R&D
Toshiba and NEC
have decided to jointly develop 32-nanometre chips to better keep up with
rivals. The move is seen to counter the R&D budgets of bigger chip
makers Samsung, IBM, CSM, Infineon, STMicroelectronics and Freescale
Semiconductor have said they would work through 2010 to develop and
produce 32-nanometre chips.
However the Japanese chip makers have yet
to work out how to share the estimated 100-200 billion yen development costs
to make the leap to the next generation of chips. The two plan to
mass produce 45-nanometre or 40-nanometre chips by early 2009, had also
approached Fujitsu to join the alliance.
As yet Fujitsu is undecided.