IBM Corp is planning to work with Siemens AG to revamp a major French memory chip plant at the cost of $486m. IBM and Siemens, through its Infineon Technologies AG group, will convert the plant, based at Corbiell-Essonies near Paris, from a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) production plant to logic chip fab.
The transition could mean the loss of up to 1,000 jobs. After the revamp has been completed, the plant will employ around 1,650 people, it currently has 2,730 staff. An IBM spokesperson said that most of the employees affected by the plan would likely be re-employeed with the services section of IBM France, with the remainder covered by early retirement schemes. The cost of revamping the plant will be split by the two companies.
The plan is for the plant to start producing ASIC and microcontrollers, which are likely to be targeted at the wired and wireless communications market. The plant currently has three production lines producing five inch wafers, 16Mb DRAMs and a high end line producing 64Mb and 256Mb DRAMs – this will be the last line to be closed down.
The IBM spokesperson could give no time frame for when work will start on the new fab. Currently, the two companies have put proposals before the French works council that will need to give approval before work can commence.
