TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Micron Technology Inc. and its Taiwanese partner will not join a new Taiwan government company being established to help the island consolidate its struggling computer chip industry, the American firm said Thursday.
Fred Fishburn, an official of the Boise, Idaho-based company, said it will instead continue to work with its current Taiwanese partner, Nanya Technology Corp.
Nanya's Chairman Wu Chia-chao said it will develop more advanced memory chip products under its current 10-year contract with Micron.
Fishburn said Micron decided against an alliance with the newly formed Taiwan Memory Co. because it feared it could erode its technological superiority, by exposing its secrets to TMC partner Elpida Memory Inc. of Japan.
After locking up its partnership with Elpida earlier this month, TMC said it would try to bring Micron into the alliance.
Tu Tse-chun, director of Taiwan's Industrial Development Bureau, said the planned technological cooperation between TMC and Elpida would not be affected by the Micron announcement.
The government respects Micron's decision, he said.
Taiwan hopes the island's chip makers will be able to challenge South Korean DRAM maker Samsung Electronics Co., aided by technology transfers from the American and Japanese makers.
Taiwan's six makers of DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, chips have recently suffered from a glut of supply as the global economic slump saps demand for electronics and machinery run with semiconductors.
