The announcement by Siemens AG at the turn of the year that it will invest over $1,250m in a new chip plant in Dresden (CI No 2,324) has thrown a long shadow over the role of the joint Siemens-IBM Corp factory in Corbeil-Essones near Paris in producing next generation memory chips, La Tribune-Defosses warns. Three years ago, the two companies invested some $675m in the factory, saying they planned to make 16M-bit memory chips there. Since then, there has been no joint production commitment, just a development agreement with Toshiba Corp to set up 64M-bit production. At a meeting last month with the trades unions, factory manager Henri Carme reportedly appeared perplexed about the future of the plant, which cannot subsist on its current production. Without a new project, the factory seems doomed within five years, the paper says, noting that it is extremely unlikely that IBM will make 64Ms there. Both IBM and Siemens flatly deny the talk that Siemens plans to transfer its 16Ms to Dresden as well.
