P.M. BRIEFING : Japanese to Make Chips for Intel

A Japanese electronic company said today it will manufacture dynamic random access memory chips for Intel Corp. of Santa Clara, Calif., for sale worldwide under the U.S. company’s brand name.

NMB Semiconductor Co., a subsidiary of miniature bearing maker Minebea Co., said the five-year agreement is designed to ease U.S.-Japanese friction in semiconductor trade.

“We now manufacture 4 million 256-kilobit and 1 to 1.5 million 1-megabit DRAMs monthly, and most of our products will be marketed worldwide under the Intel brand through the U.S. firm’s sales network,” an NMBS spokesman said.

The agreement will join NMBS’ advanced production technology and Intel’s global marketing channel, he explained.

The company plans to start manufacturing 4-megabit DRAMs this fall, he said.

The company also said it will establish a plant, its fourth production base, in the United States in the near future.