THE DRAGONS BULK UP

摘要

In the Darwinian West, the solution is simple: When a market slumps and manufacturers are glutted with capacity, the industry consolidates and a few strong players emerge. But in the East, the weak just soldier on—bleeding red ink, cutting prices, and making life miserable for every-one else. Now, the law of the jungle is finally spreading to Asia's overbuilt electronics industry. In Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, major semiconductor producers are forging alliances to stay in the game. In the biggest deal yet, the presidents of Japan's NEC Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. on June 24 announced that their money-losing chip operations will join forces to develop and produce the next generation of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips.