When Fujitsu Ltd chose Gresham, Oregon over Newton Aycliffe for its new memory chip plant, it was widely assumed that County Durham and the UK had missed out this time around: on Friday, Fujitsu not only confirmed that it was expanding the Durham plant, but revealed scale or investment comparable with Gresham. It will invest $1,260m to double and more output of memory chips at the plant, creating 500 new jobs on top of the 520 currently employed when it opens in February 1997. It will initially make 16Ms, and then 64Ms, in 0.32 micron technology, and 0.25-micron in 1998.
