Intel announces that it has completed the first stage of the takeover of its SSD business by memory chip specialist SK Hynix. Now, the South Korean company officially owns Intel’s NAND and SSD infrastructure and business interests, including the Dalian NAND chip factory in China. Note that Intel will maintain a minor stake until 2025 and that in the meantime SK Hynix will set up an entire subsidiary dedicated to its NAND activity and called Solidigm.
Announced in October 2020, the agreement reached between Intel and SK Hynix is valued at $ 9 billion. It provides for the transfer of NAND activities to SK Hynix, but allows Intel to keep all of its technologies and intellectual properties on Optane and 3D Xpoint. An agreement validated by the Competition authorities who took an interest in it, which explains the finalization of the first stage. SK Hynix made the payment of $ 7 billion and in the process recovered part of Intel’s SSD R&D workforce.
The rest of the deal is expected to be finalized within the next three years, with the transfer of the final pieces and the payment of the remaining $ 2 billion. As for Solidigm, it is a stand-alone company that will be based in San Jose, California, and headed by Rob Crooke, former vice president and general manager of Intel’s Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group.