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resistion
I wonder how quickly Micron will port Elpida's 25 nm DRAM process to all its ...
ibm221
Report: Micron wins exclusive right to buy Elpida
Dylan McGrath
5/7/2012 12:07 PM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO—U.S. memory chip vendor Micron Technology Inc. has won the exclusive right to negotiate to buy failed Japanese DRAM vendor Elpida Memory Inc. after offering more than $2.5 billion, according to a report by the Reuters news service.
Part of the $2.5 billion bid will go toward paying down Elpida's debt load, which stands at about $5.5 billion, according to the Reuters report. The report quoted an anonymous source. That source also speculated that Micron's bid may be too low for Elpida to accept.
Micron appeared to be the most logical winner last week, when Hynix reportedly dropped out of the bidding. Elpida, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year after a government bailout failed to materialize, began soliciting bids in March to satisfy its obligations to creditors.
Citing market research provided by IHS iSuppli, the Reuters report noted that the acquisition of Elpida would boost Micron's DRAM market share to 25 percent, surpassing SK Hynix Inc. for the No. 2 position among global DRAM vendors.
A separate Reuters report Monday (May 7), which cited Japan's Jiji news agency as its source, said Micron would invest more than $3.8 billion in Elpida's fabs in Japan and Taiwan over the next five years.
Part of the $2.5 billion bid will go toward paying down Elpida's debt load, which stands at about $5.5 billion, according to the Reuters report. The report quoted an anonymous source. That source also speculated that Micron's bid may be too low for Elpida to accept.
Micron appeared to be the most logical winner last week, when Hynix reportedly dropped out of the bidding. Elpida, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year after a government bailout failed to materialize, began soliciting bids in March to satisfy its obligations to creditors.
Citing market research provided by IHS iSuppli, the Reuters report noted that the acquisition of Elpida would boost Micron's DRAM market share to 25 percent, surpassing SK Hynix Inc. for the No. 2 position among global DRAM vendors.
A separate Reuters report Monday (May 7), which cited Japan's Jiji news agency as its source, said Micron would invest more than $3.8 billion in Elpida's fabs in Japan and Taiwan over the next five years.
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resistion
5/7/2012 2:28 PM EDT
Well it's not clear if Elpida's process will be copied over to Micron's fabs or vice versa.
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ibm221
5/7/2012 8:22 PM EDT
2.5 billion should be cheap consider 7 billion for a new nand fab ?
apparently Janpanese/americans don't want to see it fall into chinese's hand.
we ll see a inotera story again in a bigger scale?
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resistion
5/7/2012 8:55 PM EDT
Considering the different tooling of Elpida vs. Micron, for the first year or two of internally disruptive integration Hynix may take 30% while Micron/Elpida goes under 20%. They may not recover in time, though. So the outcome they sought to avoid got accelerated.
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ibm221
5/8/2012 4:55 AM EDT
this will make samsung easier to suffocate MU in next cycle, let 's wait and see...
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any1
5/8/2012 9:03 AM EDT
Commodity memory is a risky business and Micron is used to betting the ranch at every new technology node. I'm glad to see that they are still willing to be aggressive in the marketplace. Is this what Steve Appleton would have done? I think so.
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chipmonk
5/8/2012 12:26 PM EDT
What are the prospects of either mothballing the Elpida DRAM fabs ( because there is a glut and low margin for DRAM ) and / or converting them to NAND ( growing because of Tablets ).
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dylan.mcgrath
5/8/2012 1:52 PM EDT
I am not sure what exactly Micron has planned. As others have pointed out, paying $2.5 billion to acquire fabs and then mothballing them seems unwise. Plus, Micron reportedly gave assurances that it would keep at least Elpida's main fab open. The idea of converting to NAND seems possible, especially considering that Micron is reportedly planning to invest $3.8 billion in the Elpida fabs over the next five years.
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ibm221
5/8/2012 8:04 PM EDT
MU stock falled another 4% yesterday over this news?
%$$%%# never got a chance to sell mine this year.
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resistion
5/9/2012 9:11 PM EDT
I wonder how quickly Micron will port Elpida's 25 nm DRAM process to all its fabs.
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