The board of directors at Hynix Semiconductor Inc. officially accepted the resignation Friday of Chairman and CEO C.S. Park, a key figure in the failed negotiations between Hynix and Micron Technology Inc.
The company also said it was focusing anew on the sale of its non-memory assets as a way to raise cash and streamline operations. Park will oversee that effort, which has yielded inconsistent results so far.
In a statement, Hynix also told the EE Times that it is not pursuing any other alliances and was "looking for various solutions" to raise capital for a 300mm wafer plant, which would need to get off the ground soon for the company to remain competitive.
That will be among the first tasks for incoming CEO Sang-ho Park, the current chief operating officer and a former vice president at IBM Corp. and director of marketing at Hewlett Packard Co. The new chairman will be Y.W. Jun, who formerly served as an outside director.
The changes cap the end of a tumultuous week at the world No. 3 DRAM maker. On Monday, creditors that hold much of Hynix's $6.5 billion debt narrowly approved an offer from Micron to buy all core memory assets. A day later Hynix's board rebuffed the $3.5 billion deal. Now the company is preparing to go it alone.
However, declining DRAM prices and limited resources will be huge hurdles to surmount. Moreover, efforts to sell non-memory assets, such as its TFT-LCD division, have not gone smoothly and, in any event, would only lead to the pay back of a small percentage of its debt.
News source: Silicon Strategies - Hynix accepts CEO's resignation, focuses on non-memory asset sale
