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To: MileHigh who wrote (74)	12/3/1998 7:35:00 AM
From: MileHigh	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 236

Thursday December 3, 5:40 am Eastern Time Toshiba, Fujitsu join up on new DRAM chip By Yuzo Saeki TOKYO, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Leading Japanese chip makers Toshiba Corp and Fujitsu Ltd on Thursday announced plans to jointly develop and launch one-gigabit dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips by the end of March 2002. The two firms said a joint team of some 100 researchers will be assembled at Toshiba's development centre to focus on ultra high-density 0.13-micron process technology, device technologies, product design and prototype fabrication for the next-generation 1-gigabit chips. Other cash-strapped chipmakers will likely follow suit due to the high costs of such development, analysts said. The total project budget would exceed 30 billion yen ($254 million), the companies said. ''The Toshiba-Fujitsu collaboration comes amidst fierce competition in the memory market, which has been eroding prices and increasing the importance of cost-competitive development operations,'' the companies said in a joint statement. It is the first major cooperation in costly DRAM development between the two firms, whose earnings have been overshadowed by a double blow of dwindling domestic sales and long-running doldrums in global chip markets. They said joining forces was aimed at making the development of one-gigabit DRAMS cheaper and quicker, which is key to survival in the memory chip business. Prolonged weakness in global chip prices has knocked several Japanese makers out of the semiconductor business or forced them to scale back their once-profitable operations. Cooperation with Toshiba will speed up the delivery of the new 1-gigabit chip by as much as 18 months, Fujitsu Managing Director Kazunari Shirai told a news conference. He said Fujitsu and Toshiba can complement each other in DRAM technology but he did not know how the tie-up with Toshiba would affect its plan to build a plant for making next-generation chips. The companies said they expected any joint advance they make in major DRAM process technologies to find applications in microprocessors and a wide range of other semiconductor areas beyond memory devices. Toshiba Managing Director Koichi Suzuki told the news conference the pact also provided a framework for possible cooperation in other areas. Japanese chipmakers, who once played an important role in pushing up the nation's overall corporate capital spending, are still hoping for a recovery in global chip prices next year. Last month, the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association forecast the memory chip market would hit bottom this year, with sales falling 25.7 percent to $21.8 billion. It predicted the market would bounce back 18.1 percent in 1999. But analysts are a bit more pessimistic and predict more collaboration among chipmakers. Hiroyuki Iba, senior analyst at Nikko Research Center, said tie-ups among other Japanese chipmakers were likely. ''There isn't much time left. Many chipmakers are unlikely to post a profit from their DRAM business in the next business year, or possibly even in the following year,'' he said. ($1=118 yen)