Globalfoundries and Texas Instruments (TI) reportedly have defeated a group of Taiwan-based niche memory chip providers to win the rights for the purchase of a major portion of the idle equipment installed at Powerchip Technology's P3 12-inch fab, according to industry sources.

The banking consortium, which owns the fab as collateral, have resisted offers from an alliance of niche-market memory suppliers in favor of comparable bids offered by Globalfoundries and TI, the sources revealed.

The alliance, which includes Elite Semiconductor Memory Technology (ESMT), Etron Technology, Winbond Electronics and Zentel Electronics, were approached by Powerchip to form the group to bid on the 12-inch fab in order to secure memory production capacity, the sources indicated.

The decision by the banking consortium to sell a major portion of Powerchip's 12-inch fab equipment to Globalfoundries and TI will be healthy for the DRAM industry as the two buyers are unlikely to utilize the facilities for the production of DRAM chips, commented the sources.