Hynix, ST JV Reportedly Raises $750M to Expand Fab

Staff Reporter -- Electronic News, 8/14/2006

The Chinese joint venture of Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and STMicroelectronics has raised $750 million in syndicated loans to finance a new memory chip line construction, Hynix said today in news reports.

The Seoul, Korea-based memory chipmaker has built the $2 billion joint chip plant with ST in Wuxi, China.

The joint venture company, Hynix-ST Semiconductor Ltd. has reportedly received five-year term loans totaling $750 million from 19 financial institutions, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, according to a filing to the Korea Exchange, according to Reuters.

The funds are expected to go towards construction of a new 12-inch wafer size production line that is being built, the report said.

The joint venture fab will produce DRAM chips from its eight-inch production line, which began operations in May. The new 12-inch line is expected to begin mass production in October, although the companies said they have not yet decided on the type of memory chips the new plant will produce, according to a Hynix official in the report.

It is expected the memory to be produced on the 12-inch line will be either DRAM or NAND flash memory.

The company was not available to comment further.