Korean semiconductor company LM Semicon Co Ltd, has once again denied reports that construction of its new Welsh fabrication plant will be delayed because of a lack of money. Company spokesperson Jill Roberts said the rumors were simply not the facts and that the company could postpone production for a further few months so it can develop higher range microprocessors. The plant in Newport, which is costing Semicon 1.3bn pounds was going to be making 64-Mega Dynamic Random Access Memory semiconductors, but is now looking to produce higher end processors that will be closer to 256-Mega DRAMs. The company is reluctant to specify exact details, but has confirmed it will be moving away from .25 micron fabrication processes and towards .20 micron. Shadows were cast over the plant at the beginning of the year when a contractor working on the site told Computergram that the company he was working for had had its accounts frozen by LM Semicon until April (CI No 3,322). LM Semicon denied this. According to Roberts the company has set itself an extra six month time margin to get the new chips into production, and is apparently moving to the higher level chips after studying market trends in the chip sector. If LM Semicon had stuck to its original plan to manufacture the lower end semiconductors, production would have started next January. But now the clean room, the operation at the heart of the production will have to be rebuilt. But according to Roberts there is no problem with money not being available to continue with the construction. She said: The investment is safe. We wouldn’t be here developing higher technology if we had any doubts about the future of the plant. The Welsh plant will form the international headquarters of the Korean company, which hopes it will be well-positioned to capture new business in Europe.
