Aug. 26--TOKYO -- Japanese chipmakers Renesas Technology Corp. and NEC Electronics Corp. said Wednesday they will postpone the deadline for their signing of a merger contract until Sept. 30 as they need more time to agree on details of the merger set for next April.

It is the second such postponement by the two companies, which had delayed the deadline to Aug. 31 from the originally planned July 31. The two companies said there has been no change in their timetable for the April merger.

Renesas Technology's parent companies Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. have yet to reach an agreement with NEC Corp., the parent company of NEC Electronics, on their equity stakes in a new company into which the two firms will merge.

The two chipmakers and their parent companies have completed the protracted assessment of assets and are making smooth progress in their negotiations on investment ratios in a bid to sign the merger contract within September, they said.

The three parent companies are also negotiating additional financial assistance to their respective subsidiaries before the merger.

In April, Renesas and NEC Electronics announced the plan to integrate their operations by April 1, 2010, in response to their deteriorating earnings on a plunge in demand for computer chips since last fall.

NEC Electronics, listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is expected to survive the merger under the proposed name of Renesas Electronics.

The merged company would replace Toshiba Corp. as Japan's largest chipmaker with annual sales of some 1.2 trillion yen and become the world's No. 3, trailing Intel Corp. of the United States and Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea.

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