The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said the Japanese government was fully supporting the alliance between government-supported memory chipmaker Taiwan Memory Co (TMC, 台灣記憶體公司) and Tokyo-based memory chipmaker Elpida Memory Inc.
The remarks ended market speculation that Elpida might reconsider a plan to become a technological partner to TMC. The Taiwanese company announced on April 1 that it had picked Elpida as its strategic partner to jointly develop and manufacture new memory chips primarily for mobile devices based on the Japanese chipmaker’s technologies.
Early in April, Japan’s national broadcaster NHK reported that Japan was considering giving financial support to the cash-strapped Elpida in a possible attempt to avoid the risk of exporting Japan’s advanced semiconductor technologies to other countries.
“Cooperation between TMC and Elpida is going smoothly. The Japanese government is supportive of the collaboration and it believes this is a good business model,” Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) told reporters after a closed-door meeting with TMC head John Hsuan (宣明智) yesterday.
Hsuan said earlier in April that TMC would provide manufacturing capacity for Elpida and possible capital injections into the Japanese chipmaker.
He said at the time that TMC would complete a business plan in the middle of April and hoped for a capital injection of as much as NT$30 billion (US$917 million) from the government, which would give it about a 50 percent share of TMC.
As of yesterday, there was still no sign of this business plan for TMC.
“We are confident about [the future of] TMC,” Yiin said in an apparent attempt to fend off growing concerns that rebounding memory chip prices may reduce local computer memory chipmakers’ willingness to partner with TMC by supplying their capacity.
Yiin said TMC was in talks with five to 10 potential investors from the information technology industry.
The company would start operations very soon after working out its business plans to solicit further capital injection from other investors beside the government, he said.
In March, the ministry announced a long-term plan to rejuvinate Taiwan’s struggling computer memory chipmakers.
The establishment of TMC is part of the plan to stabilize the industry by integrating output by the nation’s major computer memory chipmakers.
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