Toshiba says to cut back chip output in July, Aug
Tuesday June 19, 8:37 pm Eastern Time
(UPDATE: Adds details)
TOKYO, June 20 (Reuters) - Japan's biggest chip maker Toshiba Corp said on Wednesday it would temporarily halt operations at two plants producing transistors and commodity integrated circuits (IC) between late July and early August.
``Demand is weakening and the market is soft,'' a Toshiba spokesman said.
Under the cutback plan, Toshiba's major transistor plant in Hyogo Prefecture of western Japan will close for 19 days and its major plant for commodity ICs, in Fukuoka Prefecture of southern Japan, will be shut for 13 days, he said.
Transistor chips are used in cellular phone handsets and other high-tech goods. Inventories of such products are ballooning globally due to a slowdown of U.S. and other economies since late last year.
Commodity IC chips are used in consumer electronics products. The shutdowns are the longest for the two plants, he said.
Toshiba also plans to cut back output by 30 percent at a chip memory plant in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, by suspending some of its older production lines, among other actions.
The Mie plant produces DRAMs (dynamic random access memory, flash memories and SRAMs (static random access memory), among others.
biz.yahoo.com
AdvocateDevil |
