DoJ launches Flash price-fixing probe

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has subpoenaed 24 companies over alleged price fixing in the semiconductor market.

Toshiba, SanDisk, Samsung and the Hitachi/Mitsubishi joint venture Renesas have so far admitted being served with grand jury subpoenas by the DoJ.

However, SanDisk revealed in a regulatory filing made on 14 September that the enquiry will stretch to 24 companies in total.

SanDisk also stated that the Canadian Competition Bureau had begun a similar price fixing probe in the same market.

A spokesman for Intel said that the company had not been served with a legal request concerning its partnership with Micron in the SRam market, and that it is not expecting to receive one.

The latest probe mirrors an investigation into the DRam market that started in 2002, in which the DoJ accused Infineon, Hynix, Micron, Mosel Vitelic, Nanya, Elpida Memory and NEC Electronics of banding together to artificially inflate prices between 1998 and 2002.

The DoJ investigation led to guilty pleas from Samsung, Hynix, Infineon and Elpida, and payment of $730m in fines.

Four vice presidents at Infineon Technologies were also jailed for four to six months in 2004 as part of the same case.

In 2006 a group of 34 US states filed another lawsuit against seven makers of DRam memory chips for alleged price fixing.