Japan’s major chipmakers plan to rapidly increase production of flash memory chips for use in mobile phones and digital cameras. Their expansion plans will see output double between now and March next year. NEC Corp, which does not currently produce the chips, is converting a DRAM facility in Hiroshima, and says it hopes to be producing a million units a month as soon as possible.
Toshiba Corp will become the world’s largest flash memory producer increasing its production of 2.5 million of the chips last month to a projected 4.1 million monthly by March. Hitachi Ltd plans to be producing 2.5 million flash memory chips a month by March while Fujitsu Ltd and Mitsubishi Electric Corp are also substantially boosting production.
Japanese analysts expect the global market for flash memory chips will expand to
be worth 1.5 trillion yen ($14bn) in 2001, compared to the 500bn yen ($4.7bn) forecast for 1999.
