Four executives from Infineon Technologies have pleaded guilty to price fixing in the DRAM industry, according to the US Department of Justice.

The four have agreed to pay fines totalling $1m and to serve up to six months in jail.

"True deterrence occurs when individuals serve jail terms, and not just when corporations pay substantial criminal fines,” said R. Hewitt Pate, assistant attorney general in charge of the DoJ's antitrust division.

A felony charge filed in San Francisco says that Heinrich Florian, Günter Hefner, Peter Schaefer and T. Rudd Corwin conspired to fix the price of DRAM.

Charges relate to price fixing carried out until 2002. Infineon has already agreed to pay a fine of $160m. An executive of competitor Micron Technology has also admitted price fixing.

www.usdoj.gov