Yukio Sakamoto, president and CEO of Elpida Memory Inc, delivered a lecture titled "DRAM Business: A Scenario for Counterattack" Feb 8, 2012, at the World Semiconductor Summit in Tokyo 2012, which was organized by Nikkei Electronics.

Elpida is currently under corporate rehabilitation due to its ailing business performance.

"Companies having technical strengths (like us) will survive in the DRAM market," he said. "We exercise patience now and will make a comeback as a company that can withstand the impact of the strong yen."

As for the prospect of the DRAM industry, Sakamoto said that companies with inferior technologies will have no choice but to retreat from the market. For example, commenting on 30nm-class mobile DRAMs, for which demand is expected to soar in 2012 because of smartphones, etc, he said that only Elpida and Samsung can manufacture them with a high yield rate.

Currently, Elpida is developing a low-voltage-driven mobile DRAM using high-permittivity (high-k) dielectric film/metal gate technology, planning to start shipping samples of 30nm-class products in the near future. Also, the company intends to advance cooperation with Taiwan-based foundries for TSV (through-silicon via) technologies, he said.

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