SanDisk
Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK),
a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced it has
reached agreement with SK Hynix, Inc. to modify and extend their
intellectual property licensing relationship and enter into a multi-year
commercial relationship under which SK Hynix will supply its
leading-edge DRAM products to SanDisk. These agreements include a
settlement of the trade secret misappropriation suit filed by SanDisk in
2014.
Under these agreements, which will expire on March 31, 2023, SanDisk
will release SK Hynix of its liability pertaining to the trade secret
litigation and license certain intellectual property rights to SK Hynix
in exchange for license and royalty payments to be made over the
duration of the agreement. In addition, SK Hynix has agreed to supply
SanDisk with certain volumes of its DRAM products for MCP and SSD
applications. The specific terms and conditions of the agreements,
including with respect to economic consideration, are confidential.
“We are pleased to have reached this important settlement and to expand
our commercial relationship with SK Hynix. We believe this resolution
acknowledges the value of our intellectual property while providing
SanDisk access to DRAM solutions desired by our customers for their
mobile and SSD applications for many years to come,” said Sanjay
Mehrotra, president and chief executive officer of SanDisk.
“We believe this resolution is positive for both SK Hynix and SanDisk
and our customers. We look forward to this renewal and extension of our
business collaboration with SanDisk,” said Dr. Sung-Wook Park, president
and chief executive officer of SK Hynix.
About SanDisk
SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company,
is a global leader in flash storage solutions. For more than 25 years,
SanDisk has expanded the possibilities of storage, providing trusted and
innovative products that have transformed the electronics industry.
Today, SanDisk’s quality, state-of-the-art solutions are at the heart of
many of the world's largest data centers, and embedded in advanced smart
phones, tablets and PCs. SanDisk’s consumer products are available at
hundreds of thousands of retail stores worldwide. For more information,
visit www.sandisk.com.
© 2015 SanDisk Corporation. All rights reserved. SanDisk and the SanDisk
logo are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation, registered in the United
States and other countries. Other brand names mentioned herein are for
identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their
respective holder(s).
This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including
statements about expectations regarding the benefits of the extended
license agreement, including license and royalty payments under the
license agreement, the expected benefits of the DRAM supply agreement
and SK Hynix’s continued supply of DRAM required by Sandisk for future
periods that are based on SanDisk’s current expectations and involve
numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking
statements to be inaccurate. Risks that may cause these forward-looking
statements to be inaccurate include among others: SK Hynix’s failure to
perform its obligations under the license or supply agreement, the
license and royalty payments not being made in a timely fashion or in
the amounts we expect, whether the pricing terms under the supply
agreement will result in cost-competitive supply of DRAM as compared to
other sources, the quality and quantity of the DRAM supplied by SK Hynix
may not meet our requirements, changing market and industry conditions,
and the other risks detailed from time-to-time under the caption “Risk
Factors” and elsewhere in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings
and reports, including, but not limited to, our Quarterly Report on Form
10-Q for the quarter ended June 28, 2015. All statements made in this
news release are made only as of the date of this release. We undertake
no obligation to update the information in this release in the event
facts or circumstances change after the date of this release.
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