Nanya Technology will likely raise its capex budget for 2010 to top NT$20 billion (US$627 million), up from the company's most recent estimate of NT$19 billion, according to industry sources. The revised spending will be devoted to its migration to more advanced processes, and also to expanding capacity.
Nanya is planning to ramp capacity at its 12-inch fab from the current 30,000 wafers to 50,000-60,000 wafers, the sources revealed. Combined with capacity from Inotera Memories, Nanya's total 12-inch capacity will reach 115,000-125,000 wafers a month, and account for 10% of overall output from 12-inch DRAM fabs worldwide, the sources indicated.
Inotera supplies half of the DRAM output from its 12-inch fabs to Nanya, and the other half to Micron Technology. The joint venture now has a monthly capacity of 130,000 wafers, and its conversion from 70nm-class trench to 50nm stack remains on schedule.
Both Nanya and Inotera are stepping up efforts to convert all of their 12-inch chip production to Micron's 50nm process.
Nanya has said it will run its 12-inch fab at full capacity in March, and will start using 50nm process to produce DRAM in the second quarter. It also expects to kick off pilot runs for 40nm-class chips in the second half of 2010.
Inotera has forecast its bit shipment growth for 2010 will be 70-80% compared to a 12% drop in 2009, as a result of the company's migration to smaller process geometries. The company is set to complete its technology transition to 50nm stack by the end of this year.
Inotera's 2010 capex has been revised to NT$52 billion from an original budget of NT$45 billion.