The first phase of the sale of Intel’s SSD business aak SK hynix is complete. The company will transfer the business to a new company.
With the approval of China’s antitrust regulator late last year, the stage was set for the acquisition of Intel’s SSD business by memory specialist SK hynix. The first phase of that sale has since been completed. In that phase, Intel receives seven billion of the agreed nine billion. For that, SK hynix gets the bulk of the SSD business with part of the associated intellectual property and Intel’s memory factory in Dalian, China.
Intel itself will continue to manufacture NAND in Dalian and also retain intellectual property and employees until 2025. Then the deal will be finalized and SK hynix will pay the last two billion.
Solidigm
SK hynix is already a major memory manufacturer and builds its own SSDs for mobile devices. The Intel acquisition allows the company to break into the enterprise market. Intel’s SSD business will not be immediately integrated with SK hynix itself, but will enter a separate new subsidiary: Solidigm. Solidigm will have about 2,000 employees and will be headquartered in San Jose, USA.
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Intel, for its part, would rather lose the memory business than get rich. The market is lucrative but also competitive, and Intel would rather focus on its core business of developing and manufacturing CPUs.