Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 8, 1995 TAG: 9508080077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The plant will make 64-megabit memory chips to help meet the fast-growing worldwide demand for semiconductor chips, Toshiba spokesman Makoto Ueda said in Tokyo, confirming a report in The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan's most-read economic daily. The chips are used in everything from computers to washing machines.
The chips will be supplied to the two companies on an equal basis for use in their own products or for sale to other companies, Ueda said.
Spokesmen for IBM and Toshiba in the United States declined to offer any details Monday.
Toshiba planned to announce the venture today in Tokyo. Another Toshiba-IBM news conference was planned in Manassas.
Construction of the plant in Manassas, a suburb of Washington, will start in January. Production is expected to begin in fall 1997. Ueda said the plant will employ 700 when it opens.
Toshiba and IBM already have a joint venture in flat panel computer screens, formed in 1989, which they build in Japan.
In addition, the two companies and Seimens AG of Germany have a two-year research partnership that announced in June it succeeded in producing an advanced 256-megabit memory chip that will allow for far more compact and powerful computers and high-quality digital televisions.
Toshiba and IBM are aiming to shift production at the Manassas facility to 256-megabit chips around the year 2000, Ueda said.
The decision to locate in Manassas is a departure from recent trend which has seen most new chip factories built in Oregon, Northern California or Texas.
by CNB