Macronix International Company (MXIC) and Winbond Electronics are ramping up their NOR flash capacities in order to expand their share in the global market, according to industry sources. Macronix is expected to acquire a 12-inch fab from ProMOS Technology, while Winbond plans to ramp up its capacity for NOR flash chips to 10,000 wafer starts a month in the second half of 2010.
    Macronix reportedly will soon wrap up a deal to buy ProMOS's facility located at the Hsinchu Science Park (HSP), which has a monthly capacity of around 50,000 12-inch equivalent wafers. The additional capacity will help ease its tight supply of NOR flash memory and fulfill growing ROM demand for Nintendo's game consoles, the sources indicated.
    Macronix has said it is seeking to buy one of ProMOS's 12-inch wafer fabs, and will use it to produce 45nm ROM and 75nm NOR flash products.
    Winbond has scaled up monthly capacity for its NOR flash products from 4,000 wafers to 7,000, and is set to increase it to 10,000 in the second half of 2010, according to the sources.
    Winbond spokesperson Wilson Wen was quoted in previous reports saying the company expects to ramp up total wafer starts at its 12-inch fab to 55,000 units a month from 35,000 currently, through expanding its existing production facilities.
    In addition to NOR flash, Winbond also produces specialty DRAM, mobile RAM and graphics DDR (GDDR), as well as a small volume of commodity DRAM.
    Macronix and Winbond will hold their quarterly investors conferences on April 28 and April 27, respectively.