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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Math Junkie who wrote (794)	3/12/2002 8:23:32 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

China chip maker ponders 300mm wafer fab By Jack Robertson EBN (03/12/02 18:55 p.m. EST) SHANGHAI - Hau Hong NEC Electronics Co. Ltd. here has hinted at what was once inconceivable: a Chinese 300mm wafer fab. Toshio Ohta, executive vice president, told EBN Tuesday that the next fab on the Hua Hong NEC roadmap is a 300mm facility, although no decision has been made and no timetable yet set on constructing the plant. The company would also require export approval of the Japanese and U.S. governments for equipment in the 300mm fab. But Hua Hong NEC already knows how it would finance such a pioneering Chinese venture. "We would issue an IPO for public and private placement stock to raise capital, when we decide to go ahead," Ohta said. "We would keep bank financing to a minimum, since we don't want to incur a high debt." The 300mm fab decision is likely to be several years away, as Hua Hong NEC first will equip some vacant space in its existing 200mm wafer facility to ramp up production 50% to 30K wafers a month, Ohta explained. That expansion was put on hold last year in the semiconductor market slump, but is now getting hack on the front-burner of the company's current planning, he added. "The DRAM market is recovering and we no longer are planning to reduce production of 128-megabit and 256-megabit SDRAMs," the executive said. "We make only single data-rate SDRAMs, but these devices are actually starting to experience some shortages and sell at a small premium over DDR. That is because so many other manufacturers are quickly shifting so much of their production from single-data-rate to DDR." (For another story on the SDRAM shortage, click here .) The fab is also increasing its foundry work markedly. Ohta said that this year foundry orders will take up half of the fab's current 20K a month wafer capacity. The additional 10K a month wafer expansion would all go towards the foundry operations, he said. NEC is using the joint venture as a vehicle to help decide how far it wants to push into the foundry business. As previously reported, Hua Hong NEC also is hoping to get Japanese government export control approval in the near future to move from its current quarter-micron wafer processing to 0.18-micron production. "Our present lithography equipment is capable of operating at 0.18-micron capability. Once we get approval, all we have to do is use phase shift masks with our present [installed] equipment to reach 0.18-micron production."