Sony Buys Chip Manufacturing Facility From Toshiba For $650 Million

The consolidation in Japan’s electronics industry continues: Sony just announced it has bought a chip manufacturing facility in Nagasaki Prefecture, western Japan, from Toshiba. The deal is supposed to be closed by April 1 this year and is worth $650 million.

Both companies actually reached a a basic accord to sell the facility in December. The production line was used for system large scale integration chips so far, but Sony wants to convert the line to produce sensors.

Big S already commands 70% of the global market for sensor but plans to double the total output capacity for image sensors to 50,000 wafers monthly by March 2012, by investing $1.2 billion. Now we have final confirmation where more than half of that sum has landed.