Fujitsu Ltd. said Friday it will spend 160 billion yen to build a new plant at its factory site in Mie Prefecture to produce logic LSI (large-scale integration) chips employing nanotechnology.

The new facility is expected to begin operations in April 2005 and mass production in September 2005. It will be capable of making logic LSI semiconductors with 90 nanometer and 65 nanometer technologies, the Japanese electronics maker said.

The capital investment plan, aimed to cope with surging demand for system LSI chips worldwide, is one of the biggest for Fujitsu since the bursting of the 1990s information-technology bubble.

At the initial stage, Fujitsu will spend 75 billion yen by fiscal 2005, which begins next April, with total investment reaching 160 billion yen, it said.

Fujitsu aims for maximum monthly production of 13,000 units of logic LSI chips after the plant goes into full operation.

Fujitsu followed the lead of some other high-tech companies, including Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Canon Inc., in moving part of their semiconductor production back to Japan, particularly for production of high-value-added microchips.

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