Taiwan's ASE to give T$450 mln loan to Powerchip

TAIPEI, July 24 (Reuters) - Taiwan's ASE (2311.TW), the world's top chip packager, said on Friday its board approved a T$450 million ($13.7 million) loan to Powerchip (5346.TWO) which is struggling in the ailing computer memory chip market. ASE, which has a memory chip packaging joint venture with Powerchip, said in a statement that the loan would have a maturity of one year and Powerchip needs to use part of the shares it owns in Rexchip as a guarantee for the loan. Rexchip is a DRAM venture between Powerchip and Japan's Elpida Memory (6665.T). Earlier this month, Powerchip said it was getting a $125 million loan from two other companies. [ID:nTP197728] (US$1=T$32.8) (Reporting by Baker Li, Editing by Jacqueline Wong)