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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FJB who wrote (18324)	3/31/1998 8:09:00 PM
From: FJB	Respond to of 70976

Haven't seen one of these in awhile: Nikkei Weekly-copyright Nihon Keizai Shimbun,Inc. NEC to build facility in Beijing to manufacture DRAM chips Assembly In China Part Of Strategy To Reduce Prices NEC Corp. will build a new facility in Beijing to begin fabricating 64-megabit DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) chips in early 1999. NEC will spend about 10 billion yen (77 million dollars) for the fabrication plant, which will be built through Shougang NEC Electronics Co., the company's semiconductor-manufacturing subsidiary in Beijing. The three-story plant with a floor space of 10,000 sq. meters will be equipped with the latest production equipment. The facility will have a production capacity of 1.5 million units per month initially. NEC earlier set up a joint venture with the Chinese national government and the government of Shanghai for DRAM production, part of the Chinese government's national semiconductor project. NEC will invest 200 million dollars of the total 1.2 billion dollars investment in the joint venture. Half the DRAM chips will be fabricated at Shougang NEC Electronics and half at NEC Semiconductors Singapore Pte. They will be exported to Japan and other markets. The Singaporean subsidiary is also building a new facility that is scheduled to begin fabricating chips in early 1999. NEC's monthly production of 64-megabit DRAM chips in China is expected to expand to 4 million units by early 2000. NEC has decided that the company needs to make the prices of its products more competitive by assembling them in China and other areas with lower production costs, in order to keep its 64-megabit DRAM operations profitable in a competitive market. NEC has also announced that it would set up a joint venture in Beijing for designing and developing ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits). The company plans to expand its semiconductor business in China. It hopes to establish an integrated production system for DRAM chips throughout Asia and import the product to Japan at lower prices. <<Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc. -- 03-30-98>> [Copyright 1998, Nikkei America]