U.S. chip maker Intel Corp. has agreed to invest $100 million (about 12 billion yen) in Elpida Memory Inc., the sole Japanese producer of dynamic random access memory chips, in return for stock that does not confer voting rights, the companies said Tuesday.

Elpida, owned equally by Hitachi Ltd. and NEC Corp., plans to use the investment and other financing to boost production significantly at its DRAM wafer fabrication plant in Hiroshima Prefecture, they said.

Meanwhile, NEC and Hitachi said separately they will each invest an additional 9.5 billion yen in Elpida.