Shares of Winbond Electronics Corp (華邦電), the world’s leading NOR flash memory maker, edged up 0.59 percent yesterday, paring a 6 percent intraday rally triggered by its announcement of a US$1.12 billion acquisition of Infineon Technologies AG’s NOR Flash and F-RAM portfolio.
The acquisition comes as the memorychip industry undergoes a supercycle, driven by a supply crunch that Winbond estimated could last through 2028.
Winbond shares closed up at NT$170 yesterday, the highest in four trading days. The deal is expected to solidify its global leadership in NOR flash memory and deepen its penetration into the automotive sector.
Photo: CNA
About 28 percent of the chipmaker’s memorychip revenue last quarter came from the automotive and industrial segment. Winbond last year had about a 23 percent share of the global NOR flash memory market, data compiled by Omdia showed.
The portfolio Winbond is acquiring is NOR Flash and F-RAM products tailored for automotive, industrial and infrastructure markets, Infineon said.
The deal would help bolster Winbond’s research and development efforts and supply chain resilience, as well as enhance customer services, the Kaohsiung-based memory chipmaker said in a statement on Wednesday.
The company plans to operate the portfolio as a standalone entity with headquarters in Silicon Valley, it said.
The new entity would use the legacy “Spansion” name, marking the return of a historical brand to the memorychip industry, Winbond chairman Arthur Chiao (焦佑鈞) said in the statement.
Winbond and Infineon aim to close the transaction in the second half of next year. The deal remains subject to regulatory approval.
Spansion Inc was a California-based memory maker that in 2015 merged with Cypress Semiconductor, which was acquired by Infineon in 2020. Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) and Fujitsu Ltd founded the company in 1993 as Fujitsu AMD Semiconductor Ltd before AMD took full control of the company and renamed it Spansion in 2004.
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