Elpida/Powerchip JV Rexchip opens doors to first 300-mm fab

By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- Electronic News, 10/17/2007

DRAM chip fabrication company Rexchip Electronics Corp., a joint venture (JV) by Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. and Elpida Memory Inc., opened its doors last week in Taichun, Taiwan.

Rexchip held the grand opening ceremony of its first 300-mm fab on Friday October 12, less than one year from the fab's groundbreaking. Rexchip's total investment is slated to reach $13.8 billion (450 billion Taiwanese dollars.) According to a statement made Friday by the company, the Rexchip JV was formed last December by Elpida and Powerchip to "compete for the number one DRAM worldwide market-share milestone."

The new fab currently has an installed capacity of 30,000 wafers manufacturing completely on 70-nm process technology. In Q4 of this year volume production of 1Gb DDR2 DRAM will be shipped to Powerchip and Elpida, the company said.

The JV has a total planned capacity of 240,000 12-inch wafers per month. Rexchip, which currently has over 1,800 employees, plans to construct four more 300-mm fabs to create a total of over 5,000 jobs.