Japan Quake Causes Little Damage At Fabs

Elpida Memory Inc., Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp.—which have semiconductor front-end operations in the areas hit by a strong tremor—reported almost no damage to their operations.

As the focus of the quake was about 90 miles below ground, deep in the Philippine plate that is creeping under the Japanese Islands, the tremor apparently traveled a relatively long distance in the plate without attenuation, according to Japan's Meteorological Agency.

The epicenter was in the central area of Oita prefecture. In the prefecture, the tremor measured between four and five on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, which ranges from zero to seven.

Toshiba's Oita fab, which is dedicated to logic chip manufacture, automatically suspended operations when the quake hit the fab but resumed operation in the morning.

Though nearly 125 miles from the epicenter, Hiroshima Prefecture recorded almost the same level tremor as Oita.

Elpida has its memory fabs in the prefecture and also reported no damage to facilities and personnel. Operation was tentatively suspended, but was resumed in the morning. However, Elpida estimated that several hundreds of 300-mm diameter wafers in process may have to be discarded.

There were no tsunami waves and strong aftershocks are not likely, according to the agency. Seven people in total in five prefectures were reported injured. In addition, some delays to bullet trains were reported.