Ricoh, Chartered Enter Wafer-Supply Agreement

Compiled ByDeborah Austin Office-automation-equipment manufacturer Ricoh Co. Ltd. and independent foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing have announced an extension of their current two-and-a-half-year manufacturing relationship, which provides Ricoh with consistent wafer supply. Both companies also have expressed intention to further expand this relationship to future generations of process technologies. The relationship gives Ricoh access to manufacturing capacity in Chartered's deep sub-micron process technology for production of Ricoh personal computer related large-scale integration (LSI) devices -- which include optical mass storage devices and computer peripherals. Chartered is the primary source of wafers for Ricoh's PC peripheral products. Headquartered in Tokyo, Ricoh had fiscal 2000 net sales of 1,447 billion yen (US$13.5 billion). The US$694.3 million Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing is headquartered in Singapore.