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Japan¡¯s Toshiba has started building its fourth Flash memory plant, to begin operating in 2008. The plant will cost 600 billion yen (W6 trillion), with California-based SanDisk shouldering 50 percent of the cost. Toshiba was the first to develop Flash memory chips in the 1990s but was later overtaken by Samsung Electronics. Now it plans to catch up with its Korean competitor by investing more than 1 trillion yen by 2008. Flash chips are used to store data in MP 3 players, cell phones, digital cameras and other portable IT products.
The big Japanese electronics firms are making massive investment in semiconductors, plasma display panels and liquid crystal displays to recover their leading position in IT sectors they had to concede to Korean companies. Japan¡¯s second largest memory chip maker Elpida Memory said early this month it will build a 1 trillion yen next-generation semiconductor production line. By investing more than four times last year¡¯s total sales of 240 billion yen, Elpida reportedly hopes to start mass production there before March 2009. Matsushita Electric and Pioneer, Japan¡¯s no. 1 and no. 2 PDP panel makers, are also expanding manufacturing facilities.
Matsushita overtook LG Electronics and Samsung SDI to claim the no. 1 position in the global PDP market in the second quarter by boosting production at its plant in Amagasaki to 3.4 million units a year last June. The company is now building a second factory there, where mass production is to start in 2008. Pioneer, meanwhile, will build a new 30 billion yen PDP TV factory in Yamanashi Prefecture.
The world¡¯s fourth largest LCD maker Sharp Electronics starts mass production at its eighth-generation LCD production line earlier than planned near the end of this month. The cutting-edge production line will give the Japanese electronics giant an edge in producing LCD panels over 50 inches.
¡°Our Japanese counterparts have become more aggressive in making investment and their performance has bounced back,¡± a Samsung Electronics staffer admits. Indeed, Sony, Matsushita, Sharp, Toshiba, Canon, and Fujitsu all posted profit in the first quarter.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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