(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| NEC Downgrades '98 Semiconductor Plant Investment
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August 6, 1998 (TOKYO) -- NEC Corp., Japan's largest semiconductor maker,
said it has downwardly revised its planned semiconductor plant investment.
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The company had planned to invest 180 billion yen (US$1.24 billion) in
fiscal 1998, but decreased that to 150 billion yen (US$1 billion) because
of poorer conditions in the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) market.
The company said it plans to postpone the launch of NEC Yamagata Ltd.'s
application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) line operation until
early 2000 and invest 15 billion yen (US$100 million) less. It was first
scheduled to launch in January 1999. Production of ASICs that would
be manufactured at the Yamagata plant will be covered by NEC Kyushu
Ltd. and NEC Hiroshima Ltd.
The other 15 billion yen will come from postponing investment in plants
to streamline each of NEC's other lines.
And it now is about to restrain DRAM production to reduce the negative
impact on income caused by lower prices of DRAMs.
NEC will increase its 64Mb DRAM monthly production from the current 8
million units to 10 million in December, and keep that output level
into next year. The company was to increase the 10 million mark to 12
million in the spring of 1999.
The company plans to accelerate curtailment of 16Mb DRAM production so
that its current monthly production of about 6 million units will be
reduced to 4 million in December and another 2 million later.
NEC has kept stable performance compared to other leading semiconductor
makers, but it now has to review investment in plants. The company will
not revise its targeted IC production of 1,230 billion yen (US$8.5 billion)
in fiscal 1998, but it admits that it will be difficult to accomplish
the goal.
(Nikkei Microdevices)
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