Toshiba and Apple recently announced that they have entered into a long-term agreement, whereby Toshiba will supply the latter NAND flash memory chips for use in iPhones and iPods, according to Reuters on July 22, adding that Apple already made a prepayment of US$500 million to Toshiba. Further details regarding the volume of the deal, however, were not yet disclosed.

Additionally, Toshiba recently also announced that the company will consolidate the development and production operations of its three businesses, including NAND flash memory chips, system chips, and discrete semiconductors. During the fiscal year 2009, which runs from April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010, Toshiba will transfer around 100 engineers in the development of technologies related with these three businesses to its other plants. These engineers are currently located at its Advanced Microelectronics Center in Yokohama. The NAND flash memory engineers will be transferred to its plant located in Yokaichi, Mie prefecture, while the system chip engineers will be moved to its Oita Plant, and discrete chip engineers to its Himeji plant, Hyogo prefecture, according to the same source.