Elpida Memory Expands Semiconductor Production Facilities

June 14, 2004

Construction Begins on Second 300 mm Fabrication Plant and First 300 mm Fab Set to Boost Mass Production
Hiroshima, June 10, 2004 - Elpida Memory, Inc (Elpida), Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), and Hiroshima Elpida Memory, Inc (Hiroshima Elpida), today announced that they have started construction on a second 300 mm wafer fabrication facility. Hiroshima Elpida's first 300 mm facility will also expand its production capacity. Both activities are part Elpida's strategy to expand its semiconductor mass production to meet growing customer demand for leading-edge, high-performance DRAM products.

The new 300 mm plant will be constructed directly adjacent to the first 300 mm facility and is slated to begin mass production during the second half of 2005. Elpida will introduce 85 nanometer (nm) processing at the new facility later that year. The construction area is approximately 23,000 square meters with a gross floor space of approximately 91,000 square meters-almost double the size of the existing facility. Elpida plans to expand the production capacity of the new facility in several stages leading up to a maximum capacity of 60,000 wafers per month. The total construction cost is estimated at 450 billion Yen to 500 billion Yen (approximately US$4.1 billion to 4.5 billion*).

Hiroshima Elpida's first 300 mm facility is currently engaged in the test and mass production of semiconductor products, and Elpida plans to increase its production capacity from 22,000 wafers per month to 28,000 wafers per month during the second half of 2004. The facility, which began operation in January 2003, primarily manufactures high-density DRAM products for the server market. However, there are future plans to manufacture 1 Gigabit DDR2 SDRAM products as well as Mobile RAM devices for cellular applications and 0.11-micron Digital Consumer DRAM devices for the rapidly-growing consumer electronics market.

Note: Production capacity is represented by the number of 300 mm wafers.

* Assumes an exchange rate of US$1.00 = 110 Yen

The original press release can be found here.