U.S. begins SRAM antitrust probe

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has begun an antitrust investigation into the SRAM (static random access memory) market, which produces chips used to store data in low-power devices such as mobile phones.

One company involved in the probe is Cypress Semiconductor, of San Jose, California, which said in a statement on Thursday that it plans to support the investigation by sharing access to its employees and documents.

Federal investigators contracted Cypress on Wednesday night and asked for documents, said spokesman Joseph McCarthy. He did not know whether investigators had also reached other vendors.

"We assume the DOJ is looking at the market and the practices involved," McCarthy said. But he cautioned that it was too early to draw parallels to the ongoing investigation of manufacturers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM).

The DOJ brought charges in September against the DRAM vendor Samsung Electronics for global price-fixing in the sale of memory chips to PC makers including Apple Computer Inc., Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Other companies charged with related actions include Infineon Technologies AG and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. And in July, 34 states brought an antitrust lawsuit against seven DRAM vendors for similar price-fixing practices.

In a separate investigation, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said in August that Rambus Inc. had illegally monopolized the market for DRAM memory chips by inserting its own technology into a common standard without disclosing that it had already patented the method. Rambus later sued producers of the standard for licensing fees.

Cypress' SRAM chips are used in networking equipment such as switches and routers, IP (Internet protocol) phones and automotive electronics, and the company's low-power SRAM is used in mobile phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), and handheld radios and gaming platforms.