Western Digital Corp. appears to be softening its stance on troubled partner Toshiba Corp.'s chip unit sale and has told the ailing conglomerate it might be willing to take a smaller stake in the unit instead of purchasing it outright, sources said.

The U.S. company, which jointly runs Toshiba Memory Corp. with Toshiba in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, has objected to its sale to anyone but itself and demanded preferential consideration.

A plan to get Western Digital to join a Japan-U.S. consortium that includes the state-backed turnaround fund Innovation Network Corp. of Japan as a potential buyer has also been floated, the sources said Saturday.