Samsung and Toshiba have licensed to one another the rights to produce, market and sell their respective memory chip specifications.
As a result of the reciprocal arrangement, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will have a broader choice of suppliers for each premium memory chip, thereby reducing any potential risk of
overdependence on a single supplier for any of the selected chips.
The licensing deal will allow the companies to produce, market and sell memory with the specifications and trademarks of both Samsung’s OneNAND and Toshiba’s LBA-NAND memory chips.
The arrangement is expected to result in increased availability of premium-performance OneNAND and LBA-NAND flash devices worldwide.
Both companies will develop and market products that are compatible with the respective original-source technology. Samsung and Toshiba each plans to release products next year based on the respectively licensed product specifications.
“Signing this agreement will provide a major boost for market development and we believe it will trigger substantial new growth,” said Masaki Momodomi, Flash memory technology executive of Toshiba Corporation’s Semiconductor Company.
“It will allow our customers more options – both in terms of high-performance technologies and suppliers. We believe that this agreement will bring positive results to the industry as a whole.”
“The advanced performance specs and easy design-in features of the NAND flash memories to which the agreement applies can greatly improve design options for CE application designers, while reducing development costs,” said Yun-Ho Choi, senior vice-president of the Flash Team at Samsung Electronics’ Semiconductor Business.
“Samsung will place additional priority on meeting the anticipated growth in demand for high-performance NAND flash in mobile and other consumer applications through the provisioning of more diverse NAND solutions and peripheral interfaces.”
By Niall Byrne
