Toshiba, Spansion in buyout talks

Japan's Toshiba is in talks to buy US chipmaker Spansion, two industry sources said, in the latest sign of pressure to consolidate in the struggling memory sector.

Terms of the deal were not available, according to one of the sources, who is close to a Spansion production partner.

Spansion was once a joint venture of Fujitsu and AMD, both of which are still major stakeholders with 11.4% and 8.7%, respectively, according to Reuters Knowledge.

Spansion, which has a market capitalisation of $167.2 million, has seen its shares plummet 72% this year as the highly cyclical memory chip sector struggles with oversupply that has hit most major players. Its shares rose 7.7% on Monday in New York trading.