TOKYO, JAPAN: Toshiba Corporation and NEC Electronics Corporation today announced that the companies have agreed to collaborate on the development of system LSI process technology for the 32-nanometer (nm) generation.

Toshiba and NEC Electronics have been working together on 45nm process technology development since February 2006 at Toshiba's Advanced Microelectronics Center in Yokohama. Under the new agreement, the two companies will extend the scope of their collaboration at the site to the 32nm generation, with the aim of accelerating development and sharing development costs.

At the 32nm generation, extremely advanced technologies and significant development resources are required to secure improvements in performance and power consumption. As a result, global semiconductor companies are responding by establishing alliances to achieve more resource-efficient development of process technologies. Toshiba and NEC Electronics have decided to combine their efforts in process technology development for production of devices based on 32nm technology.

The development of derivative and differentiated process technologies will be discussed separately by the two companies. Additionally, Toshiba and NEC Electronics continue to discuss joint manufacturing, and expect to reach a decision concerning this in 2008.

Through this collaboration, Toshiba and NEC Electronics aim to make the development of process technology more efficient, bringing more competitive products to market quickly, and further reinforcing the companies' leadership in the global semiconductor industry.