# Sony and Toshiba Sign Definitive Agreements for the Transfer of Semiconductor Fabrication Facilities



## Canon Rumors Guy (Dec 5, 2015)

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<strong>Tokyo, Japan, December 4th, 2015</strong> — Based on the memorandum of understanding entered into between Sony Corporation (“Sony”) and Toshiba Corporation (“Toshiba”) on October 28, 2015, the parties today announced that they have signed definitive agreements to transfer to Sony and to Sony Semiconductor Corporation (“SCK”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony, certain Toshiba-owned semiconductor fabrication facilities, equipment and related assets in its Oita Operations facility, as well as other related equipment and assets owned by Toshiba (the “Transfer”).</p>
<p>Under the agreements, Toshiba will transfer semiconductor fabrication facilities, equipment and related assets of Toshiba’s 300mm wafer production line, mainly located at its Oita Operations facility. The purchase price of the Transfer is 19 billion yen. Sony and Toshiba aim to complete the Transfer within the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016, subject to any required regulatory approvals.</p>
<p>Following the Transfer, Sony and SCK plan to operate the semiconductor fabrication facilities as fabrication facilities of SCK, primarily for manufacturing CMOS image sensors.</p>
<p>The parties expect to offer the employees of Toshiba and its affiliates employed at the fabrication facilities to be transferred, as well as certain employees involved in areas such as CMOS image sensor engineering and design (approximately 1,100 employees in total), employment within the Sony Group, upon the completion of the Transfer.</p>
<p><strong>Outline of 300mm wafer fabrication facilities, Toshiba Oita Operations</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Building completion: February, 2004</li>
<li>Location: 3500 Oaza Matsuoka, Oita City, Oita Prefecture, Japan</li>
<li>Building area: 24,100 m2</li>
<li>Total floor space: 48,800 m2</li>
<li>Main products: CMOS image sensors, memory controllers</li>
</ul>
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## Bennymiata (Dec 7, 2015)

*Re: Sony and Toshiba Sign Definitive Agreements for the Transfer of Semiconductor Fabrication Facili*

Well, the quickest way to increase your market share is to buy out your competitors.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Dec 7, 2015)

*Re: Sony and Toshiba Sign Definitive Agreements for the Transfer of Semiconductor Fabrication Facili*

Japanese companies who want to produce in Japan are limited by available facilities, and even more by lack of workers. The population has been declining, and companies are hiring more and more temporary contract workers from other countries.

This works for some Assembly line labor, but for highly skilled positions, it just does not work.

Sony needed this deal to meet demand for their products, so its a winner for them and the Toshiba employees.


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## davidmurray (Dec 8, 2015)

*Re: Sony and Toshiba Sign Definitive Agreements for the Transfer of Semiconductor Fabrication Facili*

To give this some context, Intel has been fabricating CPUs at the 32nm scale since about 2010, and at the 22nm scale since 2012.
In order to know how current the Toshiba manufacturing plant is tooled up to do we need to know what scale are the wafers being fabricated at. The overall size of any given wafer isn't relevant when looking to know how current the tool set is.


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