economic Development Board about establishing a semiconductor joint venture in Singapore and says it hopes to reach agreement on the venture sometime in 1996. Total investment would likely come to around $1,000m and the plant could be expected to have capacity of about 20,000 to 30,000 8 wafers a month, again for 16M and 64M parts. Hitachi is already committed to investing $1,150m to increase its Japanese production capacity for 16Ms, and $850m to make 64Ms there, it is also expanding its production plants in Germany and in the US.
