SK Hynix makes last $ 1.9 billion payment from Intel’s Nand division

SK Hynix this week completed a negotiation with Intel that began almost five years ago. In 2020 the South Korean company announced that it would buy the division for SSDs and Nand memories from the Optane owner, and only now the deal has completed, with the final payment of $ 1.9 billion from SK Hynix to Intel.

The total agreement is in the order of $ 8.85 billion. The first phase took place in 2021, when SK Hynix delivered $ 6.61 billion to Intel and received in return physical facilities for the company’s memories. It was at this moment that Solidigm came up, the new name that South Korean gave the former SSD division of Intel.

The completion of the agreement now includes specialized employees, research and development infrastructure and Intel’s intellectual properties (IPS) involving Nand Memories. Personnel attentive to mathematics must have noticed that, in fact, SK Hynix still owed $ 2.24 billion to add the amount initially signed in the agreement with Intel. Apparently, the company got a discount to pay its second installment.

SK Hynix now has more freedom to integrate Nand manufacturing technologies

Tom’s hardware staff points out that one of the difficulties faced by SK Hynix in its investment is the fact that Intel uses a different technology in the manufacture of its Nand chips. The South Korean giant of memories employs a technique called Charge Trap Flash (CTF), while the owner of the core used Floating Gate Flash.

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This was one of the reasons for Solidigm, which continued to work with products in Floating Gate. Intel’s IPs acquisition and veteran staff in technology should help SK Hynix make the best use of different processes in the future and possibly integrate its production into only one of them.

Meanwhile, Intel is pleased to “strengthen its balance sheet more and improve its financial flexibility” with the final investment it received.