According to DigiTimes, GloFo is looking to buy a fab in Taiwan. Apparently 300mm fabs are up for sale on the island for between $300m and $400m.
The sellers are said to be Powerchip and ProMOS.
Powerchip has debts of $1.5bn. It was founded in 1994 by Mitsubishi and a group of local Taiwanese investors. In 2002 Mitsubishi transferred its DRAM operations to Elpida which had been established in 1999 as a joint venture between the DRAM operations of Hitachi and NEC. In February Powerchip said it would drop selling proprietary DRAM in favour of acting as a DRAM foundry for Elpida. Powerchip company has three 300mm fabs.
ProMos has debts of $2.2bn. It was formed in 1996 from the Mosel-Vitelic jv which had put together the SRAM capabilities of Mosel with the DRAM capabilities of Vitelic. Infineon held a share in ProMos but the relationship went sour.
Both ProMos and Powerchip are said to be putting their fabs up for sale to reduce their debts.
Apart from GloFo, prospective buyers are said to be TSMC. UMC and TSMC’s subsidiary Vanguard.
DigiTimes also says that the Elipida-Powerchip jv Rexchip may take over one of Powerchip’s fabs.
Powerchip, ProMos, Rexchip and Elpida all make DRAM which has been in one of its regular trough markets for most of the year.