Elpida Will No Longer Buy Other Memory Makers

It appears that not all plans of acquisition these days are getting carried all the way to completion, as a certain decision on Elpida's part regarding an aspect of the DRAM industry seems poised to end in failure.

Some consumers may be aware of the borderline dismal situation on the DRAM market, at least as far as suppliers go.

Basically, prices have been declining for the past months, and while this means cheaper memory modules, it also means that users aren't buying them as well as suppliers would like.

In fact, not long ago it was found that the prices stayed flat during the second half of February and that it is mostly because they reached a sort of bottom that manufacturers are unwilling to slip below.

Meanwhile, Elipda has been entertaining thoughts of buying off other Taiwanese memory makers.

Being the world's third greatest supplier of dynamic random access memory, this would have possibly further increased its role on the market.

In fact, Elpida has been wanting to buy more companies for the past several years, but only managed to carry out some expansion plans, the most important of them being the Rexchip Semiconductor joint venture with Powerchip.

However, reports reveal that the outfit was forced to drop most of these designs, as the management of manufacturers are not interested in integration of any sort.

“Most Taiwan DRAM companies’ presidents don’t want integration. We are better having many product lines with Taiwan DRAM companies," said Yukio Sakamoto, chief executive officer of Elpida, at a press conference.

As it stands, Elpida will keep outsourcing production of chips and will begin to look for opportunities in China. In the end, it will have to make do with the collaboration established with Winbond (makes GDDR5) and it may or may not try to buy a stake in ProMOS Technologies as well.