Memory chipmaker Winbond Electronics, which has diversified its product mix to include NOR flash, niche-market DRAM and GDDR, has announced an additional capex of NT$1.512 billion (US$52.5 million) over 2011 and 2012. The decision was made in consideration of a planned investment to expand NOR chip capacity.
Winbond said it is looking to ramp up monthly capacity for its NOR flash products to 16,000 wafer starts in the fourth quarter of 2011 from the current 14,000 units. The company is also set to start making NOR chips using 58nm process technology in the second half of the year to lower costs.
Winbond revealed that of its total 12-inch capacity in the first quarter of 2011, 25,000 wafer starts were produced for DRAM related products, and the remainder for NOR chips.
In addition, Winbond indicated that its 1.8V serial flash products have been qualified by several clients. The company is also sampling its newly-developed 3V parallel flash device to customers for design-in.
Sales of Winbond's niche-market DRAM chips accounted for 36% of company revenues in the first quarter, followed by NOR memory with 31%, mobile DRAM with 28% and others 5%.