Kioxia and Western Digital's joint venture manufacturing facilities in Yokkaichi and Kitakami have been approved for up to JPY150 billion (US$1 billion) in government subsidies.

Western Digital on Thursday posted December quarter sales that edged Wall Street estimates, and provided better-than-expected guidance for the March quarter-but the disk-drive and flash memory chip company's shares nonetheless were falling in late trading.

Western Digital has restarted talks with Japan's Kioxia in a deal that could unite two technology storage providers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Western Digital is in advanced talks to merge with Japan's Kioxia Holdings, according to people familiar with the matter, in a deal that could be valued at more than US$20 billion and further reorder the global chip industry.

With the market for flash memory only expected to grow, Western Digital CEO David Goeckeler says the US chipmaker sees Japan's Kioxia Holdings as a long-term partner that is key to staying competitive against big Asian rivals.

Micron Technology and Western Digital are each exploring a potential deal for Kioxia Holdings that could value the Japanese semiconductor company at around US$30 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

From an investment standpoint, the coronavirus and the subsequent quarantining of Wuhan, China, poses a possible benefit to US memory chip companies like Micron Technology and Western Digital.

Western Digital continues to assess the impact of this event and expects the incident to result in a reduction of WD's flash wafer availability of approximately 6 exabytes, the majority of which is expected to be contained in the first quarter of fiscal year 2020, namely the period from July 2019 until September.

With the SSD and NAND flash memory markets booming, Western Digital has made the tough decision to shut down its HDD (hard disk drive) manufacturing factory in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia by the end of 2019.

Western Digital will invest about JPY500 billion ($4.68 billion) over the next three years in a memory chip venture with Toshiba, helping their joint operations recover after a bruising legal spat between the companies.

The new products enable corporate data centers having data set sizes smaller than found in hyperscale environments to harness the power of data across a broad spectrum of Big Data applications such as analytics and distributed file systems.

Western Digital gave strong profit forecasts for the current quarter and the full year on Thursday and said the flash memory market would grow faster this year, easing investor jitters that the surging demand for memory chips was fading.

The industry this year may see a microprocessor ship from startup Graphcore that uses no DRAM and one from rival Cerebras Systems that pioneers wafer-level integration. The hefty 2.5-D Nervana chip acquired by Intel is already sampling, and a dozen other processors are in the works. Meanwhile, chip companies from ARM to Western Digital are working on cores to accelerate the inference part of deep neural nets.

Toshiba, Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC) and Western Digital have entered into a global settlement agreement to resolve their ongoing disputes in litigation and arbitration, strengthen and extend their relationship, and enhance the mutual commitment to their ongoing flash memory collaboration.

Imec has expanded its long-term joint research efforts with Western Digital. Under a new agreement, imec and Western Digital will collaborate in R&D of a broad range of advanced semiconductor technologies.

Bhatia has over 22 years of engineering and operations experience, including the last 17 years in the semiconductor industry. He most recently served as the executive vice president of Silicon Operations at Western Digital.

Data-storage company Western Digital revealed at its San Jose campus a new technology that enables capacity increases in hard drives that could span to 2030 and even beyond.

Japan's Toshiba has selected a group led by US private equity firm Bain Capital to buy its prized memory chip unit, three people with knowledge of the talks said on Wednesday, the latest dramatic twist to a highly contentious auction.

Western Digital's CEO apologized to his counterpart at Toshiba for strained ties after the US firm sued to keep their chip joint venture from being sold to rival bidders, according to an Aug. 11 letter.

SK Hynix is reportedly considering taking legal action against Toshiba after being rebuffed by the Japanese conglomerate during the auction process of a memory-chip unit without appropriate notice, according to sources close to the matter.

Toshiba may not seal a $17.5 billion deal to sell its memory chip unit by a self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline due to disagreements over details of an offer by the bidders, people familiar with the matter said late on Tuesday.

Western Digital, part of a group offering to buy Toshiba Corp's (6502.T) memory chip unit, is not seeking a management role in the business, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

Western Digital Corp.'s "Marry Me, or I'll Sue" tactics may have actually worked.

Japan's Toshiba is prioritising talks with Western Digital to sell its memory chip business, as negotiations with a previously preferred bidder have stalled, the Nikkei business daily reported on Wednesday.

Jayapalan has 20 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. Most recently, he served as vice president, enterprise and client compute solutions marketing at Western Digital.

Western Digital said it will move forward with arbitration to get a say over Toshiba's sale of its chip unit after the Japanese company agreed to provide notice before closing.

Toshiba's board will meet on Wednesday to consider offers for its chip unit from Western Digital and Taiwan's Foxconn in addition to a bid from a consortium that was previously favorite, a source familiar with the matter said. Toshiba is scrambling to sell its flash memory unit to cover losses from its bankrupt US nuclear business Westinghouse.

Western Digital won a temporary US court order on Tuesday saying that Toshiba must allow Western Digital's employees to access databases and chip samples as part of a joint venture with Toshiba around flash memory chip plants in Japan.

Toshiba is suing Western Digital for JPY120 billion, accusing it of interfering in the attempted sale of its flash memory business. The Japanese giant is offloading the unit to cover huge losses in its US nuclear division.

Western Digital said in a June 25 letter to Toshiba's board that SK Hynix's participation in the consortium increased the likelihood of technology leakage to the rival chipmaker, adding that the winning bid did not appear to be bigger than its own offer.

Western Digital has offered to acquire less than 20% of Japanese partner Toshiba's memory chip arm, compromising on its prior demand for a majority stake in a bid to get negotiations moving.

Western Digital is considering fresh investment to build another flash memory chip plant in western Japan in an effort to show its commitment to the country, a source familiar with the matter said.

Western Digital has announced what the company claims is the world's first client solid state drives built with its 64-layer 3D NAND technology.

Four suitors have come forward for Toshiba's cash-cow memory chip unit. But with aggrieved business partner Western Digital raising objections, the company likely will face many twists and turns before completing the deal that is so crucial to its survival.

Toshiba is well within its rights to sell its memory operations, the Japanese conglomerate has told business partner Western Digital in response to efforts by the hard-drive supplier to block the auction, it was learned Tuesday.

Western Digital has warned Toshiba that the proposed sale of its memory business contravenes the terms of their flash foundry joint venture.

Western Digital reported a better-than-expected fiscal second quarter amid strong enterprise and solid state demand.

Last week, Toshiba confirmed that it's looking to spin off its core semiconductor business. Toshiba's chip division includes its lucrative NAND memory business, which generated 15% of the group's JPY5.7 trillion annual revenue (about $50 billion), and has an estimated value of about JPY1.5 trillion (about $13 billion).

Four foreign investment funds have reportedly offered to take a stake in Toshiba's memory chip operations should the Japanese electronics giant spin off the business.

Toshiba is looking to sell a minority stake in its core semiconductor business to Western Digital, a source said, in a bid to dull the blow from a looming multi-billion-dollar writedown on a US nuclear acquisition.