[Courtesy of SK Hynix]
South Korean microchip company SK Hynix said Wednesday it was considering a joint venture with US data storage company Seagate Technology as part of efforts to bolster its presence in the NAND flash memory chip market.
The unit of South Korea's SK Group, however, said in a regulatory filing that "nothing has been decided yet" on its partnership with Seagate, which along with Western Digital dominates the hard disk drive (HDD) market.
The suggested partnership between Hynix and Seagate could be seen a "win-win" strategy at a time when rival firms have gained a competitive edge.
Hynix stood fourth in the NAND flash market after Samsung Electronics, Toshiba, and SanDisk, while Seagate has tried to find a strong business partner.
Memory chip makers are taking a strong initiative in 3D NAND, a product that is created by stacking the circuit of flat NAND chips vertically. The 3D NAND market is growing rapidly thanks to cloud computing.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
