Winbond Electronics announced today that its board of directors approved the sale of its FPD (flat-panel display) driver IC business to Cheertek Technology for around NT$400 million (US$12.5 million).
In order to focus on its core business and aggregate the resources in advanced product lines, Winbond has decided to sell its FPD driver IC business, stated Winbond.
Company chairman Arthur Y.C. Chiao, said “In the future, Winbond will provide foundry services for driver IC which will also be opened to other Driver IC design companies. Besides the 6-inch fab, the capacity of 8-inch fab will possibly be utilized for the said foundry services.”
It will take approximately one month for Winbond to complete the transfer of intangible assets, fixed assets and staffs of the FPD business to Cheertek, the company stated. During the transition period, Winbond will assist Cheertek in managing the supply chain to Winbond’s customers, so the transfer should have no affect on Winbond’s customers, said the company.
In the future, Winbond will concentrate on developing consumer electronics products and speech ICs, and the product integration among notebook, server application TPM (trusted platform module) technology and desktop I/O, stated the company. As for memory products, Winbond will continue to focus on the mobile RAM field, mainly in the pseudo SRAM, and aggressively develop competitive products for mobile electronic applications, said Winbond.
Winbond’s 12-inch fab is expected to begin volume production this quarter, according to the company.
Article translated by Carrie Yu and edited by Carrie Yu
