Japan's Elpida Memory said it plans to buy the flash memory assets of U.S. chipmaker Spansion [SPSNQ 0.076 --- UNCH (0) ] on Thursday.

Elpida spokesman Hiroshi Tsuboi said the company is in talks to acquire Spansion's flash memory technologies as well as 40-50 engineers in Italy. He declined to comment how much the company would spend on the purchase.

The Nikkei business daily reported earlier in the day that the Japanese DRAM chipmaker would pay 3-5 billion yen ($34-57 million) to acquire Spansion's NAND flash memory-related assets.

I hope they set aside some money for EDIG!!!!

Rob