Elpida Memory and Hiroshima Elpida Memory today announced that they have started construction on the second 300mm wafer fabrication facility. Hiroshima Elpida’s first 300mm 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 300mm plant will be constructed directly adjacent to the first 300mm facility and is slated to begin mass production during the second half of 2005. Elpida will introduce 85nm 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 approximately $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 1Gb 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.