Flash fabs to close for holiday season

FLASH MEMORY MAKERS Sandisk and Toshiba are obviously not feeling too flush with cash at the moment and have decided to temporarily shut up shop at several of their manufacturing facilities in Japan.

The 300mm Fab 3 and Fab 4 in Yokkaichi, joint ventures between Sandisk and Tosh, will be taking a 13 day holiday between December 31st and January 12th, only to resume again afterwards at 70 per cent of production capacity.

Tosh is also expected to put a four-day halt to production at its 200mm Fab 1 and Fab 2 in Yokkaichi between December 31st and January 3rd.

But it won't be just flash getting a Christmas break from the memory glut, Toshiba says it's also going to halt production of SoCs, CMOS image sensors, analog ICs, power ICs and small signal ICs for various periods of time too.

Its Oita factory will be closing its doors between December 24th and January 14th, the Kitakyushu fabs will be closed from December 25th to January 18th and the Himeji fabs can enjoy a break from December 20th to January 6th.

So, not quite a merry memory Christmas for one and all then. µ