Elpida Memory Inc, the Japanese chipmaker in bankruptcy protection, has won Tokyo District Court approval for a ¥200 billion (US$2.2 billion) sale to Micron Technology Inc, clearing the last major hurdle in the takeover.
The required majority of creditors backed the plan, according to a statement from the trustees of the Tokyo-based company. The deadline for voting was Tuesday.
The Tokyo District Court in October last year picked Boise, Idaho-based Micron as the preferred bidder over a rival plan put forward by some bondholders.
Buying Elpida will about double Micron’s share of the global market for DRAM, the most widely used memory chips in personal computers, and bolster its efforts to compete with Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc.
Elpida filed for bankruptcy in February last year and delisted a month later after struggling with slowing PC sales and a strong yen.
Global DRAM revenue fell 13 percent in the third quarter of last year to US$6.6 billion, according to the latest data compiled by Bloomberg Industries. Demand dropped as users shunned PCs for mobile devices such as Apple Inc’s iPad, which use different types of chips.
Benchmark DRAM prices have climbed 30 percent this year, according to TrendForce Corp’s (集邦科技) DRAMexchange, as chipmakers pare production.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the