Taipei, Aug. 3, 2010 (CENS)--Nanya Technology Corp. and Inotera Memory Inc., both under the Formosa Plastics Group (FPG), recently hiked capital expenditures on 42-nanometer process capacity to a combined US$2.7 billion this year.

Industry executives estimate the investments will help the two DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chipmakers quickly minimize loss by allowing more chips to be put on a wafer.

Nanya cut loss by around 37% last quarter from a quarter earlier whereas Inotera posted around 16% more loss.

Inotera will deploy 42nm process in September this year and complete the migration from 50nm to 42nm by mid-2011. In conjunction with process upgrade plan, the company recently hiked capital expenditure to US$1.8 billion from US$1.6 billion.

Inotera has just shifted to 50nm process node and is expanding the capacity, aiming to put out all its 130,000 300mm wafers with 50nm process the next quarter.

Nanya will upgrade all its capacity to 50nm process sometime next quarter, thereby boosting output by 30% next quarter in terms of memory volume. The company recently raised capital expenditure on the process to US$937 million from US$687 million.

(by Ken Liu)