Elpida:to ship Qimonda-design graphics chips in 2010

TOKYO Aug 6 (Reuters) - Japanese chipmaker Elpida Memory Inc 6665.T will buy failed German chipmaker Qimonda's QMNDQ.PK graphics DRAM technology and start shipping the chips, used in high-end PCs and game consoles, in the first half of next year.

Elpida now employs some 50 of Qimonda's engineers at a design centre in Munich and will outsource production of the first batch of its graphics chips to Taiwan's Winbond Electronics Corp (2344.TW).

Elpida, which last year was the world's No.3 maker of PC memory after Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and Hynix Semiconductor (000660.KS), declined to disclose the value of the deal.

Graphics DRAM represents roughly 4 percent of dynamic random access memory shipped in terms of memory capacity.

The move would not give a significant boost to sales at Elpida, which reported its seventh straight quarter of losses [ID:nT253533], but would be one cushion to help it ride out the ups and downs of the semiconductor cycle, CEO Yukio Sakamoto said earlier this week.

Elpida said it would first outsource production of 1 gigabit GDDR3 and 1 gigabit GDDR5-type chips to Winbond, and will then mass produce 2 gigabit GDDR5 type chips at Elpida's Hiroshima Plant in Japan in the second half of next year. (Reporting by Mayumi Negishi; Editing by Chris Gallagher)