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Panasonic to sell its chip unit to Taiwan's Nuvoton

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Panasonic is selling its loss-making semiconductor unit to Taiwan’s Nuvoton Technology for $250 million as the Japanese electronics giant looks to raise profits.

The sale is part of the company's plans to cut fixed costs by $920 million by the year ending in March 2022, as it looks to consolidate production sites and overhauls loss-making businesses.

Panasonic has already sold most of its chip business and has shut down or shifted its manufacturing facilities to its joint venture (JV) with Israel’s Tower Semiconductor.

The semiconductor unit being sold currently focuses on designing power-management chips and sensors for smartphones, cars and security cameras - in fact, part of the business was sold to Rohm earlier this month.

Nuvoton was spun off from Winbond Electronics in 2008 and supplies chips for computers and audio products

The company said the all-cash transaction was expected to close by June 2020, and would “increase Nuvoton’s presence in the global semiconductor industry through greater scale and volume of semiconductor solutions”.