Kingston Technology and Phison Electronics will spin off their respective embedded business units and combine them into a joint venture to supply eMMC, MCP and other mobile memory products for use in smartphones and tablet PCs, in a bid to compete with Samsung Electronics, according to industry sources in Taiwan.
Kingston and Phison will announce the joint venture soon, the sources indicated.
Kingston, although having resources in NAND flash and mobile RAM, may not want to develop embedded memory business itself to avoid market competition with its suppliers Toshiba and Hynix, the sources analyzed. Phison has controller IC technology to develop embedded memory products, but lacks an own brand to compete for orders, the sources pointed out. This is the main reason for the planned joint venture, the sources explained.
While NAND flash vendors Samsung, Toshiba, SanDisk, Micron and Hynix supply embedded memory products, Samsung stands a chance of dominating the global market because it is the only one with in-house production of all key components, the sources pointed out.