Bank will invest in joint venture of NEC and Hitachi, report says TOKYO — The Development Bank of Japan has decided to invest in Elpida Memory Inc., a memory-chip joint venture of NEC Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., with a view to making it easier for the company to raise additional funds from other investors, according to a report in the Sunday morning edition of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business newspaper.The bank will invest ¥2 billion ($18.3 million) in Elpida, said the newspaper which did not identify its source. Elpida set out earlier this year to raise ¥100 billion from investors and has now decided to increase that to ¥150 billion, said the newspaper.Both Elpida and the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) declined to comment on the report. The DBJ also said no decision on such an investment has been made. The company has announced investments totalling just over ¥90 billion so far this year.In June this year it received investment totalling ¥81.5 billion from a number of companies including $100 million from Intel Corp., ¥9.5 billion each from NEC and Hitachi and the remainder from unnamed investors. In October it said Kingston Technology Corp. will invest ¥6 billion and in September announced a ¥2.7 billion investment from Intel Capital.Elpida was formed in late 1999 as NEC and Hitachi attempted to cope with volatility in the DRAM (dynamic RAM) market and increasing competition from companies in South Korea and Taiwan. Earlier this year it became Japan’s only major DRAM maker when Mitsubishi Electric Corp. exited the business and transferred its operations to Elpida. At present the company operates an advanced DRAM fabrication plant (fab) in Hiroshima, Japan, and also buys chips from Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. as part of an alliance formed between the two companies in 2002.It was the sixth-largest DRAM manufacturer in 2002 with a 4.9 percent share of the world market, according to the most recent annual data from IDC. Combined with Mitsubishi Electric, the company would have had a 6.9 percent market share, which would have been enough for fifth place. Ahead of it is Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Micron Technology Inc., Hynix Semiconductor Inc., Infineon Technologies AG and Nanya Technology Corp.The Powerchip alliance was expanded earlier this year when Elpida agreed to transfer advanced semiconductor production technologies to Powerchip and begin a technical training program for the Taiwanese company’s engineers. The training program was due to begin in October however has not yet started, said Yuko Takahashi, a spokeswoman for Elpida in Tokyo. Despite the late start to the training program, the production schedule for chips from Powerchip made on the more advanced line remains unchanged at 2004, said Takahashi. In May this year, the company also announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Promos Technologies Inc. to transfer similar chip production technology. The two companies set the end of September as a deadline for coming up with a definitive agreement however a deal has yet to be reached and talks continue, said Takahashi.