Sony in US anti-trust probe for price-fixing

San Jose, California: An obscure corner of the semiconductor industry became a global battleground as Sony Corp became the fifth company ensnared in a US Department of Justice anti-trust probe into the sales of a particular type of memory chip.

The same day (Tuesday), European Union regulators said they raided several unnamed semiconductor companies in Germany on October 11 as part of a probe into possible price fixing for the same type of chip.

Both investigations center on the sale of static random access memory, or SRAM, a kind of computer memory found in relatively small quantities in PCs and used in disk drives, communications equipment and networking gear.

SRAM memory is faster and more reliable than dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, the most common type used in personal computers.

But it also can be more expensive for high-end corporate uses, and SRAM sales are shrinking as customers gravitate toward chips with integrated memory to save space and cut costs, said Mark DeVoss, a senior analyst with market researcher iSuppli Corp.

Worldwide SRAM sales totaled $2.8 billion in 2005, compared with DRAM sales the same year of about $24.8 billion, according to iSuppli.

DeVoss said he was puzzled by the widening probe, saying any pricing shenanigans would likely have little impact on consumers because of the small market size and relatively low selling prices for most types of SRAM, he said. "Unless there's something really, really, really wrong, I think this is a tempest in a teapot," he said. "I don't think consumers are being affected that much, simply because the business is too small."

European regulators were explicit that the companies targeted in the cartel raid were suspected of breaking price-fixing laws.

However, the European Commission never names the companies suspected of operating a cartel and said that the surprise inspections were a preliminary step in its probe.