Elpida Memory has been in financial trouble since 2009 when they asked for a bailout from the Japanese government to the tune of $1.8 Billion. They attempted to ask for another bailout this year, but were rejected. At this point Micron has been selected as the primary buyer by Elpida and has been given the go ahead by the Japanese Government. Currently, while there is no word on the actual cost, the buyout price is rumored to be around $2.5 billion.

If the acquisition does go through then that could potentially make Micron the single largest supplier of DRAM to Apple for their mobile devices. Right now Elpida is one of the largest suppliers of DRAM for Apple’s New iPad. Although there is not guarantee that this would continue after Micron picks Elpida it could be a nice addition to their revenue stream.

If Elpida is not bought out they could follow other DRAM companies like Qimonda who vanished from view after struggling financially in the growing (and very volatile) memory market. Many memory companies have turned to other products in order to maintain their revenue like Solid State Drives and other Flash Memory products. Companies like Elpida and Qimonda did not have the financial resources to make the move when the technology hit which hurt them even more. It will be interesting to see what Micron makes of Elpida if they do buy them.

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