SAN FRANCISCO—Spansion Inc. acknowledged Thursday (March 4) that Japan's Elpida Memory Inc. has acquired a portion of its research and development assets, but declined to provide further details, including the value of the deal.
Reports by news Bloomberg service and others Wednesday said the deal includes NAND technology and assets, including intellectual property and Spansion's R&D facility in Milan, Italy. Spansion (Sunnyvale, Calif.) would not confirm these reports.
As part of the deal, Elpida may have acquired Spansion's MirrorBit ORNAND technology, according to an analyst. This is a hybrid technology delivering a NAND interface and the cost structure of traditional NAND solutions along with the reliability and fast read performance of NOR flash.
In other words, Elpida may have quietly entered into the NAND front. It could not immediately be verified whether ORNAND is part of the Elpida acquisition.
"The agreement between Spansion and Elpida concerns a small portion of Spansion's research and development assets," said a statement circulated by Spansion on Thursday. "The transfer does not impact Spansion's operations or strategy to focus on embedded and targeted wireless applications. Further details of the agreement are not being discussed at this time."
According to the Bloomberg report, which quotes an Elpida spokesperson as its source, Elpida (Tokyo) plans to do research on chips that combines its existing technology with Spansion's.
The spokesperson declined to tell Bloomberg how much the deal was worth, but did say it was valued at less than the 5 billion yen ($57 million) that was reported by Japan's Nikkei newspaper, according to the report.
Elpida did not immediately respond to a request for comment made by EE Times.
Spansion, which is set to emerge from bankruptcy after filing for Chapter 11 protection in March 2009, is the No. 2 player in NOR flash. Elpida, which according to the Bloomberg report has posted nine straight quarterly loses, is the No. 4 player in DRAM memory. Neither company is a major supplier of NAND flash.
Gregory Wong, an analyst from Forward Insights, said the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware last month approved an agreement by Spansion's debtors to transfer its Milan development facilities to Elpida Memory.
Spansion established the Milan unit, dubbed the Security and Advanced Technology Division (SATD), ''in 2007 and staffed it with ex-STMicroelectronics NAND flash engineers including division head, Carla Golla who prior to joining Spansion was the general manager of ST's NAND Flash and Storage Media product group,'' Wong wrote in a recent blog.
''The division's mission is to develop secure products such as the MirrorBit HD-SIM product family and ORNAND2. ORNAND2 -- unlike ORNAND which is a Mirrorbit with a NAND interface -- is a true NAND architecture based on SONOS technology,'' Wong wrote.
Spansion plans to ramp ORNAND2 ''were derailed'' amid its Chapter 11 filing. Spansion's loss was Elpida's gain.
''Elpida needs to capture more of the value-added and capitalize on the shift from NOR flash to NAND flash in the cellphone market,'' Wong said. ''Elpida's newly acquired asset will allow it to do just that by leveraging SATD's development of 1Gb-4Gb SLC NAND to offer NAND/DRAM MCP solutions. This initial foray into low density SLC NAND may just portend even greater ambitions in the high density data storage market.''
Asked if ORNAND2 is a real contender, Wong said: ''ORNAND is relatively low density and there are challenges to get CTF (charge-trap flash) to higher densities, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. I think the jury's still out.''
Elpida could be eyeing more than just ORNAND2. At one time, Elpida was also looking to buy Spansion's entire wireless chip unit for $200-to-$300 million. That deal has not happened--yet.