Asian chipmakers grow like topsy

REPORTS ARE COMING IN from the Far East that chipmakers are falling all over themselves in a mad rush to expand capacity.

Building work has been going on in some plants as the various outfits move to 40nm production lines, but there is also a move to actually increase production.

Digitimes is reporting that Nanya increased its planned capital expenditures this year in a bid to ramp up capacity at its 12-inch fab from the current 30,000 wafers to 50,000-60,000 wafers.

But this is only the tip of the iceburg for Nanya, which also relies on capacity from Inotera Memories. When both firms are added together Nanya's total 12-inch capacity will reach 115,000-125,000 wafers a month. This is more than 10 per cent of the overall output from 12-inch DRAM fabs worldwide.

Moreover, Inotera allocates half of the DRAM output from its 12-inch fabs to Nanya, and the other half goes to Micron. The joint venture produces 130,000 wafers a month.

Both Nanya and Inotera are stepping up efforts to convert all of their 12-inch chip production to Micron's 50nm process.

Nanya has said it will run its 12-inch fab flat out throughout March and wants to start using the 50nm process to produce DRAM in the second quarter. It also expects to kick off pilot runs for 40nm class chips in the second half the year.

Such announcements follow others from various Asian chip makers that they are planning to go flat out this year too.

There are signs that in the short term it may not be enough, thanks mostly to yield problems at TSMC, but by the end of the year we could see large numbers of cheap chips hitting the shops.

Of course if the current economic recovery falters and swings back into recession then the entire semiconductor industry could collapse. µ