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Samsung chips in with IBM, Infineon

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CIOL Bureau
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Daniel Sorid



SAN FRANCISO: South Korean technology company Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. will join a computer chip development project at an International Business Machines Corp. technology center in New York, the companies said.



Samsung, which sells computer memory chips and produces semiconductors for use in its own electronics, will join Singapore chip maker Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. and German memory maker Infineon Technologies AG in the partnership with IBM.



Samsung will also license chip-making technology from IBM, the companies said. No terms were disclosed, but an IBM spokesman said IBM has brought in $500 million since 2001 from foreign chip makers who paid to help fund technology development work at its East Fishkill, New York facility.



While Samsung is the largest memory chip maker, the licensing agreement focuses on technologies for high-definition televisions, mobile phones and other consumer electronics.



Microchip makers have increasingly allied with one another to develop the extraordinarily expensive processes by which chips are built with microscopically small features. Building chip features smaller than 90 nanometers has introduced especially daunting manufacturing problems.



The four companies will focus on building chips with features as small as 65 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, and later with features 45 nanometers in size.



While IBM builds chips for use in its own computers, most of its chips business involves manufacturing for other companies, including Apple Computer Inc., Nvidia Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. It is also working with Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp. on a chip for the new Sony PlayStation.



Richard Doherty, the research director of Envisoneering Group, said the expanded partnership will help Samsung keep up with Moore's Law, an industry maxim that holds that the density of transistors on chips doubles every year or two as the industry invests in the latest production technology.



"They've got challenges to keep Moore's Law going," said Doherty. "Everybody needs double-digit acceleration on Moore's Law. There's no faster way to get that than the billions that IBM put into R&D."



One notable exception to the move toward alliances is Intel Corp. The world's largest chip maker is also by far the biggest spender on chip-making equipment, and is notoriously protective of its manufacturing processes.



Doherty said the expanding IBM partnership suggests Intel may be on the wrong side of a trend.



"They can laugh it off, but even IBM's big enough to realize that while they're at the top of the patent pool, partnerships like this make everybody smarter," he said.



© Reuters

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