The economic minister of Taiwan said recently that the government will help the local makers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) by either financially helping them or convincing their creditors to give them extensions, but noted that by the end of February the authorities will put forward framework for the consolidation of those makers.

Currently the government works with large domestic DRAM makers Powechip Semiconductor Corp. (PSC) and ProMOS Technologies. Besides, the government has been working with Elpida Memory and Micron Technology, who are interested in acquisition of Taiwanese memory manufacturers. It is interesting to note that the authorities seem to be a little less optimistic about the future of Nanya Technologies (a DRAM maker that belongs to Formosa Plastics conglomerate) and Inotera Memories, a joint venture between Micron and Nanya.

“Some vulnerable companies are not rescue-able even if the government hopes to save them,” said economic minister C.M. Yiin, reports Taiwan Economic News.

In the long term the Taiwanese government would prefer to see the country’s DRAM industry consolidated. Potentially, this means that PSC, ProMOS and some others may become one company that will either cooperate with partners overseas, or will be a part of Elpida or Micron.

According to the government, it has already succeed with the banks for a fresh loan to ProMOS under guarantees of an “unnamed testing and packaging house”, which is most likely to be Kingston Technologies, a memory module maker who runs several plants in Taiwan.

Tags: ProMOS, Powerchip Semiconductor, Powerchip, Business