Toshiba and NEC Electronics will join hands in creating next-generation chip technology to speed up the development process and limit costs, the two Japanese companies said Wednesday.
Toshiba, the world’s seventh-largest chipmaker, and eighth-ranked NEC Electronics also said they had begun talks regarding other possible collaborations, such as product development and production to make capital investment more efficient.
“As advances in semiconductor process technologies become more complex, time consuming and expensive, the joint development will allow the companies to share burdens and accelerate development, while raising system…performance and quality,” they said in a joint statement.
Chipmakers are now trying to move to chip circuitry widths of 90 nanometers as advanced design provides smaller and higher-density chips at lower unit costs.
Process technologies for 65 nanometers and 45 nanometers are now under development.
Toshiba and NEC Electronics, which is 70 percent owned by Japanese electronics conglomerate NEC will together develop process technology for chip circuitry widths of 45 nanometers.
NEC Electronics last month reported a first-half loss and forecast a deeper full-year deficit than expected as its chips used in digital electronics products such as DVD recorders come under heavy price pressure and cell phone chip sales fall sharply as the domestic market for high-end mobile phones becomes saturated.
Toshiba, on the other hand, posted a 46 percent rise in quarterly profit, boosted by booming flash memory chip demand and improved PC operations, and signaled it might upgrade its full-year forecast.
Toshiba is benefiting from growing demand for NAND-type flash memory, a storage device widely used in digital cameras, photo-snapping phones and portable music players such as Apple Computer’s iPod Nano.
