Sony says U.S. is investigating memory chips

Sony Corp. of Japan said Tuesday that the U.S. Justice Department was probing its electronics unit as part of an industrywide investigation into sales of a particular type of memory chip.

The news could spell more trouble for a company already stung by sinking profit, a global battery recall and product delays.

Sony said it received a subpoena from the Justice Department’s antitrust division seeking information about the company’s static random access memory, or SRAM, business.

“Sony intends to cooperate fully with the DOJ in what appears to be an industrywide inquiry,” the company said.

Separately, European Union antitrust regulators said Tuesday that they had raided several chip makers in Germany in October as part of a price-fixing investigation regarding SRAM chips.

This month, chip maker Cypress Semiconductor Corp. of San Jose said its SRAM operations were under investigation by the Justice Department.

SRAM is a kind of computer memory that is faster and more reliable, but also more expensive, than the more extensively used dynamic random access memory, or DRAM. Unlike DRAM, SRAM can keep its data without power.

SRAM is found in relatively small quantities in personal computers. It also is used in disk drives, communications equipment and networking gear.

In 2005, Sony sold SRAM worth 3.3 billion yen. The product is made by outside manufacturers for the company, which in turn sells the memory chips to other electronics makers, Sony spokesman Atsuo Omagari said. He declined to provide other details about the investigation.

A separate Justice Department investigation into price fixing among DRAM companies has resulted in more than a dozen charges against individuals and more than $731 million in fines against Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea, Elpida Memory Inc. of Japan and Infineon Technologies of Germany.

The probe could add to a growing list of headaches for Sony, which has been battered by a worldwide recall of lithium-ion laptop batteries on fears that they could overheat and burst into flames. The recall affected almost every major laptop maker in the world, including Dell Inc., Apple Computer Inc. and Lenovo Group Ltd.

Last week, Sony said profit plunged 94% in the July-to-September quarter.

Sony’s U.S.-traded shares fell 57 cents to $40.98 on Tuesday.