Hitachi, Toshiba, Renesas to Study Joint Chip Production

Tokyo, Dec. 28 (Jiji Press)–Hitachi Ltd. , Toshiba Corp. and Renesas Technology Corp. said Wednesday they will set up a company in January that will consider the feasibility of a joint semiconductor production plan.

The three Japanese chipmakers aim to eventually set up a foundry to produce cutting-edge large-scale integrated circuits with processing technologies of 65 nanometers or smaller. One nanometer is a billionth of a meter, the companies’ officials said.

The plan is designed for them to better compete with their South Korean and U.S. rivals by sharing the financial burden of production of such advance LSIs, which would require spending of 100 billion to 300 billion yen, the investment amount that is too large for a single firm to shoulder.

But before proceeding with the project, they decided to launch a preparatory firm to examine whether the planned foundry is viable, the officials said.

The new firm’s considerations are expected to center on the advisability of installing production facilities at Toshiba’s plant in Oita Prefecture, southwestern Japan, or at a plant in Ibaraki Prefecture, north of Tokyo, owned by Renesas Technology, a chipmaking joint venture between Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. .

The three firms also hope to share information with other Japanese chipmakers like NEC Electronics Corp. and call for their participation in the joint output project, the officials said.

Japanese chipmakers once had considered launching a joint foundry to make 90-nanometer chips. But the plan was aborted as they chose to build their own plants.END