D emand for the iPod shuffle "is so vast that [Toshibais] current capacity can in no way meet [Appleis] needs," Toshibais corporate vice president Masashi Muromachi at a news conference Monday.
Toshiba plans to boost spending on semiconductors this year by 13 percent, Reuters reports, in large part due to high demand for flash memory products. Toshiba is moving forward the production of a new flash memory plant in Yokkaichi, Japan with partner SanDisk and expects the plant to produce 40,000 wafers per month in the first half of 2007.
Toshiba supplies Apple with the 512MB flash modules used in the iPod mini.