US: Toshiba and Western Digital settle dispute over chip sale

Toshiba and Western Digital have finally realized it is better to have an ally than an enemy in the competitive memory-chip industry.

The two companies, which own a joint venture that produces NAND flash-memory chips used to store data, have agreed to settle their dispute over Toshiba’s planned US$18 billion sale of its memory-chip unit, according to The Wall Street Journal.

As part of the settlement, Western Digital will be able to invest alongside Toshiba in a cutting-edge chip plant in Japan and receive a guaranteed supply of next-generation memory chips, they said.

The partners have been locked in a legal battle since early this year after Toshiba said it would sell the chip business to pay for enormous losses in its US nuclear business.

The US company had argued Toshiba needed its consent to sell the business, an assertion the Japanese company disputed. Toshiba needed to raise capital to avoid seeing its shares delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Full Content: Wall Street Journal

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