Japanese electronics firm Toshiba Corp. said it had been subpoenaed by the U.S. Department of Justice about its flash memory business in the key U.S. market.

That comes after Toshiba's U.S. partner, SanDisk Corp, said on Friday it and its chief executive had received grand jury subpoenas indicating a government probe into possible price-fixing in the NAND flash memory industry.

A Toshiba spokesman in Tokyo, Keisuke Ohmori, said on Saturday the company's U.S. semiconductor sales unit, Toshiba America Electronic Components, had received the subpoena.

In a regulatory filing on Friday, SanDisk said the subpoenas served to it and CEO Eli Harari followed a suit last month that alleged price-fixing of flash memory.

The filing said 23 other companies were also sued for the same reason.

NAND flash memory is used in digital cameras and music players such as Apple Inc's iPod.

Other makers of NAND flash include South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Hynix Semiconductor Inc.

Officials at Samsung, the world's largest maker of NAND flash memory chips, were not immediately available for comments.

(Additional reporting by Cheon Jong-woo in Seoul)

Electronics Ipod