Japan's Elpida Memory plans to buy US Spansion's
NAND flash memory assets including R&D operations and intellectual
property, according to a March 3 EE Times report. It is reported that Elpida
will spend around three billion Yen (US$33.6 million; US$1=89.2 Yen) to five
billion Yen (US$56.1 million) on this purchase. The company is expected to
leverage Spansion's flash memory technology to offer hybrid memory products,
combining both DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) and flash memory functions.
Spansion, a joint venture between Fujitsu and AMD, filed for bankruptcy
protection in March 2009.
At the same time, Elpida President Yukio Sakamoto
said that the company will no longer seek the 20 billion Yen (US$224.2 million)
funds previously planned by Taiwan's TIMC (Taiwan Innovation Memory Company), Yomiuri
Shimbun reported on March 3. Elpida has seen signs of business recovery on DRAM
demand rebound and therefore does not require the investment from TIMC, which
has itself failed to receive public funds from the Taiwanese government. TIMC,
founded with support from the Taiwanese government, has severed its funding tie-up
with the government due to objections from the lawmakers.