NEC Electronics Corp. announced that it plans to invest a total of 10 billion yen (US $87.8 million) to increase its power chip production capacity by roughly 40%. Initially, the company will spend 5 billion yen to add new lines at an existing factory operated by production unit NEC Kansai Ltd.
Construction at the Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, plant is scheduled to begin this month and be completed by June 2008, with mass production beginning the following October. The construction will add 3,000 sq. meters to clean room facilities and raise the factory’s output capacity for 200mm silicon wafers from 27,000 units a month currently to 37,000 in fiscal year 2008. The extra capacity is expected to be used mostly to make power MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) chips, which are used in motors and LCD backlights.
By transferring most of the chipmaking equipment for the new line from another production unit, NEC Yamagata Ltd. in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, NEC Electronics expects to keep the investment for this phase of the project at 5 billion yen or less.
