Single Japanese DRAM Maker Shut Down by Disaster

Things are definitely not going well in Japan, as the natural disaster that struck last week has left much of the infrastructure severely impaired, and this extends to Elpida, essentially the only DRAM maker that the country has.

For those that need an update, the strong, 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked Japan last week, along with the tsunamis it sent out, caused great devastation.

About 10,000 is the death toll expected and there are also other troubles, like explosions at a nuclear power plant, complete with radiation leaks.

In the meantime, the various industrial sectors are scrambling to assess and contain their own damage.

As expected, those that are not based on Japan or have suppliers in other countries have or will experience only minimal inconveniences.

Elpida, however, is a DRAM manufacturer that had the misfortune of being the only one of its kind in the country and also getting completely (more or less) shut down by the earthquake.

Granted, the plant located in Hiroshima, being far to the southwest and away from the worst of the tremors, wasn't affected much and has been operating normally since March 12.

The one in Akita-shi, however, is even now inactive, following the power outage that has still not been resolved, though it should be ready for operation once power returns (equipment was undamaged).

The real problem is with the material suppliers and that it has yet to assess the overall damage, although logistics and distribution operations should go back to normal today (14 March, 2011).

All in all, the company is not exactly clear on how severely the disaster affected it but hopes that all the power outages will be resolved soon.

Meanwhile, Shin-Etsu Chemical, a Japan-based, major silicon supplier to Elipida, stopped operations at its production sites in Annaka (Gunma prefecture), Kamisu (Ibaraki prefecture) and Nishigo Village (Fukushima prefecture).

Whether because of uncertainty as to when power outages will go away or because of facility concerns, Shin-Etsu doesn't know when operations can start anew.