Last week was another bad week for the Japanese semiconductor market, with memory chip prices falling to their lowest level since last summer. According to the Nihon Industrial Daily, the spot prices of 64Mb dynamic random access memory chips fell to around $7.5 per chip, the worst price since the $6.9 all time low of last June. On the domestic market, 64Mb DRAMs have hit their nadir and were priced between 900 yen ($7.61) and 920 yen ($7.79) on Friday.
Meanwhile, Yamaha Corp has announced that it intends to shut its 0.35 micron process semiconductor fab in Hamamatsu, Japan by February next year. The plant only commenced production last June. Yamaha blamed the closure on the falling price of audio LSIs – the plant’s main product – claiming that it could not afford further investment in the facility. The company is now looking for a buyer for the plant.
