SEOUL, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- SK hynix, South Korea's memory chip giant, said Tuesday that it will acquire the NAND memory and storage business of U.S. semiconductor behemoth Intel for 9 billion U.S. dollars.
SK hynix said in a statement that it will buy Intel's NAND flash memory businesses, except the Optane memory unit.
Following the required governmental approvals expected in late 2021, SK hynix will pay 7 billion dollars to Intel to acquire the NAND solid state drive (SSD) business, including the NAND SSD-associated intellectual property and employees, as well as the Chinese production facility in Dalian.
The chipmaker will pay 2 billion dollars to buy the remaining assets, including intellectual property related to the manufacture and design of NAND flash wafers and research and development (R&D) workforce, upon a final closing expected to occur in March 2025.
"I am pleased to see SK hynix and Intel's NAND division, which have led the NAND flash technology innovation, work to build the new future together," said Lee Seok-hee, chief executive officer of SK hynix.
"By taking each other's strengths and technologies, SK hynix will proactively respond to various needs from customers and optimize our business structure, expanding our innovative portfolio in the NAND flash market segment, which will be comparable with what we achieved in DRAM," Lee noted. Enditem
