ProMos forecasts profits

ProMos Technologies Inc (茂德科技), a venture between German memory-chip maker Infineon Technologies AG and Mosel Vitelic Inc (茂矽電子), said it will turn to a profit in the fourth-quarter profit after sales tripled and output rose at a lower-cost factory.

That would exceed the expectations of five analysts who predicted, on average, a loss of NT$30 million (US$864,000) for the quarter.

The company said net income will be NT$600 million, following a NT$2.2 billion loss a year earlier. Sales more than tripled to NT$6.2 billion, it announced earlier.

ProMos expects to make a profit in 2003, spokesman Albert Lin (林育中) said.

"The only uncertainty about our profit is how to book the litigation," Lin said, referring to a legal dispute over a contract with Infineon. The company must report its fourth-quarter earnings by the end of the month.

ProMos, which made losses in the second and third quarters and a profit in the first quarter, is one of a handful of companies worldwide making chips from 12-inch silicon wafers. The new technology produces more than twice as many chips as standard eight-inch wafers for as much as a third of the cost.

The company also said it plans to sell US$160 million of bonds convertible into shares this year to purchase new equipment and refinance loans, Lin said. He declined to give details about which bank will manage the debt sale.

ProMos also plans to increase capital spending by about half this year. Spending wouldn't exceed US$300 million, Lin said.

Infineon gave ProMos technology from its German 12-inch factory, the first plant in the world to make the larger wafers.

At a ProMos shareholders' meeting last week, Infineon and Mosel argued about which of the two partners has the right to as much as 90 percent of ProMos's production.

Shareholders voted to let president Chen Min-liang (陳民良) choose new technology partners to replace Infineon, which said it canceled an agreement to provide manufacturing expertise to ProMos.

One potential partner may be Elpida Memory Inc, Chen said.

The venture between Japanese chipmakers Hitachi Ltd and NEC Corp last month said it wants to cut capital investment costs by farming out more production of dynamic random-access memory chips, the main memory in personal computers.

Tokyo-based Elpida has signed similar contracts with other chipmakers, including Taiwan-based Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體) and Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯國際集成電路).

Infineon told the Taiwan Stock Exchange this week it would sell an initial 57.6 million shares, or 5.8 percent, of its 30 percent stake in ProMos.

ProMos made its forecast after the stock market closed in Taipei.