Japanese Elpida Memory's President said in an interview
that the company is planning to take stakes in Taiwanese chip manufacturers in
order to compete with Korean Samsung, according to an October 7, 2010 report by
Bloomberg. It is reported that the three possible targets are Powerchip
Technology, ProMOS Technologies, and Winbond Electronics. Elpida is considering
buying 20% to 30% of shares, but the President said that Elpida has not engaged
in negotiation with any of the above-mentioned companies yet. Other choices for
Elpida include cross-shareholdings, forming a holding company, or cooperating
with Taiwanese DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) chipmakers Nanya Technology
and Inotera Memories.
It is estimated that Samsung injects approximately
US$10 billion in chip production each year, according to Bloomberg again.
Elpida believes that only through cooperating with each other will Taiwanese
and Japanese chipmakers to challenge Samsung in terms of production scale.