The chipmaker, which is backed by Bain Capital the US investment company, had been hit hard by a downturn in the market for memory chips, but is now planning a major capacity expansion at its new fab at Kitakami in Iwate prefecture, north of Tokyo.
Kioxia, formerly Toshiba Memory, had planned to begin production at the fab last year but that has been delayed to autumn 2025.
The company also makes chips at Yokkaichi in the Mie prefecture in central Japan and earlier this year said it had begun sample shipments of its latest generation of NAND flash memory.
Investment in servers and the introduction of AI features is seen as helping to renew demand for smartphones and PCs which will be to the benefit of Kioxia after years of upheaval following its separation from Toshiba.
Kioxia said that it has space in Yokkaichi and according to Tomoharu Watanabe, executive vice president at Kioxia, “by having the Kitakami factory operating next autumn we should have sufficient room to respond."
Kioxia is a leading player in the Japanese chip industry and has a key part to play in efforts to support and grow the domestic industry. The Japanese government is to provide subsidies worth as much as $1.64 billion to Kioxia and its partner Western Digital, to expand capacity at Yokkaichi and Kitakami.
