Consortium set to buy Hynix plants in Korea.Byline: From Register-Guard and wire service reportsA group of South Korean Korean, language of uncertain ancestry. It is thought by some scholars to be akin to Japanese, by others to be a member of the Altaic subfamily of the Ural-Altaic family of languages (see Uralic and Altaic languages), and by still others to be unrelated to any known computer-chip design companies on Monday said it plans to buy some of Hynix Semiconductor Inc.'s chip factories - but not the one in Eugene. In a news release, the consortium of 10 companies said it plans to buy four or five Hynix factories in Korea that make nonmemory chips. The Eugene factory, temporarily idled for an equipment upgrade, makes memory chips. The consortium said it expects to sign a tentative tentative, adj not final or definite, such as an experimental or clinical finding that has not been validated. agreement "soon" and to complete the sale by March, Dow Jones Newswires Dow Jones Newswires is the real-time financial news organization owned by Dow Jones. Founded in 1882, its primary competitors are Bloomberg L.P. and Reuters. The company reports more than 420,000 subscribers -- including brokers, traders, analysts and fund managers -- as of July said. If the deal goes through, it would leave Hynix with just seven or eight chip factories in Korea, plus the Eugene plant. Hynix declined to comment on the consortium's statement. However, Hynix in the past has said it is in talks with some companies in the consortium. A sale of nonmemory chip factories would be in line with Hynix's survival strategy of spinning off noncore functions and focusing on memory chip production. Hynix says it must sell off assets in order to raise cash that it needs for ongoing expenses and to handle its $6.7 billion debt load. Memory chips, such as the 256-megabit dynamic random access memory Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) is a type of random access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. Since real capacitors leak charge, the information eventually fades unless the capacitor charge is refreshed periodically. , or DRAM, chip that Hynix says it has started to make in test production at the Eugene factory, are used in personal computers. Nonmemory chips are used in cellular phones and similar devices. The chip-design consortium said it hopes to raise up to $1 billion from investors to launch its venture, called Beyond Micro Inc., and to buy the Hynix factories. The companies are being led by Korea-based Aralion Inc. Aralion President Jeong Ja-choon said Beyond Micro would move ahead with its bid regardless of ongoing talks between Hynix and Boise-based Micron Technology Micron Technology ("Micron") NYSE: MU is a multinational company based in Boise, Idaho, USA, best known for producing many forms of semiconductor devices. This includes DRAM, SDRAM, flash memory, and CMOS image sensing chips. Inc. Hynix and Micron have said they're looking at some kind of alliance, and Micron officials have visited the Eugene plant as part of their inspection of Hynix operations. Meanwhile, in another development, Hynix and rival Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics (SEC, Hangul:삼성전자; KSE: 005930, KSE: 005935, LSE: SMSN, LSE: SMSD) is a South Korean multinational corporation and the world's largest and leading electronics and information technology company. Co. said worldwide demand for personal computers appears to be rebounding, a trend that bodes well for memory-chip prices, Bloomberg Bloomberg A major global provider of 24-hour financial news and information including real-time and historic price data, financials data, trading news and analyst coverage, as well as general news and sports. News reported. |
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