Toshiba is under heavy pressure to sell the chip unit, in order to cover massive losses from its nuclear division and avoid having its stock delisted from Japan's stock exchanges. Western Digital has worked to acquire the Toshiba unit to fortify its strong and growing presence in the memory-chip market — chips that are used broadly in smartphones, memory cards, USB drives, solid-state drives, digital cameras and other devices. In addition to being a competitive force in chips, Western Digital is also the world's largest manufacturer of disk drives, competing against Seagate Technology ( STX ) Western Digital has fought legal battles against Toshiba to prevent any deal that did not have its consent, in order to preserve intellectual property and prevent the chip unit from falling into the hands of competitors. That includes Broadcom ( AVGO ), which reportedly bid on the unit. Broadcom is a leading manufacturer of chips used in wireless and broadband communication.