SanDisk Corp., the world's largest maker of memory cards used in portable devices, is buying Israel-based M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers Ltd for $1.55 billion in stock.
SanDisk's co-founder and president Sanjay Mehrotra, said the deal valued M-Systems at $1.55 billion based on the company having a total of 43 million shares.
SanDisk said the acquisition will help the company to consolidate its position in the flash memory products segment. It will give the company, which is a partner for Toshiba Corp., access to technology that can double the storage capacity on a semiconductor. M-Systems had recently come out with a new technology that can cut production costs of memory devices by as much as 50 per cent by including more storage capacity in each chip.