BUILDING ON THE PAST, READY FOR THE FUTURE: - MEMC

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Within a year of its merger with Dynamit Nobel
Silicon (DNS) in 1989, the St. Peters plant, now the
World Headquarters of MEMC Electronic Materials,
Inc., added twenty thousand square feet to its facility.
Capital funding totaling nearly $40 million was
approved for the manufacturing and research facility
to ensure MEMC’s survival in the highly competitive
silicon wafer business. Roger
McDaniel, then president and
CEO, reported that MEMC
had about 23 percent of the
world market of $1.5 billion for
silicon wafers and anticipated
sales of $390 million in 1990,
an increase of approximately
$40 million over 1989 sales.
By 1991, MEMC’s sales were
well over $400 million, and by 1994, the St. Peters
plant produced two thousand different wafer types,
90 percent of which did not exist three years prior.
In 1995, Industry Week magazine named MEMC St.
Peters one of the ten best manufacturing plants in
the United States.
C H A P T E R F I V E
A Global Company
DiD yoU knoW?
On Earth, silicon is the second
most common element,
exceeded only by oxygen.
From the time of Hüls’ purchase of MEMC to the
late 1990s, the company once again saw a surge of
technological innovations and industry alliances.
MEMC’s strategy for secure growth was to expand
manufacturing capacity for advanced products,
maintain technology leadership in the industry,
and focus on strategic alliances with customers and
peer companies throughout
the industry.
JoInt venture—korea
In 1990, MEMC announced
its plans to enter into a joint
venture agreement with
Pohang Iron and Steel Ltd.
(POSCO) and Samsung
Electronics Company Ltd. to open a plant in South
Korea under the name Posco Hüls Co., Ltd. “We
have more than half of the Korean market now,”
Roger McDaniel said. “We need to protect that.
Korea is going after Japan in a strong way in the
making of memory chips. From the Korean point of