NEC ramps up DRAM production

By putting money into two domestic memory fabs, NEC Corp. plans to double its production of 128MB DRAMs over the next year.

NEC is investing $828 million, up from $508 million last year, to increase production of 128MB synchronous DRAMS, 128MB and 144MB Direct Rambus DRAMs and, to a lesser extent, 256MB SDRAMs. These memory chips will move into volume production in the second half of this year.

Additionally, NEC is spending an another $205 million on a soon-to-be-completed .18-micron fab for logic chips, graphics devices, and RISC processors.

NEC is targeting full production by March of next year, when it expects the price of 64MB DRAMs and 128MB DRAMs to reach parity.

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