NEC to Provide Memory Chips to Korea’s Samsung

NEC Corp., Japan’s top maker of semiconductors, said Sunday that it has agreed to provide memory chips to Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. for sale in Europe.

NEC said it will provide 100,000 4-megabyte dynamic random access memory chips per month to Samsung from its U.K. factories. The Korean maker will then package the chips at its plant in Portugal and sell them under its own name in Europe. NEC said it cannot disclose the financial arrangements of the deal. The spokesman said the arrangement will allow Samsung to avoid import duties on the chips, but could not say whether there is any benefit to NEC.

The move marks a further step toward closer relations between the top Japanese and Korean chip makers, which are intense rivals. NEC and Samsung signed an agreement last March on development work on future generation computer memory chips.