Micron Technology, Inc (NASDAQ: MU)
Shares of Micron Technology, Inc. are down 5.4% Tuesday, following news that China has placed a temporary ban on the company’s chip sales in the country.
The decision was made by a Chinese court, blocking the Idaho-based tech giant from selling some of its chips there.
News of the ruling were first reported by United Microelectronics Corporation, a technology firm based in Taiwan, which had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Micron.
The verdict bars Micron from selling 26 NAND and DRAM related products, including certain memory sticks and solid-state hard drives (SSD) in China.
Micron issued a statement saying, “Micron has not been served with the preliminary injunction referred to in the statements issued by United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) and Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. (Jinhua) dated July 3. Micron will not be commenting further until the company has received and reviewed documentation from the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court of China.”
However, sources close to the company say it is currently drafting a response to the ruling by the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China.
UMC co-president Jason Wang, commented, “UMC is pleased with today’s decision. UMC invests heavily in its intellectual property and aggressively pursues any company that infringes UMC’s patents.”
UMC filed the lawsuit at the beginning of year, accusing Micron of violating its patents rights in mainland China. On its part, Micron accused UMC of stealing its designs and trade secrets with a motive of helping the Chinese government develop its local memory chip industry.
China accounts for a quarter of the global memory chip market. In fact, Micron derived half of its fiscal 2017 net sales from the country.
The US memory chip maker, along with South Korean rivals, SK Hynix, Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. dominate the Chinese chip market.
Authorities within the Xi Jinping regime have repeatedly raised concerns over the increasing prices of memory chips in the country.
Micron Technology, Inc. Company Profile
Micron engages in the manufacture and provision of semiconductor systems internationally. The firm operates under four segments namely; Embedded Business Unit, Storage Business Unit, Mobile Business Unit, and Compute & Networking Business Unit.
It offers DDR4 and DDR3 DRAM products for networking devices, computers, communications equipment, servers, communications equipment, automotive, industrial, and consumer electronics applications.
Micron also offers NAND products that are electrically rewriteable; storage devices; non-volatile semiconductor memory; solid-state drives for workstations, desktops, and notebooks; enterprise solid-state drives for storage and server applications; and cloud solid-state drives.
It also resells flash memory products purchased from other suppliers. Additionally, the company makes other products which are old under other brand names.
Customers can buy Micron products from original equipment manufacturers, retailers, distributors, or get them directly from the company.
The competitors of Micron include Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Intel Corporation, SanDisk Corporation, Toshiba Corporation, and SK Hynix Inc.
Micron Technology, Inc. was founded in 1978 by Joseph L. Parkinson, Dough Pitman, Dennis Wilson, and Ward D. Parkinson. Its headquarters are located in Boise, Idaho. –Reuters
