TB and All,
10/01: Taiwan's Powerchip To Produce 64-Megabit DRAMS By End Of Year
TAIPEI, Taiwan -(Dow Jones)- Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. of Taiwan said Wednesday it expects to start producing more advanced 64-megabit dynamic random access memory chips by the end of the year.
It's now making 16-megabit DRAMs, with technological support from Japan's Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Powerchip also said it doesn't exclude the possibility of making the more sophisticated 256-megabit chips in the future.
DRAM makers have been suffering from price cuts in lower-end products and hope that more advanced DRAMs will help improve profit margins, according to industry analysts.
Powerchip has applied with Taiwan's Over-the-Counter Securities Exchange for a stock listing that's likely to occur in March next year.
Its major shareholders include Taiwan-based UMAX-Elite Group (34.5%); Shinkong Group (9.05%); China Development Corp. (5.34%); the government-owned Executive Yuan Development Fund (4%); Mitsubishi Electric (13.6%); and Kanematsu Corp. of Japan (13.2%).
The UMAX-Elite group is composed of a number of technology companies, including UMAX Data Systems Inc. and Elitegroup Computer Systems Co., which are listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Powerchip set its 1997 sales target at 8.51 billion new Taiwan dollars (US$297.6 million), with pretax loss estimated at NT$645.1 million, and a net profit at NT$560.9 million, or 58 Taiwan cents a share.
Despite possible losses in pretax figures, Powerchip foresees a profit, partly as a result of a tax credit.
That compares with achieved sales of NT$314.3 million last year, with a pretax loss of NT$1.26 billion, and a net loss of NT$1.26 billion, or NT$1.76 a share.
As reported earlier, Powerchip plans to invest NT$38.00 billion to establish a 12-inch-wafer plant in Hsinchu of northern Taiwan with a capacity of 20,000 wafers a month. The new site is expected to start producing chips in 1999.
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