Elpida Memory Inc, Japan’s top DRAM chipmaker, yesterday said it was considering relocating part of its DRAM chip production to Taiwanese subsidiary Rexchip Electronics Corp (瑞晶電子) from a Hiroshima plant as part of its efforts to counteract the deteriorating DRAM market and a strong yen.
Like most Japanese corporations, Elpida is suffering from the effects of a strong yen versus the US dollar. The yen has hit historical highs, rising from around ￥95 against the US dollar in May last year to around ￥76.80 yesterday.
“In the face of current expectations that the yen will remain strong in the immediate future, DRAM product prices have fallen by about one-third compared with a year earlier, resulting in an extremely harsh business environment for Elpida,” the company said in a statement posted on its Web site.
To cope with the tough operational environment, the Tokyo-based chipmaker said it would “examine further optimization of the production allocation among the Elpida group appropriate to product application.”
“One step under consideration is a gradual transfer of part of the production capacity at the Hiroshima plant to the company’s highly cost-competitive subsidiary Rexchip Electronics Corp in Taiwan,” it said.
A feasibility study covering the possible transfer was now under way, the chipmaker said.
Rexchip, 63 percent owned by Elpida, operates a 12-inch wafer fab and has had a second plant construction plan suspended because of the industrial slump.
Rexchip plans to complete process technology migration to more cost-efficient and advanced 30-nanometer technology from 40-nanometer technology in the second half of this year, and to use the technology to make DDR3 chips with density doubling to 4 gigabits from the current 2 gigabits.
The chipmaker now produces about 85,000 12-inch wafers a month with more than 60 percent of the output going to Elpida, with the rest to local stake holder Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技), based in Hsinchu.
Market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技), based in Taipei, said DRAM prices fell 4.65 percent to US$1.13 per unit on a contract basis in the first half of this month from two weeks previous, indicating that the price decline decelerated after chipmakers cut monthly production by 12 percent to 1.15 million units recently, compared withy 1.3 million units in the first half of this year.
Seeking momentum from areas other than chips, Elpida yesterday said it would be more aggressive in the use of its intellectual property rights to boost patent revenues.
The comments came a week after Elpida filed a patent infringement complaint against Taiwan’s top DRAM chipmaker, Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), and Nanya’s US unit in the Northern District Court of California.
Elpida said yesterday that its chief executive, Yukio Sakamoto, would not accept monthly paychecks for now.
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