Intel, Mostek, Motorola, National and AMD had already gone.
The market had fallen from $40 billion in 1995 to an expected $14.5 billion in 1998.
TI took the hit later than nearly all the others and transferred its DRAM business to Micron.
TI gave Micron a $750m loan and got $950m worth of Micron shares while Micron assumed $190m of TI debt.
Micron took over TI’s Italian fab in Avezzano and TI’s 25% share in two DRAM joint ventures: TECH Semiconductor – the Singapore fab shared with Canon, HP and the Singapore Economic Development Board; and KTI – the Japanese fab shared with Kobe Steel.
Micron took on TI’s rights to all the output of TECH and KTI. These facilities added TI’s 6% share of the world DRAM market to Micron’s 11%.
Micron acquired the TwinStar DRAM fab in Texas, which TI shared with Hitachi. Micron closed it down with a loss of 600 jobs.
With the disposals and the restructuring, TI reduced its headcount by 8,000.
Over in Japan, Hitachi, denied reports in Japan’s financial newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun that it would pull out of DRAMs.
“We have said we are shifting the focus of the business away from memory towards logic and microprocessors,” a Tokyo spokesman told EW. “That doesn’t mean we’re exiting DRAM like TI.”
The following year it merged its DRAM business into the Elpida jv with NEC.
