Hitachi to slash jobs at Singapore semiconductor factory

Asian Economic News, Dec 3, 2001

TOKYO, Nov. 29 Kyodo

Hitachi Ltd. said Thursday it will nearly halve its workforce by Friday at a Singaporean affiliate manufacturing semiconductors due to a protracted slump in demand for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips.

Staff at Hitachi Nippon Steel Semiconductor Singapore Pte Ltd. will be reduced to 550 from 980, the Japanese electronics giant said in a press release.

Hitachi said it also plans to reduce capacity utilization at a factory under the Singaporean company from 60% to 30% and instead begin mass production of other semiconductor products such as flash memory in the first half of the next fiscal year starting April 1, 2002.

Hitachi and Nippon Steel Corp. each hold a 35% stake in the Singapore chip company, and Singapore EDB Investments Pte Ltd. has a 30% stake.

Set up in 1996, Hitachi Nippon Steel Semiconductor now makes 64-megabit and 256-megabit DRAMs.