Fujitsu, Hitachi Reportedly Phasing Out DRAM Production In Europe
TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Fujitsu Ltd. and Hitachi Ltd. will stop making
DRAM chips in Europe by 2000, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Tuesday,
and will switch production to microcontrollers and other more
sophisticated chips.
Slumping prices of the mainstream memory chips, dynamic random
access memories, have hurt profit margins badly, the financial newspaper
reported. The companies expect to suffer operating losses of tens of
billion yen in their semiconductor divisions in the year through March.
Fujitsu (FJTSY) and Hitachi (HIT) hope to cut DRAM-related costs by
halting production in Europe and reducing new investment.
Fujitsu is producing 2.5 million of 4- and 16-megabit chips a month
at its United Kingdom plant, but plans to shift that subsidiary entirely
to microcontrollers in 2000, company officials said.
Hitachi is making 16-megabit DRAMs at a German fabrication plant,
which will shift briefly to 64-megabit chips and then scale down output
from autumn 1999 until DRAM production ends entirely in 2000.
Instead, the plant will turn out microcontrollers for IC cards and
other products, boosting microcontroller output to 90% of the plant's
total production in autumn 1999, company officials said. |
