Hynix's JV Selling Chip Equipment to China Resources

South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor Inc said Thursday that its Chinese joint venture has signed a final contract to sell the equipment of a low-margin eight-inch memory chip production line at its Wuxi plant to conglomerate China Resources Holdings Co Ltd.

Hynix has a joint venture in China with STMicroelectronics. It gave no details, saying the agreement is confidential.

China Resources is the holding company of chip foundry CSMC Technologies Corp.

Hynix runs five 8-inch production lines in South Korea, China and the US and two more 12-inch lines. It plans gradually to increase its 12-inch lines to boost their output to 90 percent of its total by 2012 from 40 percent now.

The company is the world's second-largest maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips used in personal computers, and is the third-largest producer of NAND flash memory chips used in electronic devices such as MP3 players, cellphones and digital cameras.

At 10.25 am, Hynix shares were down 700 won or 2.1 percent at 32,100 won while

the KOSPI was down 18.08 points or 1.0 percent at 1,847.51.