Micron Confirms Plan to Buy Elpida for $3.75 Billion

It was only a few days ago that we reported on who was left to bid for Elpida and, now, we finally have confirmation: Micron will acquire the company entirely. 

From being one of the prime suppliers of semiconductors, Elpida has somehow fallen to the level of bankruptcy very quickly over the past year and a half. 

Truly, many people didn't expect the company to ever reach such dire straits, but here we are. Back on February 27, 2012, it filed a petition for commencement of Corporate Reorganization Proceedings with the Tokyo District Court under the Corporate Reorganization Act of Japan. 

A bidding process followed, meant to secure a so-called sponsor that would acquire the business and help during the period or reorganizations. SK Hynix was one of the bidders, but it backed out a week ago, after most others had done the same. 

Eventually, Micron was left, and the official confirmation that it will fully acquire Elpida Memory is finally here. As part of the transaction, the latter will receive $2.5 to $3.75 billion, or 1.93 to 2.90 billion Euro. Meanwhile, Micron will become the second largest supplier of DRAM chips, right on the heels of Samsung Electronics. Quite the jump from fourth spot, and ironic too, considering that Elpida was actually ahead, on third place, in the first quarter of 2012. 

As for the market as a whole, the web keeps talking about the DRAM industry becoming an oligopoly, with only three major suppliers (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron). No longer will price wars lead to such cheap memory modules and kits. In other words, consumers will be getting the short end of the stick, so they probably should get a nice RAM kit now. DDR4 will only appear in 2013 or 2014 and we doubt it will ever be as cheap as DDR3 is today.

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