About Litigation between Western Digital & Toshiba

Joint Venture of SanDisk and Toshiba
SanDisk acquired by Western Digital and Toshiba mutually established joint venture concerning NAND flash memory development & manufacturing at Yokkaichi, Mie, Japan in 2000.
For last 17 years, the two companies have been investing a lot, $XY billion, in proportion to Toshiba (51%) and SanDisk (49%) beyond five generations of factory expansion, etc..

As a result of the joint development, San Disk and Toshiba co-authored papers (theses) for prestigious IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) ISSCC (International Solid State Circuit Conference) and 13 theses were accepted (See “ISSCC Papers Co-aurthored.pdf”).
SanDisk and Toshiba co-assigned US patents and 123 patents were registered (See “US Patents Co-assigned.pdf”).

Western Digital's Concerns
Based upon the long term successful cooperation, Western Digital expressed help bailing out Toshiba facing with fatal financial problem (See “WD Willing to Help Toshiba.pdf”), 4/25/2017.
Western Digital CEO Steve Milligan kindly stated concerning Toshiba problem at WD 2017 third fiscal quarter conference call (Listen to “Milligan Comment about Toshiba” and read ”Dictation of Milligan Comment”), 4/27/2017.

Sanjay Mehrotora & Khandker Quader
The joint venture was initiated by Sanjay Mehrotora (Vice president R&D, in those days) who also requested SanDisk aquisition to Western Digital in August 2015 as President & CEO of SanDisk.
Khandker Quader led flash memory design cooperating with Toshiba.

The two people already left SanDisk (See "Sanjay & Khandker.pdf").

Khandker became President & CEO of SK Hynix Memory Solutions which is US subsidiary of SK Hynix in June, 2013.
Lawsuit against SK Hynix was filed by SanDisk and Toshiba in March, 2014 (See "Lawsuit against SK Hynix.pdf").
Khandker left SK Hynix Memory Solutions in June, 2014, while the lawsuit is ongoing.

Sanjay became board member of Western Digital for a while.  Then, Sanjay became a President & CEO of Micron Technology in May, 2017.
The Micron Technology acquired Lexar Media, one of competitors of SanDisk flash memory business, in 2006.
Micron Technology fully acquired Elpida Memory, a Japanese sole DRAM manufacturer merged in NEC INippon Electric Company) and Hitachi, in 2013.


Settlement Announcement
Western Digital CEO Steve Milligan announced the eventual achievement of the settlement.
(Listen to “Milligan Announcement about Toshiba” and read ”Dictation of Milligan Announcement”), 12/12/2017.