DRAM maker Qimonda has filed for insolvency in Europe and for chapter eleven in the United States where it runs two fabs. According to swissinfo.ch which refers to information from the Delaware insolvency court, Texas Instruments has offered a price of $172.5 million.

The court plans to auction Qimonda assets on September 23. The price offered for the assets is subject to a higher bid from other parties.

A Dow Jones report acknowledges Texas Instrument's plans to acquire Qimonda's chip manufacturing equipment and use it in its own production. The US company made clear it is not interested in buying the insolvent company. "We are not getting into the memory business," the report quotes a TI spokeswoman.

TI said that acquiring the tools to make 300mm wafers would likely result in the world's first 300mm analog wafer manufacturing facility, "providing TI a significant manufacturing cost and scale advantage."

The agreement between Qimonda and TI contains a breakup fee of $4.3 million as well as up to $750,000 in expense reimbursement payable to TI should Qimonda accept a rival offer.

A spokesperson of the German insolvency administrator Michael Jaffé denied to comment. "The US assets are not our business," he said.

In the recent weeks, the insolvency procedure in Germany has made progress with selling off several DRAM licenses to Japanese competitor Elpida; a China-based design center has been sold to computer company Inspur. However, the company's main production line in Dresden is still basically intact. While interested parties have visited the plant and the sale of parts or all of the production equipment can be expected within few weeks, the fab "theoretically could be put into operations without efforts, a source close to the company said. "One only would need to re-install some laptop computers with the control software", he said.

Additional reporting by Nicolas Mokhoff

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