Taipei  - Taiwan plans to pick either US chipmaker Micron Technology Inc or Japan's Elpida Memory Inc to help upgrade its semiconductor industry, the Central News Agency (CNA) said Friday.

CNA quoted Economics Minister Yin Chi-ming as saying that Taiwan would unveil plans for the integration of its dynamic random access memory (DRAM) industry at the end of February and wants to pick a foreign chipmaker to merge with Taiwan semiconducter producers.

While Taiwan favours Micron and Elpida, a Micron-Elpida-Taiwan merger was unlikely because it would be time-consuming and too costly to merge the technologies of three countries, Yin told CNA.

"So for the time being, we will choose one strategic partner," the minister said. "We are inclined to choose either Micron or Elpida to merge with Taiwan chipmakers."

The Economic Affairs Ministry was still mulling which Taiwan chipmakers should merge with the foreign partner in the ministry's DRAM-upgrading programme.

Yin's remarks came a few days after Japanese and Taiwan media reported that Elpida, Japan's largest and the world's third-largest producer of computer chips, was to merge with three Taiwan chipmakers.

The tie-up would be with Taiwan's Powerchip, Rexchip and ProMOS companies, press reports said. If it materializes, it would create the world's second-largest chipmaker after South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co.

Elpida president Yukio Sakamoto visited Taiwan last week but did not sign any merger agreement because Taiwan demanded a better deals - including technology transfers - for the merger, Taiwan press said. (dpa)