Private equity firms TPG Capital LP and China's Hony Capital are to bid jointly for Elpida Memory, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday, joining an increasingly international battle for the bankrupt Japanese chipmaker.

Shares of SanDisk, which makes memory chips, fell Wednesday after it cut its revenue guidance for the first quarter.

Micron Technology has reached an agreement to settle a lawsuit filed by Oracle over an alleged conspiracy to increase DRAM prices.

Hynix Semiconductor has submitted an initial proposal to bid for Elpida Memory, the Japanese chipmaker that filed for bankruptcy last month. Hiynix said in a regulatory filing that it will decide whether to make a final bid after due diligence.

Toshiba will bid against Micron Technology to become the sponsor of Japan's failed chipmaker Elpida Memory, the Nikkei newspaper said.

Micron Technology facility operations were unaffected after an explosion forced workers to evacuate a company building in Boise, Idaho, according to the city's fire department.

Memory chipmaker Micron Technology, which rocked in February by the death of its CEO in a plane crash, on Thursday posted a US$224 million net loss in the second quarter as sales fell.

Elpida Memory has filed court papers in US Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware, listing more than US$1 billion in assets and debt. It asked the court to recognize the Japanese case as the main bankruptcy proceeding.

Hynix Semiconductor said the chip industry is set to recover from the second half of this year as the prices of DRAM chips have been rebounding following news of Japanese chip maker Elpida Memory's bankruptcy protection filing late last month.

With DDR4 DRAM set to hit the market in 2013, two manufacturers took the opportunity at this year's ISSCC to demonstrate their DDR4 DRAM.

Intel and Micron Technology have entered into agreements to expand their NAND flash memory joint venture relationship. The agreements include a NAND flash supply agreement for Micron to supply NAND products to Intel and agreements for certain joint venture assets to be sold to Micron.

Elpida Memory, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, intends to draw up a rehabilitation plan within six weeks, the Nikkei reported.

The US Supreme Court Tuesday refused to consider a Hynix Semiconductor appeal that argued Rambus shouldn't be able to enforce certain patents because it misled an organization that sets industry-wide standards for computer memory chips.

Flash memory vendor SanDisk is looking for a director of processing engineering management for a 3-D resistive RAM team based in Milpitas. A job ad for the position was posted in SanDisk's website dated Feb. 15, 2012.

Hynix Semiconductor jumped to an eight-month high in Seoul trading after Hyundai Securities said contract prices for DRAM chips increased and as financing delays at Japan's Elpida Memory raised the prospect of less competition.

Micron Technology president Mark Adams said prices of computer memory have probably hit their lowest after a slump that caused losses at three of the four largest companies in the industry.

Renesas Electronics and two other big Japanese chip makers have begun talks to combine their system chip operations and outsource production in a government-backed deal, sources said.

The last of three patents that Rambus used to win infringement lawsuits against Nvidia, Hewlett-Packard and others has been declared invalid, according to legal documents.

"We delivered a solid fourth quarter amid challenging market conditions," said company president and CEO John Kispert. "2011 was a year of transition and intense product development. Spansion is now well-positioned for growth in the future in areas such as automotive, industrial, communications and gaming..."

Elpida Memory has entered the final stage of negotiations on a merger with Micron Technology and Taiwan's Nanya Technology, sources said.

South Korea's Samsung Group announced it would invest a record 47.8 trillion won (US$41.56 billion) this year and hire an all-time high of 26,000 new employees despite global economic gloom.

Elpida Memory aims to put together a drastic restructuring plan by the end of January, which it then hopes to show to its creditor banks, as the struggling chipmaker faces a slew of upcoming corporate bond and loan repayments, the Mainichi Shimbun reported in its Sunday morning edition.

Elpida Memory has asked about 10 of its client companies for US$500 million in financial assistance to boost its cash on hand as it struggles with the yen's strength and a fall in memory chip prices, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported in its Thursday morning edition.

The world's top maker of memory chips and smartphones is set to report a robust quarterly profit rise on Friday, starting 2012 on an upbeat note aided by record-smashing sales of smartphones.

Elpida Memory fell in Tokyo trading after the Asahi newspaper said it may seek a delay in repaying public funds.

The acquisition is one of the most expensive for Apple since it acquired NeXT in 1996 - 15 years ago to the day, in fact-and should cement the company's strategic shift to solid-state flash storage for its products.

20nm seems to be the new cutting-edge process for memory production, but Intel and Micron might be surprised to find Hynix has just surpassed them. The Korean manufacturer has used the IEDM to announce it has managed to manufacture middle-1Xnm-generation NAND flash.

Micron Technology is seeking Taiwanese partners to supply solid-state drive (SSD) controller chips to cope with the company's expansion in NAND memory chips in 2012, an executive said yesterday.

IBM and Micron Technology are beginning to produce a new memory chip based on technology designed to boost memory speeds 15-fold. The technology will be used to make a Hybrid Memory Cube chip that will be commercially manufactured by Micron.

Elpida Memory has announced that it reached an agreement with Walton Advanced Engineering in which Walton will purchase from Elpida 7,500 preferred shares in Elpida subsidiary EBS. The value of the share purchase is estimated at JPY 3.75 billion (US$50 million).

iFixit's teardown shows an abundance of TI silicon, with flash memory storage and system memory from Samsung and Hynix, respectively.

The firm unveiled the chip at a recent exhibition hosted by the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology.

Flash memory provider Spansion said it would cut 750 jobs, 610 of which will come from closing down its Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, facility by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2012.

Flush from better-than-expected third quarter revenues, flash memory supplier SanDisk is buying back up to US$500 million of its stock over the next five years, joining a growing list of companies putting their cash to use to help build investor confidence.

Shares of flash memory chip maker Spansion are taking a beating Friday after the company disclosed weaker-than-expected 3Q11 results and highly disappointing guidance for the fourth quarter.

Samsung Electronics' president expects Thailand floods to further hit the computer memory chip market by hurting PC production until the first quarter of 2012.

Viking Technology has launched the ArxCis-NVTM DRAM memory module, which the company said can automatically detect I/O interrupts and back up data to NAND flash prior to an outage.

"We have a lot of big plans for it and we're working with Hynix Semiconductor to launch a replacement for flash in the summer of 2013 and also to address the solid-state drive market," said Stan Williams, senior fellow at HP Labs.