On January 31, Air Liquide Japan (ALJ) completed its 16th nitrogen plant (cryogenic nitrogen generator (GN) which had been constructed in Kioxia Yokkaichi Plant (Mie Prefecture) to produce semiconductor memories, and held an opening ceremony in the same premises with 50 attendants concerned.

The GN construction at this time is intended to correspond to the new production building “Wing Y7” which was completed in October 2022 for Kioxia to expand the production of semiconductor memories such as 3D NAND flash memory

In March 2022, ALJ announced its plan to construct four units of GN investing 0.3 billion euro (equivalent to about 42.37 billion yen) for the foremost two electronics companies in the country, so that they can supply more than 1.5 billion Nm3 of nitrogen and high-purity gases. This GN is one of the four units.

No detail of what number of the four units the GN is placed has not been disclosed, and neither the individual output capacity nor investment amount is known because of the non-disclosure agreement. However, they say the 17th unit is being planned.

CEO Virginie Cavalli organizer of the ceremony spoke in her greeting, “I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute further to the electronics industry on this country.
The new plant is capable to present a higher energy efficiency than the conventional type, and makes it possible to reduce the CO2 emission by about 20,000 tons per year which corresponds to that of 6,000 households in Japan.
Most importantly, we can supply gases in a stable condition. Based on our cutting-edge technology, we are going to assist Kioxia’s plant operation and carbon neutral
project.”

Tomoharu Matsushita managing executive officer of Kioxia, general manager of Yokkaichi Plant said, “The completion of this new plant has long been awaited also by us. Semiconductor memories are now indispensable for personal computers and smartphones. Anticipating the utilization of AI and big data will expand, we expect that the demand will also spread to not only the industrial field but also educational and medical fields. However, as the environmental load is not so small that we wish to proceed with reducing such loads as well as a stable production having ALJ’ s assistance.”

Kioxia Yokkaichi Plant (formerly Toshiba Yokkaichi) was established in 1992, starting with the production of DRAM and followed by the production of flash memory of the NAND type in 2020. The production is now focused on the 3D NAND flash memory.

In the land area of 69.4 thousand square meters, the company possesses seven production buildings having 6,900 employees (as of March 31 2022). ALJ has been engaged in supplying gases since the establishment.