Dec 24 2010
Sony intends to acquire a Japanese plant back from Toshiba for developing and enhancing its production of sensing devices deployed in imagers and smartphones in the in the midst of intensive global requirements of these devices.
Sony plans to purchase Toshiba’s Nagasaki industrial unit by paying nearly 50 billion yen or 600 million dollars, which it traded for about 90 billion yen to Toshiba in 2008, reports the Nikkei daily.
This industrial unit produces Toshiba television sets, Sony's PlayStation3 game console chips, and other digital solutions but the factory desires to trade it as they are not having many other applications, according to the national network N and HK Kyodo News. Sony will utilize this unit to expand its production of metal-oxide semiconductor sensors (SMOS) to about 40,000 a month, publishes Nikkei.
Nikkei reported that by increasing the manufacture of chips and reducing the production expenditure, Sony plans to get on par with South Korea's leading Samsung Electronics and US players. The world-wide business of SMOS is calculated approximately to be 4.2 billion dollars in 2010, and is predicted to double the estimated value by 2014. But according to Sony, the media statements were not an official declaration from the company.
Source: http://www.sony.com