Sony to buy back Toshiba chip line

Sony Corp is in talks to buy a Japanese microchip production line from Toshiba Corp for an estimated 50 billion yen ($598 million) to boost its output of chips for cameras and mobile phones.

Sony sold the facility to Toshiba, the world's No.3 chip maker behind Intel Corp and Samsung Electronics for 90 billion yen in 2008 as part of its "asset light" strategy.

Through the planned buy back of the production lines in southern Japan's Nagasaki prefecture, the maker of PlayStation games and Bravia TVs aims to boost its output capacity of image sensors used in digital cameras and cellphones.

The electronics and entertainment conglomerate is now aiming to raise its CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) sensor production capacity due to brisk demand for digital cameras and smart phones.

Sony Executive Deputy President Hiroshi Yoshioka said that it was in the process of deciding how to cover a shortage in CMOS sensor output capacity.

Sony is the world's second-largest digital camera maker behind Canon Inc, and runs a mobile phone joint venture with Sweden's Ericsson.

The Nikkei business daily said the acquisition would double Sony's image sensor output capacity to the equivalent of 40,000 silicon wafers a month. Sony still owns the factory the chip line is housed in.

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