Toshiba Corp.has approved Toshiba Memory Corporation's (TMC) proposed investment in production equipment for the Fab 6 clean room, the next generation flash memory production facility under construction at Yokkaichi Operations.

In this third round of investment, TMC will invest approximately 140 billion yen (US$1.3244 billion) in the installation of additional manufacturing equipment, including deposition and etching equipment.

TMC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba dedicated to the production of flash memory and related products, is constructing Fab 6 to boost output of 96-layer BiCS FLASH, its 3D Flash memory.

Toshiba also said it intended to close the sale of all shares of TMC to K.K. Pangea, a special purpose acquisition company formed by a consortium led by Bain Capital Private Equity, L.P., "as soon as possible." But China said it was still reviewing a proposed $18 billion acquisition by the Bain Capital-led consortium, making it highly unlikely that an imminent deadline for the deal will be met. For the deal to close by its agreed deadline of March 31, antitrust approval from China must come by early this week.

Failure to meet the deadline gives Toshiba the option of walking away from the sale of the world's No. 2 producer of NAND chips without penalty.