The restructuring of the disaster that is the worldwide DRAM industry is continuing with a bail-out for Elpida amounting to some $1.7bn.
Elpida, the Japanese DRAM company formed from the DRAM interests of NEC and Hitachi, is to get $1.7bn from various Japanese government-backed financial institutions and the Taiwan Memory Company - the consortium of Taiwanese DRAM companies headed up by John Hsuan, former CEO of UMC.
Taiwan Memory consists of the Taiwanese DRAM makers Powerchip Semiconductor, Rexchip Electronics, ProMOS Technologies, and Winbond Electronics.
$300m will come from Elpida's sale of preferred shares to the Japan government owned Development Bank of Japan which will also make a $100m loan to Elpida, $200m will come from Taiwan Memory Company, and the rest of the $1.7bn will come from four private banks.
Hsuan has been looking for a solution to Taiwan's DRAM industry which has been making huge losses for the last two years.
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Hsuan tried including the US manufacturer Micron Technology but Micron, after recording a $1.6bn loss in 2008, declined to get involved. Elpida recorded a loss of $1.8bn last year.
Qimonda, the German DRAM maker, is in bankruptcy, and is looking as though it will be sold off piecemeal by its insolvency administrator.
That leaves Samsung and Hynix as the two DRAM makers which have, as yet, remained uninvolved in the DRAM industry's restructuring.
So the DRAM industry could emerge from its trauma with two Korean suppliers, one US supplier and one Japanese-Taiwanese supplier.