Elpida Memory and ProMOS Technologies announced on Friday the signing of a DRAM foundry agreement. This agreement marks the beginning of business cooperation between the two companies and will allow both to benefit: Elpida will gain additional capacities, while ProMOS will get fabrication technologies.

"We are confident that the combination of Elpida's advanced technology and ProMOS's highly-efficient, large-scale DRAM manufacturing capabilities will enable an outstanding supply of high-performance and high-quality DRAM products," said Yukio Sakamoto, president and chief executive officer of Elpida Memory.

Under the terms of the agreement, Elpida will provide advanced DRAM process and product technologies to ProMOS, while ProMOS will provide certain amount of manufacturing capacity at ProMOS’ Taichung 300mm wafer fab to Elpida for the manufacturing of Elpida's advanced 1Gb DDR3 devices. Trial runs will be completed in the first half of 2010, with mass production following in the second half of the same year.

Dr. M. L. Chen, president and chairman of ProMOS Technologies hopes that synergistic partnership built through this agreement will combine strengths from both companies. According to ProMOS, Elpida's 1Gb DDR3 device is among the most cost-competitive product in the industry and will pair well with ProMOS' strength in 300mm manufacturing.

“Through this agreement, ProMOS will be able to rapidly increase its capacity utilization rate at its Taichung 300mm facilities. With the recent turnaround in the DRAM market, ProMOS has embarked on the road to recovery,” said Dr. M. L. Chen.

Tags: Elpida, ProMOS, Business, DRAM