The amount includes 12 billion yen invested by US chipmaking giant Intel Corp., and 9.5 billion yen each put up by Hitachi Ltd. and NEC Corp., which both own 50 percent of Elpida, and which was first announced on Tuesday.

Elpida said in a statement that the names of the investors behind the balance of 50 billion yen were not being disclosed.

"To remain competitive in the DRAM (dynamic random access memory) industry, Elpida must build on its established technology leadership and increase its production capacity for high-end DRAM products," Elpida president Yukio Sakamoto was quoted as saying in the statement.

"This new funding now enables us to purchase all of the equipment we need to ramp our internal production at our Hiroshima fab."

The planned increase in capacity at the plant would allow Elpida to mass-produce its high-end, high-density, 0.11 micron DRAM products, the statement said.

The plant, which started operation in January, currently produces 3,000 300-millimetre wafers a month. Elpida hopes to increase it to 15,000 wafers a month by the end of this year.

Citing independent chip industry research figures, Elpida said it is currently ranked sixth in the global DRAM market with a 5.1 percent market share, but it aimed to corner a roughly 15 percent market share by 2006.

SPACE.WIRE