Toshiba planning to expand its flash memory output

Tech giant Toshiba is the world’s second largest memory chip developer for the various consumer goods like mobile phones and digital music players. The latest news in is that the company is considering increasing its investments in the flash memory production. These plans are to coincide with the Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida’s plans to spend 1.1 trillion yen on investments over the next couple of years.

The company also plans to expand their semiconductor production, including memories to meet expected demand for devices like the iPod Shuffle from Apple Computers. Keisuke Ohmori, a Toshiba spokesperson said in a statement about the company’s plans: “We have the capacity to make as many as 150,000 wafers a month at our new plant in Yokkaichi. But we haven’t officially decided anything yet on investment beyond the fiscal year that starts in April 2006.”

Toshiba is planning to spend around $4.2 billion by 2008 to expand their 300 mm wafers production by 150%. These wafers are the base for the memory chips developed by the company. President of Toshiba Nishida spoke to the press a couple of days ago and said that his company expects semiconductor sales, including flash memory chips, will reach 1.2 trillion yen in the year ending March 2008.

Samsung are the current leaders in the NAND-based flash memories, data-storage chips and Toshiba would like to step up the competition.