TOKYO — Tohoku Semiconductor Corp., the joint venture of Motorola Inc. and Toshiba Corp., announced plans Wednesday to construct a $727 million factory in northern Japan to build 16 megabit dynamic- random-access-memory computer chips.

The two companies said the facility, to begin production in spring of 1995, will be capable of producing up to 3 million of the 16M DRAM chips each month.

Motorola and Toshiba said the project will see a total investment of 80 billion yen (about $727 million).

The companies plan to build the expansion on 12 acres of land adjacent to Tohoku Semiconductor’s current plant at Sendai, located in northern Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture.

The site currently employs about 920 workers, with the new addition adding about 400 more jobs, the companies said.

Toshiba plans to transfer its 16M DRAM production technology to the joint venture, while Motorola will pay Toshiba a royalty for allowing Tohoku Semiconductor to use the technology. However, Motorola will be entitled to half the plant’s 16M DRAM production.

‘We are very pleased to enter this new phase of our very positive relationship with Motorola,’ Toshiba Semiconductor Group Vice President Masanobu Ohyama said. ‘We regard Motorola as a valued and trusted business partner, and we believe the projects we have initiated together have provided positive benefits for both companies and our customers.’

Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector President Thomas George said the expansion of the joint-venture agreement and the transfer of Toshiba’s 16M DRAM technology demonstrates continuing growth in the cooperative relationship between the two partners

‘I believe this new facility will help improve customer satisfaction even further,’ he said.

U.S.-based Motorola and Japanese-based Toshiba established Tohoku Semiconductor in 1987 as a 50-50 joint venture.

The venture currently produces 1M and 4M DRAMs, as well as 8-bit, 16- bit and 32-bit microprocessors and 1-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers.