Inotera Memories has signed a contract with banks for a five-year syndicated loan of NT$35 billion (US1.1 billion) chiefly for its technology transitions. The DRAM maker said it is set to mass produce 2Gb DDR3 chips on 50nm in the third quarter, and preparing for migration to a 42nm process.
Inotera noted that plans to convert all of its capacity (130,000 wafers/month) to Micron Technology's 50nm stack process by year-end 2010 remain unchanged. The node will account for more than half of the capacity in the third quarter.
Inotera also revealed plans to kick off trial runs on Micron's 42nm design in the second half of 2010.
Inotera said earlier this year that its migration to smaller process geometries would help drive up bit shipment growth for 2010 to 70-80%, compared to a 12% drop in 2009.
Inotera plans to spend about NT$52 billion on process migrations in 2010. The capex target, originally set at NT$45 billion, was revised upward at a company investors conference in January.
Inotera now runs two 12-inch fabs, supplying half of the total DRAM output to Micron Technology and the other half to Nanya Technology.