Taipei, July 2, 2009 (CENS)--Yukio Sakamoto, chairman and chief executive officer of Elpida Memory Inc., yesterday said his company will work with Taiwan Memory Corp. (TMC) on niche memory technologies while planning to finance projects to develop leading-edge standard-memory technologies at overseas affiliates including Rexchip Electronics Inc. in Taiwan.

The statement appears to refute reports that there was something amiss in the relation between his company and PowerChip Semiconductor Corp. (PSC), which now holds a 42% stake in Rexchip, when Elpida quitted its only seat in PSC director board last week after a board re-election.

Sakamoto explained that his company quit the seat because Rexchip is already a good platform for his company and PSC to communicate and his company rarely attended PSC`s board meeting.

He said his company will set aside 100 billion yen (US$1 billion at US$1:95 yen) of the 140 billion yen (US$1.4 billion) in bailout it has secured with government-run and private Japanese banks or financing projects to develop leading-edge standard-memory technologies at overseas affiliates including Rexchip.

Sakamoto stressed that his company, TMC and PSC would form a complementary partnership, with Elpida focusing on developments of niche memory process technologies, TMC on designs of niche chips, and PSC on commodity-memory manufacturing.

Elpida, Sakamoto said, will transfer its 50-nanometer process to TMC so that the Taiwanese chip designer will be able to develop chips for mobile devices and digitized consumer electronics. It will work with Rexchip on 60nm process for making standard memory chips.

The top Elpida executive stressed the partnership is aimed at building up the alliance`s strength in face of threatening competition posed by South Korean memory-chip makers.

However, he said TMC will not become Elpida`s foremost institutional shareholder although the Taiwanese company vows to put an equivalent of 20 billion (US$210 million) into Elpida for a 10% stake. According to Elpida`s capital-raising plan, TMC is likely to acquire only preferred shares, making it a nonvoting holder.


(by Ken Liu)