Rambus chips will reach between 250 million and 350 million
Toshiba to Triple High-Speed Memory Chip
Production (Update3)
By Minoru Matsutani
Tokyo, Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Toshiba Corp., the world's No. 2 chipmaker,
plans to triple production of high-speed memory chips to meet demand for
more powerful computers based on Intel Corp.'s recently announced Pentium
4 processor.
Toshiba said it will more than triple production by September of dynamic
random access memory chips based on technology from Rambus Inc. The
chips, which are designed to transfer data at twice the speed of benchmark
DRAMs, will make up 60 percent of Toshiba's total memory chip output, from
20 percent currently.
After losses in the year ended March 1999 on falling prices of 64 megabit
DRAMs caused by global overproduction, Japanese chipmakers are aiming to
make memory chips that run at higher speeds and earn more profit. Toshiba is
betting that growing Internet traffic will boost demand for computer servers that
need faster DRAMs.
``Toshiba's strategy is right because demand for high-speed computers will
certainly rise,'' said Michito Kimura, an analyst at market researcher IDC
Japan. ``The risk, though, is that nobody knows how long the global slowdown
in PC demand will last.''
Toshiba's DRAMs are ``mostly'' for Sony Corp.'s game console PlayStation 2
now, and the production increase is mainly meant for computers, Toshiba
spokesman Kenichi Sugiyama said.
California-based Rambus has created a high-speed memory chip design,
which it has licensed to chipmakers around the world in return for royalties.
Samsung
While Toshiba is tripling its output of the chips, it's still far behind the main
backer of the technology, Samsung Electronics Co. in Korea, the world's
largest memory chipmaker.
Samsung said it produced about 30 million Rambus chips last year, giving it a
65 percent market share, and plans to increase its output to between 120
million and 180 million 128 megabit- equivalent chips. The company expects
Rambus chips to occupy about 10 percent of the DRAM market this year.
``We are getting increased orders for Rambus chips from Intel, our main
customer after the launch of the Pentium 4 processor, and we aim to capture
40 percent of the market this year,'' said Cho Sungin, a Samsung
spokeswoman.
The market for Rambus chips will reach between 250 million and 350 million
128 megabit equivalents this year, according to Samsung.
Intel
Intel is increasing demand for Rambus DRAMs, the only memory chips that
work with the Pentium 4 processor. The world's biggest chipmaker, which
introduced the chip last November, buys Rambus DRAMs and sells modules
containing Pentium 4 processors and memory chips to computer makers.
Toshiba said it will raise production of its Rambus DRAMs to 8 million units of
128-megabit-equivalent chips a month by September from 2.3 million
currently. Subsequently, it will halve the monthly production of low-speed
DRAMs to about 5 million units by September, Sugiyama said. The production
shift will cost Toshiba ``a negligible amount,'' he added.
NEC will increase monthly production of Rambus DRAMs to 5 million in
September from 2 million now, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said, without citing
sources. The company could not be reached immediately for comment.
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