Shin-Etsu hikes wafer presence

Shin-Etsu Chemical will again spend $1 billion to boost its output of 12-inch silicon wafers. The company is already the world's largest producer of silicon wafers, the basic raw material for semiconductor manufacturing, and it pioneered production of the 12-inch size in 2001. Shin-Etsu now plans to set up a new site in the Japanese prefecture of Nagano. It will also boost capacity at existing sites in Shirakawa and Gunma, Japan, and in Vancouver, Wash. When the projects are completed in the fall of 2007, the company's total capacity for 12-inch wafers will reach 1 million units per month. Shin-Etsu has just completed work on a $1 billion expansion that established the U.S. site and raised the firm's capacity to 700,000 wafers per month.