Qimonda Richmond LLC, a US semiconductor-making unit of Infineon Technologies AG, filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors, blaming the drop in global demand for computer chips.
The company, based in Sandston, Virginia, listed more than US$1 billion in both assets and debt in Chapter 11 documents filed on Friday in US Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. Qimonda North America Corp also filed for bankruptcy on Friday, court papers showed.
Qimonda is an affiliate of Qimonda AG, which is also a unit of Infineon. Qimonda AG, which primarily makes dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, for personal computers, filed for protection from creditors on Jan. 23 in Europe after failing to get sufficient financing following losses on memory-chip prices that have dropped below production costs.
Qimonda Richmond said it was forced to file for bankruptcy after its parent Qimonda AG filed for insolvency. The company said Qimonda AG stopped buying its inventory, resulting in a lack of funds to continue operations, court documents said.
“Toward the end of March 2007, prices for DRAM products fell precipitously,” Qimonda North America chief financial officer Miriam Martinez said in court filings.
The drop was a result of weak seasonal demand, coupled with computer manufacturers stockpiling inventory in anticipation of the release of Microsoft Corp’s Windows Vista operating system.
Average DRAM prices plummeted 85 percent in 2007 and fell an additional 58 percent last year, Martinez said in court papers, citing the market research firm DRAMeXchange.
Qimonda said it plans to “locate a purchaser expeditiously” for substantially all of its assets. The company will finance operations with about US$10.3 million in cash while in bankruptcy, court papers showed.
In related news, Spansion Inc, the money-losing maker of memory chips for mobile phones, said it failed to make an interest payment on US$266 million of bonds, which it now must repay in full.
Spansion first missed a payment on the notes on Jan. 15, and then failed to make good by the 30-day “cure” deadline, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said in a regulatory filing on Friday.
Spansion’s Japanese subsidiary filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month. The parent company is in talks with holders of US$625 million of bonds due in 2013 about restructuring the debt and a possible sale or merger.
Spansion is the world’s largest producer of NOR flash, once the most common type of memory chip used in mobile phones before handset makers turned to cheaper NAND flash chips manufactured by Samsung Electronics Co and Toshiba Corp.
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
RSS