Toshiba and NEC developing 32nm chips

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 27 Nov 2007 at 10:06

Toshiba and NEC have announced a partnership to jointly develop 32nm chips, a move designed to keep research costs downs while maintaining pressure on their rivals.

According to the companies, a decision will not be made until 2008 as to whether they will jointly manufacture the chips.

The chip makers also claim they have not yet discussed how they will share the estimated 100-200 billion yen development costs involved in setting up the specialist equipment, which includes immersion steppers, multi-million dollar machines that use purified water between the lens and the silicon wafer to draw thin circuit lines onto microchips.

Chip makers are racing to move to smaller circuit sizes to cut production costs and lower energy usage, allowing more powerful devices that run for hours without killing the battery.

But the shift is exposing chip makers to huge initial costs, prompting Sony to pull out of its own 32nm research earlier in the month.

Among their competitors, Samsung, IBM, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Infineon Technologies, STMicroelectronics and Freescale Semiconductor have all announced their intention to develop and produce 32nm chips by 2010.

Toshiba and NEC, which plan to mass produce 45-nanometre or 40-nanometre chips by early 2009, also approached Fujitsu. Spokesperson, Etsuro Yamada, would not comment on whether or not Fujitsu would join the group, only saying that Fujitsu was considering various options.