Toshiba to Build 2 NAND Plants, Produce 400,000 Units per Month

Feb 20, 2008 18:00 Jyunichi Ooshita, Nikkei Microdevices

Toshiba Corp announced a plan to construct new plants for NAND flash memory. It will start the constructions in Kitakami City, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, and in Yokkaichi City, Mie Prefecture, in spring 2009. The two plants will start running in 2010.

The production capacity of each plant will be 150,000 to 200,000 units per month, said Atsutoshi Nishida, president and CEO of Toshiba. The total investment amount for the two plants will be more than ¥1.7 trillion (US$15.8 billion), he said.

SanDisk might not invest in both of the plants.

The plant in Kitakami City and the one in Yokkaichi city will be built in the site of Iwate Toshiba Electronics, which manufactures microcomputers and LCD driver ICs, and in the site adjacent to Yokkaichi plant, which produces NAND flash memories, respectively.

The construction of each plant will be completed in spring 2010. But Toshiba did not reveal when the plants will start running or be in full production, saying it varies depending on the progress of the constructions and the market conditions.

One of the two plants will be jointly invested by Toshiba and SanDisk Corp, which cooperates with Toshiba on NAND flash memory. However, it has not been decided yet which plant SanDisk will invest in. As for the other plant, SanDisk has not decided to invest in it yet. Toshiba and SanDisk will continue to negotiate about this issue.

Toshiba will adopt a new investment model in the plant that the two companies will jointly invest in. Half of its production capacity will be split in half, and each half (quarter of the total production capacity) is invested and operated by each company. The other half of the capacity will be invested and operated solely by Toshiba, but half of its output will be provided to SanDisk.

In Yokkaichi Plant, the total investment amount for the manufacturing facilities was split in half.

Nishida did not explain the details of the changing relationship with SanDisk. But Toshiba and SanDisk might have different outlooks on the business plan on NAND flash memory and on the market conditions

The new plants will produce "next-generation memories."

Asked about the reason why Toshiba decided to build two plants at the same time, Nishida said, "We will establish a framework that can deal with rapid increases in demands and will prepare manufacturing bases for next-generation memories ahead of other companies."

As for the demand, the company estimates that the bit growth rate from 2006 to 2010 will be 233% per year and that it will be even higher after 2011, he said.

Toshiba defines the next-generation memories as the successors of floating-gate flash memories including 3D stacked memories, Nishida said. The new plants will have the main production lines for 30-20nm and below memory process generations so that the company can promptly respond to the technological changes expected in these generations.

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