WSJ Dated feb. 4th. Looks like a rehash of todays wsj article.
Tech Center
Japan's Semiconductor Makers
To Manufacture Rambus Chips
By JAMES PARADISE
Dow Jones Newswires
TOKYO -- Several major Japanese semiconductor makers are gearing up to manufacture a more-advanced dynamic random-access memory chip, and two of them say they have been approached by Intel Corp. about funding such production.
Toshiba Corp. said it received a proposal from Intel concerning funding for the production of the Direct Rambus DRAM chip, a high-speed memory device developed by Rambus Inc. of the U.S., but has yet to make a decision on the proposal.
"We have just started to study the proposal," said Keisuke Ohmori, a Toshiba a spokesman.
Mitsubishi Electric Corp. said it too received a proposal from Intel on the new chip, but declined it, at least for the time being.
"Although Mitsubishi Electric was approached by Intel Corporation with regard to possible financing measures for production-related investments, we declined" because "we are able to achieve our current production plan with our present capital-investment levels," said Koichi Nagasawa, a general manager for Mitsubishi. "However, no decisions have been made regarding the possibility of entering into such arrangements in the future."
In Japan, Intel wouldn't comment on discussions with any specific companies. However, Masatoshi Mizuno, a spokesman for Intel, acknowledged Intel is having discussions with many companies on the Rambus chips, and said, "In general, the goal is to ensure an adequate Direct RDRAM supply for the personal-computer market segment."
Considering Options
NEC Corp. declined to say whether it was approached by Intel, but noted it was "looking toward" more-advanced memory products and was "thinking about third-party investment in next-generation facilities."
Fujitsu Ltd. and Hitachi Ltd., the remaining two of Japan's five biggest chip makers, said they hadn't been approached by Intel on the matter.
Fujitsu said that although it has developed the chip by licensing the technology from Rambus, it has neither decided on whether to begin mass production nor begun sample shipments.
Hitachi said it plans to start sample shipments of the Direct RDRAM products -- either 128-megabit or 144-megabit chips -- sometime in the first half of this year. It is now starting mass production of another advanced DRAM product known as double-data-rate DRAMs.
Intel has singled out only a few companies for funding because it has tried to identify those which it believes will be the strongest Direct RDRAM producers in the future, analysts said.
"Intel has picked out three or four companies world-wide likely to produce Rambus chips ... and likely to survive in the DRAM business over the next century," said Richard Kaye, an assistant vice president at Merrill Lynch Japan, who sees Toshiba and NEC as the strongest Japanese producers in the DRAM business in the years ahead. Intel, a leader in microprocessors, is looking for partners in areas where it is weak or deficient -- another reason for approaching Japanese companies, Mr. Kaye said.
'Fishing Around'
"Intel is presumably fishing around for partners that can provide it with memory, and partners it can develop system-on-a-chip with," where logic and memory are combined on a single chip, he said.
Intel already has struck deals with two non-Japanese memory-chip makers to help promote production of the Rambus chips: Micron Technology Inc. of the U.S. and Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea. With Micron Technology, the investment amount is $500 million, and with Samsung $100 million.
Intel's interest in Rambus technology, which it endorsed early, is to help with the development of faster memory chips complementary to its faster microprocessors, analysts said.
"Intel is planning to introduce faster microprocessors, while the gap between microprocessors and memory is becoming larger in terms of speed," said Intel's Mr. Mizuno. "Intel is thinking that RDRAM is one of the solutions to reduce that gap."
"They are carefully targeting investment to facilitate commercialization of the technology critical to Intel's future," said Steve Myers, a senior analyst at Jardine Fleming Securities.
The Rambus-chip market is expected to grow sharply. Half the DRAM market in 2001 or 2002 could be of chips with Rambus architecture, Mr. Ohmori of Toshiba said.
The lackluster response in Japan to Intel's recent funding proposals may be related to uncertainty about what obligations would be attached, Mr. Kaye of Merrill Lynch said. If Japanese companies were to become simply "foundry suppliers," supplying products to Intel on an original-equipment-manufacturing basis, that would be unattractive. On the other hand, if they were able to sell products directly to personal-computer makers, accepting funding would be more attractive, he said.
Production Goals
NEC said that by the end of the first half of this year, it plans to produce up to one million units per month of 72-megabit Direct RDRAM chips. By the year's end it plans to produce between three million and five million chips per month -- a combination of 72-megabit, 128-megabit and 144-megabit chips.
Toshiba said it is producing first-generation 72-megabit Direct RDRAM chips. Later this year it will begin producing 128-megabit and 144-megabit chips, the company said. "The ramp-up curve is yet to be decided; it's subject to customers' qualifications or the evaluation process," said Mr. Ohmori of Toshiba.
Mitsubishi Electric said it plans to increase production of 72-megabit Rambus-design chips to 500,000 units per month in the third quarter of this year, compared with the 200,000 units per month expected in the second quarter and the 100,000 units per month seen in the first quarter.
|
