Toshiba to consider overseas location for new chip plant

Toshiba Corp. said last week that it would consider an overseas location for its next NAND flash memory chip plant because currently demand for this memory type exceeds supply. While the company did not reveal where it could build its next fab, it is highly likely that the plant will be located in China.

Hisao Tanaka, chief executive officer of Toshiba, said in an interview with Reuters news-agency that the company, which is the world’s second largest producer of NAND flash memory, will decide during the next business year on where to build an additional memory chip plant. Since China is the world’s largest consumer of NAND flash, it is logical to build a new factory there.

“Samsung already has a factory in China, in Xian, and Hynix has one, too,” said Mr. Tanaka. “But Samsung has a plant in the United States, as well.”

Toshiba intends to begin production at the new fab sometimes in 2017. Given the timeframe, it is highly likely that the plant will produce multi-layer vertically-integrated NAND flash, which is among the most promising types of such memory. Given that Toshiba is behind Samsung with vertical NAND and the fact that Samsung has a lot more production capacities, Toshiba needs to make decision regarding its next fab as soon as possible.

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KitGuru Says: It is a good news that Toshiba plans to boost production of NAND flash memory chips by building a new manufacturing facility. Plenty of NAND flash on the market will ensure that the price of memory will not get too high…

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