TOKYO (Dow Jones)--Toshiba Corp. (6502.TO) said Wednesday that it aims to streamline its NAND flash memory assembly operations in Japan by shutting down one of its manufacturing plants in the country.
The electronics giant said it will transfer back-end processes for manufacturing NAND memory chips at its Toshiba LSI Package Solutions unit in Kyushu, western Japan--one of two such facilities in the country--to its mainline Yokkaichi plant in central Japan around November this year.
"By concentrating all aspects of memory technology development and production in Yokkaichi for both the front- and back-end processes, Toshiba will improve coordination and cooperation across the overall manufacturing process and seek to raise the efficiency of product development and trial production significantly," the company said in a release.
Around 400 workers will be transferred from Kyushu to the Yokkaichi plant, Toshiba said.
Toshiba also said it aims to boost its overseas production ratio for back-end processes to about 80% by the end of fiscal year 2010. The ratio currently stands at around 70%, according to Toshiba.