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To: Ian@SI who wrote (7837)	5/27/1999 10:32:00 PM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10921

More spending from NEC: NEC Plans to Boost Output of DRAM Chips An INTERACTIVE JOURNAL News Roundup TOKYO -- NEC Corp. said Wednesday it will invest around 40 billion yen ($327.2 million) to increase production capacity. The Japanese electronics giant said it will spend most of the money on boosting output of dynamic-random-access-memory chips at existing semiconductor plants in Japan and the United Kingdom. NEC said the investment will result in the production of 30 million 64-megabit DRAM chips per month, up 150% from the current level of around 12 million chips per month. DRAM technology, a dense type of memory, is widely used in the personal-computer industry. The company added that the investment will enable it to benefit from economies of scale, and produce more advanced DRAM chips, including 128-megabit DRAMs and Direct Rambus DRAMs. NEC's plants in Hiroshima and Kyushu and NEC Semiconductors U.K., a British subsidiary, will receive most of the funding. NEC's stock closed down 2.49%, or 34 yen, at 1,331 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Thursday. Traders said news of the increase in production made investors worry about a possible glut in the market for DRAM chips, a market that has faced considerable pricing pressure in recent years. Chip makers took a pounding in 1998 as DRAM prices plunged amid a global supply glut. And even though prices have risen in recent months, concerns remain about the sustainability of these prices, analysts say.

To: Ian@SI who wrote (7837)	5/27/1999 10:37:00 PM
From: Ian@SI	Respond to of 10921

And not to be outdone by NEC, TSMC more than doubles its planned capital spending for 1999. :-) May 27, 1999 Dow Jones Newswires DJ Taiwan Semi To More Than Double '99 Capital Spending By DAVID P. HAMILTON SAN FRANCISCO -- Contract chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM) plans to more than double its 1999 capital investment, a company official said, in a firm vote of confidence that the semiconductor market is recovering. TSMC, of Taiwan, had originally planned to invest only about $500 million in new chip making plant and equipment this year, said Magnus Ryde, president of TSMC's U.S. unit. But the company recently decided to expand its investment to $1.2 billion for the year, a sum that will allow it to break ground on a new factory in the Tainan industrial park in southern Taiwan. TSMC will also invest in facilities in Hsinchu, near Taipei, in the U.S. and in a new joint venture production facility in Singapore, Ryde said. As a result, TSMC plans to boost its production capacity to 1.9 million wafers in 1999, up from 1.2 million in 1998, Ryde said. Silicon wafers are processed in semiconductor facilities, where they are imprinted with circuit designs, then diced into individual chips. TSMC, which recently unveiled an advanced manufacturing process - one capable of producing chip features as small as 0.18 microns, typical of the most advanced chip factories in the world - also continues to move ahead with other innovations, Ryde said. In particular, TSMC remains on track to start production using 12-inch wafers, which offer more than twice the surface area of today's eight-inch wafers, in mid-2001 at a new facility in Tainan. -David P. Hamilton; 201-938-5099