Micron Technology in talks to buy bankrupt Japanese chipmaker Elpida

Micron Technology is in talks to acquire bankrupt Japanese chipmaker Elpida Memory, a move that will make it the world's second-largest dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip maker behind Samsung Electronics.

Micron said Elpida had selected it to negotiate a deal following a bidding process, with reports suggesting that Micron, the largest chip maker in the US, has offered to pay more than 200 billion yen ($2.51 billion) for Elpida.

Others in the race for Elpida were South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor, Toshiba Corp of Japan, US private equity firm TPG Capital and China's Hony Capital.

The potential acquisition would give Micron access to Elpida's technology in chips for smartphones and tablets and a 25 per cent share of the global market for DRAM chips.

Reeling under $5.55 billion debt, the world's third-largest and Japan's only DRAM chip maker Elpida in February filed for bankruptcy protection, after it got bogged down with falling prices and increased competition from its Taiwanese and South Korean rivals. (See: Japan's only DRAM chip maker Elpida files for bankruptcy)

In what has become the biggest bankruptcy filing by a Japanese manufacturer, the maker of DRAM, chips was delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange on 28 March.