Thursday January 17, 7:40 AM
Matsushita, Renesas to jointly develop chips -report
TOKYO, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Panasonic brand maker Matsushita
Electric Industrial Co Ltd and microchip maker Renesas
Technology have agreed to tie up in developing next generation
semiconductors, the Nikkan Kogyo newspaper reported on Thursday.
It said that unlisted Renesas, a joint venture between
Hitachi Ltd and Mitsubishi Electric Corp and
Matsushita would also embark on joint production of the
32-nanometre chips, it said.
Chip makers are racing to move to tinier circuit sizes to cut
production cost per chip function and enable powerful electronics
that run for hours without killing the battery. But the shift
also forces changes in fundamental materials and processes and
exposes chip makers to huge initial costs.
Rival Japanese chip makers Toshiba Corp. and NEC
Electronics Corp. said in November they would jointly
develop 32-nanometre chips.
Samsung Electronics Co. , IBM , Chartered
Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. , Infineon Technologies
, STMicroelectronics and Freescale
Semiconductor have said they would work through 2010 to develop
and produce 32-nanometre chips. A nanometre is a billionth of a
metre.
(Reporting by Edwina Gibbs)
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