IBM, Sony, Toshiba in advanced IC development pact

IBM, Sony and Toshiba announced that they have entered into a partnership to develop technologies for making advanced computer chips based on IBM's silicon-on-insulator, or SOI process technology.

The agreement extends a March 2001 joint venture to develop advanced chips that will be used to relay large amounts of data over broadband. The companies will try to develop devices that integrate processor, memory and communications functions on a single chip.

The three firms said they envision the advanced SOI-based ICs to find uses in mass-market devices for the home, such as computers, TVs and game machines to download movies and other information over high-speed networks. The joint venture will have an operating budget of several hundred million dollars over four years. Teams of scientists will do the R&D work from the three companies at IBM's research center in East
Fishkill, New York. ''Having IBM and Toshiba's technologies with Sony's vast experience and knowledge of the consumer market truly makes this alliance a winning combination,'' said Ken Kutaragi, CE, Sony Computer Entertainment. 

Added John Kelly, Senior VP, IBM Technology Group, "This alliance is powerful because of the talents and technologies involved; it is unique in the depth to which the customer is involved, not just in the design of chips for their products, but in the very way they are manufactured.''

SV News Service

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