Toshiba Corp. will spend about 130 billion yen, or about $1.13 billion, to expand the manufacturing capacity of its power management chip business, Nikkei Asia reported on Thursday.

Toshiba confirmed that it plans to add more chip manufacturing capacity in an official announcement released a few hours after the report. The company didn’t specify how much it’s investing in the initiative. However, Toshiba did share a number of technical details. 

Tokyo-based Toshiba manufactures a wide variety of products ranging from elevators to quantum cryptography hardware. The company also has a substantial semiconductor business. Toshiba’s semiconductor business is a major provider of power management chips, which are compact circuits found in many electronics that help with tasks such as reducing unnecessary power usage. 

Toshiba reportedly will spend 100 billion yen, or $873 million, to build a fab capable of making power management chips in Ishikawa Prefecture. The fab is expected to be located on a campus operated by the company’s Kaga Toshiba Electronics subsidiary.

Toshiba currently makes power management chips using 200-millimeter silicon wafers. The upcoming fab will use 300-millimeter wafers, which are based on newer technology that can help increase manufacturing efficiency. In a bid to further increase efficiency, Toshiba will equip the facility with artificial intelligence software and automated wafer transportation systems. 

The fab will be constructed in two phases. The first phase is expected to be completed in the company’s 2024 fiscal year, after which Toshiba’s power management chip business will have about 2.5 times more production capacity than in fiscal 2021. Toshiba is aiming to power the fab’s operations entirely with renewable energy. 

Toshiba is reportedly also installing a production line that uses 300-millimeter wafers at an existing building. The new production line is expected to begin operations between October 2022 and March 2023.

Toshiba is launching the initiative to expand its semiconductor production capacity a few months after announcing plans to split up into three separate companies. The power management chip business and a number of other semiconductor divisions are set to be spun off into a firm known as Device Co. The firm is also set to absorb several other Toshiba units, including the company’s hard drive business. 

A number of Toshiba’s competitors have also been working to increase their production capacity. Fuji Electric Co. Ltd. last year announced plans to invest $365 million in expanding production of power management chips. Infineon Technologies AG, in turn, recently launched a new $1.9 billion chip fab that will make power management chips for cars, data center systems and other devices. 

Photo: Toshiba