Hitachi plans new chip plants in Asia

17 Jun 2002

Hitachi and several partners plan to invest about $2.19 billion on making semiconductors in Malaysia and Singapore to meet booming global demand. The Japanese conglomerate said it had begun talks with South Korea's LG Semicon Co. to establish a jointly owned plant in Kulim Kedah, Malaysia, making 16- and 64-megabit dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips. The plant would involve total investment of about $1.23 billion and production would start at the beginning of 1998. The venture would have about 1,000 employees and make up to 30,000 eight-inch wafers a month, Hitachi said.