In yet another move that bears out the current state of the industry, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co said it will be closing a semiconductor plant run by its US subsidiary Matsushita Semiconductor Corp of America. The facility, which produces 4Mb multi-purpose dynamic random-access memories (DRAMs) and 4-and 8- bit microprocessors, will cease operations by the end of the year. The DRAM operations will be transferred to a Matsushita group plant in Japan. The company said the plant was only operating at about 25% of capacity due to the overall slump in the global chip market. Roughly 340 jobs will be lost as a result of the closure. The news follows last week’s announcement by Hitachi Ltd that it would be closing a chip plant in the US, with 500 jobs lost (CI No 3,489) and the closure of a similar US plant by Mitsubishi Electric Corp which took 230 jobs with it (CI No 3,488). Matsushita is considering a sale of the US unit to another chipmaker, but if a buyer doesn’t appear it will simply be disbanded, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Matsushita Semiconductor was established in 1991 and began life with capital of $300m. Back in March, it delayed the opening of a new plant due to falling memory chip prices.
