Infineon says it's not ramping up DRAM production in face of global oversupply
A service of Semiconductor Business News, CMP Media Inc.
Story posted 2 p.m. EST/11 a.m., PST, 5/4/99
By Jack Robertson
WASHINGTON -- Infineon Technologies AG (formerly Siemens Semiconductors) denied that the firm is ramping up DRAM production at a time when the global market is experiencing increased oversupply.
In the latest round of industry finger-pointing in the wake of renewed DRAM price slashing, a top Infineon executive told SBN that the Munich-based chip maker is trying to scale down its memory-chip production far more than many of its competitors.
"We closed a completely new DRAM fab in the U.K., phased out DRAM production in our Regensburg, Germany, fab, and stopped Phase 2 expansion at our joint venture fab with Mosel-Vitelic in Taiwan," said Andreas von Zitzewitz, vice president of operations for Infineon Technologies. "Our biggest DRAM fab in Dresden is moving more into logic and other non-memory ICs."
Von Zitzewitz singled out Korean DRAM makers, claiming that they continued to expand production principally for export into an already glutted world market. "Korean companies supply 40% of the global DRAM [market], yet sell only 5% of their production to their domestic market," he said. "This is a terrible imbalance that should not be tolerated."
He charged that Samsung Electronics Co. is adding a new Line 9 production fab in Korea and completing its second-phase fab expansion in Austin, Tex. -- all in the midst of the global DRAM glut.
In other DRAM disputes, the executive said the double-barreled dumping suits of Micron Technology Inc. and Taiwanese chip makers against each other doesn't concern Infineon. Although Infineon has the ProMos joint-venture DRAM fab in Taiwan with Mosel-Vitelic, the memory chips produced there are sold primarily in Asia.
As for Taiwan's counter-DRAM dumping suit against U.S. fabs, he said that chips made at Infineon's White Oak Semiconductor joint-venture fab with Motorola Inc. simply wouldn't be shipped to Taiwan. "Our DRAMs made at ProMos obviously are outside any [Taiwan] dumping case filed in the U.S.," he added.
|
