Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor and Japan's Elpida Memory jointly announced on November 27 that Elpida will increase its stake in their chipmaking venture Rexchip Electronics to 52%, according to Economic Daily News of Taiwan. Currently Elpida has a 48.8% stake in the 12-inch wafer fab, and the Japanese DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) maker is expected to spend around four billion Yen (US$41.95 million; US$1=95.37 Yen) purchasing 94,251 Rexchip shares from Powerchip.

Over the past few weeks there have been speculations regarding the merger or solidification of business partnership between Powerchip and Elpida. Said deal will make Elpida the largest stakeholder in Rexchip. Meanwhile, Elpida president Yukio Sakamoto also stated during his earlier visit to Taiwan that the company is open to any options, including seeking merger with another Taiwanese memory maker ProMOS Technologies, also according to Economic Daily News.