Micron completes Elpida takeover

August 1, 2013 | 09:06

Tags: #dram #financial #ram #reram

Companies: #elpida #micron

Micron has completed the acquisition of one-time memory market rival Elpida, while also announcing an increased share in Rexchip Electronics.

Despite offering some advanced technologies - including what was in 2010 the world's smallest LPDDR2 modules and last year's ReRAM prototype - Elpida has been struggling in the increasingly competitive memory market. Mounting debts of around £3.5 billion resulted in the company filing for bankruptcy protection in February last year, a move which saw its stock value plunge 97 per cent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The company was saved in July last year by the announcement that Micron, the company's one-time competitor, would be acquiring Elpida in its entirety in a deal valued at $2.5 billion. In doing so, Micron saw its market share combine with that of Elpida - which, prior to its financial troubles, had commanded a larger 12.8 per cent of the market to Micron's 12.2 per cent - to become the world's second-largest DRAM maker behind Samsung.

Now, the process of acquiring its competitor is complete and Micron can start taking advantage of Elpida's strengths in mobile-centric DRAM products in addition to the company's manufacturing facilities - including a very handy 300mm DRAM fab in Hiroshima. These facilities are to be combined with those of Rexchip Electronics, which has seen Micron's stake in the company increase to 89 per cent and total control of its product supply, to boost Micron's output by around 45 per cent.

'We are pleased to bring together Elpida with Micron to form the industry’s leading pure-play memory company,' claimed Micron's chief executive officer Mark Durcan of the deal. 'This combination will result in enhanced R&D and manufacturing scale, significant cost and production synergies and a stronger memory product portfolio to provide solutions to our customers.'

'This transaction is a strong testament to the value of Elpida's technologies, products and people, and it will result in a combined organization that can best serve customers with broader memory solutions, strength and scale,' added Elpida chief executive, president and co-trustee Yukio Sakamoto, shortly before announcing his resignation from the company. He is to be replaced by Yoshitaka Kinoshita in the roles of president, representative director and business trustee of Elpida in addition to president of Micron Japan.
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