Toshiba, currently the second largest flash-memory manufacturer in the world, announced the opening of its state-of-the-art production facility in Japan.

The plant is the result of Toshiba’s collaboration with MP3 players-producer SanDisk, in a joint venture called the Flash Alliance.

The facility is situated in Japan in the Mie Prefecture, is dubbed Fab. 4 and is expected to reach full capacity in the first quarter of 2008, after its official opening in December. Currently Toshiba has only finished its construction, which features revolutionary earthquake dampening mechanisms, aimed at reducing shockwave-related tremors by two thirds.

According to Toshiba, the production facility will use 56 nanometre technology for the beginning, with plans to move to 43 nanometre technology in the near future. This mega fab will initially house a monthly capacity of 80,000 wafers and has the potential to expand capacity to 210,000 wafers.

Toshiba trails Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung in NAND-flash market share, with 28 percent for Toshiba, 46 percent for Samsung respectively. Hynix Semiconductor comes in the third place, but Tokyo-based Toshiba wants to change this configuration by overtaking Samsung with the recently opened Fab. 4, according to President Atsutoshi Nishida.