SanDisk and Hynix Semiconductor have reached a patent cross-licensing agreement covering Flash memory products from both companies and have come to terms over production supply.

The collaboration, announced late Tuesday, included a signed memorandum of understanding - and possible pinky swears - between Milpitas-based SanDisk and Seoul-based Hynix. The agreement outlines a plan for equal capital investments towards increasing production capacity at Hynix for the manufacture of memory components and NAND memory systems. However, no time line was given for bringing these plans to fruition.

The pact will focus on development of x4 Flash memory technology which holds four bits of data per cell at the same cost as today's more standard memory with one or two bits. The agreement is similar to one shared between Hynix and M-systems before it was acquired by SanDisk last year for $1.35bn.

"This cross-license agreement agreement resolves all IP issues between Hynix and SanDisk," said Eli Harari, CEO of SanDisk, "and allows each company to focus on maximizing its opportunities. Hynix has done an outstanding job in NAND flash manufacturing in the past few years, and I look forward to cooperating with Hynix through the joint venture planned between our two companies."

Financial details between the companies were not disclosed in the announcement.

On Tuesday, Hynix also ended pending patent-infringement suits with Toshiba in the U.S. and Japan with an agreement to share semiconductor patents between the two companies. ®

• Cheap flash sinks SanDisk's profits (19 July 2007)
• SanDisk and Microsoft BFFs around software-stuffed memory (11 May 2007)
• Make way for the 64 bit revolution (27 March 2007)
• SanDisk intros internal Flash drive for laptops (14 March 2007)
• SanDisk to replace Flash in photography? (27 February 2007)
• SanDisk cuts 250 jobs on falling prices (20 February 2007)
• Vendors pledge to make Flash as easy to upgrade as RAM (22 January 2007)
• Hynix clocks 60nm DDR 2 chip to 800MHz (18 December 2006)
• Feds allege Samsung, Hynix execs fixed DRAM prices (19 October 2006)
• Toshiba defeats Hynix in Tokyo court (24 March 2006)