toshiba news...toshiba is already producing rambus memories alone and in partnership with sony at home...now they plan to produce rambus in the usa.
unclewest
Date: 07/10 23:50 EST
Toshiba joint-fab buyout cuts IBM DRAM run
Jul. 10, 1999 (Electronic Engineering Times - CMP via COMTEX) --
Manassas, va. - Toshiba Corp. will buy out IBM Corp.'s share of their
jointly owned fab, a limited-liability company called Dominion
Semiconductor, the two companies announced.
The move signals the effective end of IBM's production of commodity
DRAMs, with much of IBM's interest shifting to embedded DRAM as a tool
in its ASIC offerings. "Earlier, we
had said we wanted to reduce DRAMs to 10 to 20 percent of our
semiconductor revenue. But since John Kelly took over as general
manager of the division, the plan is to take that lower-significantly
lower-and put our efforts into logic, particularly ASICs," an IBM
Microelectronics spokesman.
For Toshiba, the plan is to use Dominion for 128-Mbit DRAM production
and to establish an American production base for NAND-type flash
products. Bob Brown, president and chief operating officer of Toshiba
America Electronic Components, said Toshiba will shortly announce
initiatives that will create "very huge" opportunities for its NAND
flash architecture, a serial-access flash part that is well suited to
audio and other multimedia solid-state storage.
Brown said Dominion will be converted completely to 0.2-micron
capability this summer and will be ready for 128-Mbit DRAM production
later this year. Toshiba's plans are to phase down its 64-Mbit SDRAM
production to only 1 million units per month by the end of the year and
>to shift production capacity to 128-Mbit SDRAMs and, later, to Direct
Rambus DRAMs.
IBM will continue development activities related to DRAM technology
and manufacturing and will continue a limited amount of commodity DRAM
production at its mainstay facility, in Burlington, Vt., the IBM
spokesman said
The decision to sell Dominion to Toshiba is the latest indication
that IBM wants out of the commodity DRAM segment almost entirely, he
said.
Since John E. Kelly III took the reins at IBM Microelectronics this
spring, IBM and Infineon Technologies (formerly Siemens
Microelectronics) agreed to convert their jointly owned fab at
Essonnes, France, from DRAM to logic production. Also, a significant
number of DRAM wafers at the Burlington fab were switched to logic, a
timely ramp-down in light of the current prices for 64-Mbit DRAMs,
which have dropped from $7 three months ago to the $4 range.
Dominion was set up in February 1996, when DRAMs were in short
supply, but by the time production started in September 1997,
overcapacity was evident. Neither the total investment in Dominion thus
far nor how much IBM will get for its half was disclosed. The two
companies capitalized Dominion at $400 million at the outset of the
venture.
Toshiba immediately takes possession of an a further 25 percent of
Dominion, and IBM will gradually cede the remaining quarter of the
joint venture to Toshiba, ending IBM participation by December 2000.
Toshiba gains a larger manufacturing base in the United States. Yasuo
Morimoto, in charge of Toshiba's overall semiconductor operations, said
that "securing a full-fledged manufacturing site in the United States
will allow Toshiba to realize stable production and supply of products
best-suited to market demand, and it will significantly strengthen the
company's presence in one of the world's central markets."
The end of IBM's participation in Dominion raises the question of
whether the joint-development work done by the Triad
(IBM-Siemens-Toshiba) at East Fishkill will continue past the March
2000 end of the contract.
Toshiba has started a separate DRAM joint-development effort with
Fujitsu Ltd. That will be centered at Toshiba's new semiconductor
development center in Yokohama. A spokesman for Toshiba said his
company is still in discussions with IBM and Siemens about what form
the Triad joint-development work will take after the March 2000 date.
A Toshiba spokesman based in Japan said the joint-development
agreement covers development through the 0.15-micron process
generation. Toshiba and IBM will continue to exchange information for
future technologies, at 0.13-micron and beyond design rules, "as
appropriate."
The Toshiba-Fujitsu agreement starts with the 0.13-micron process
generation, the spokesman noted.
Last December, Toshiba and Fujitsu announced they would jointly
develop gigabit DRAM chips by the end of March 2002.
In light of IBM's traditional reliance on DRAM as a driver of its
process and lithography tools, the effort to take DRAM production as
close to zero as possible raises the question of what will replace DRAM
as the process driver.
By running tens of thousands of wafers at a new submicron dimension,
IBM has been able to shake out its basic silicon processing on DRAMs
and then shift to ASIC production with the same basic tool set.
-0-
By: David Lammers
Copyright 1999 CMP Media Inc.
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