US semiconductor giant Micron, which is in a legal dispute over patent infringement with United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) and China’s homegrown chipmaker Fujian Jinhua, launched a new series of solid-state drives (SSDs) in Beijing today, according to an official statement.
Micron said the new 9300 series, targeting cloud and enterprise computing sectors, would help it increase market share in China, the world’s largest semiconductor market. Half of Micron’s sales in 2017 came from China.
The new product launch came after Larry Kudlow, a senior economic adviser to US president Trump, said yesterday in Washington that the ongoing Sino-US trade talks were showing “a lot of progress“. The trade talk delegations will host a new round of talks in the next few days.
“I’m hopeful that China and the US will resolve tensions and come to a resolution allowing the two countries and the global economy to move forward in a prosperous way for all,” Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said in a recent interview with China Daily.
It appears to be Micron’s first product launch since the Idaho-based company found itself in the crosshairs of Chinese authorities since the escalation of the Sino-US trade war last year.
Micron accused chipmaker Fujian Jinhua and UMC of stealing its trade secrets and the companies filed patent infringement lawsuits in both the United States and China.
Last July, the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court issued a preliminary injunction banning sales of some Micron memory and storage products in China. It’s not clear immediately if the new product launch means the ban on Micron product sales has been lifted.
Micron, together with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, are also targets of an anti-trust investigation in China since last May.
Editor: Nadine Freischlad
Write to Luna Lin at [email protected]