Samsung joins Japanese firms for memory technology

Samsung Electronics, the world’s top memory chip and smartphone maker, said it has set up a joint venture in the United States with Japanese tech giants as they move to develop new memory technology.

Samsung, Panasonic, Sony and Toshiba launched “Next Generation Secure Memory” earlier this month to collaborate on a new content protection technology for flash memory cards that are used in mobile devices. The four participants respectively own 25 percent stakes in the joint venture. Next Generation Secure Memory is expected to start licensing the secure memory technology developed by the four companies. As part of efforts to promote its technology, the unit debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show this year.

The establishment of the joint venture comes on the heels of an initiative announced two years earlier.

In December 2011, the four companies and SanDisk said they had reached an agreement to collaborate on a new content protection technology. SanDisk later bowed out. Yonhap