Taiwan foundry United Microelectronics Corp. is believed to be considering producing NAND flash memory at its plant in Mie, Japan, the Economic Daily reported. The company is said to be looking at so-called mature products that memory makers in South Korea and Japan, including Samsung Electronics and Kioxia, have scaled back or exited.
The product under review is a flash memory known as “2D NAND.” While competitors such as Samsung and Kioxia have shifted production toward higher-margin “3D NAND,” 2D NAND still has demand in long-life electronics such as automotive, home appliances and industrial control equipment. With supply tight, prices have been surging. The report said UMC plans trial production in the second half of this year (July-December) and aims to start mass production from 2027.
UMC is expected to make the 2D memory based on circuits designed by its partner, Taiwan-based fabless chip designer eMemory. The report said UMC has been studying the plan after receiving a request from a major Japanese memory maker to help maintain domestic 2D NAND production capacity.
UMC’s Mie plant was originally a Fujitsu facility that produced 12-inch wafers. UMC acquired it in 2019 and made it a subsidiary, United Semiconductor Japan Corp., or USJC. The plant currently focuses on logic chips for smartphones and vehicles, with capacity of 39,800 12-inch wafers a month.
A USJC spokesperson told NNA that the report “was not announced by UMC or our company,” adding, “We cannot respond to market speculation.”
* This article has been translated by AI.
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