AsiaFocus

12/01/1999

Toshiba enters joint venture with SanDisk

Japan's Toshiba and SanDisk, Sunnyvale, CA, are planning to invest about $660 million in a new joint venture company focused on manufacturing large capacity NAND flash memories.

The move comes as part of Toshiba's ongoing restructuring to return the company to profitability. According to Toshiba sources, the name of the joint venture company and its president have yet to be decided. Initial reports indicate that the company could be located in the US, with a capitalization of 30 billion yen (about US$285 million).

Toshiba and SanDisk will each own 50% of the new venture. The companies' goal is to develop 512Mbit and 1Gbit NAND-type flash memories and controllers for secure digital memory cards by using Toshiba's 0.16µm and 0.13µm process technologies and SanDisk's 2bit/cell technology.

Together, the companies will invest 70 billion yen (about $660 million) to establish a flash memory wafer processing line at Toshiba's Dominion Semiconductor operation in Manassas, VA; the firms expect to start production of NAND flash memories in the fall of 2000. Of the 70 billion yen, some 40 billion yen will be used for leasing semiconductor equipment, according to Toshiba.

As a result, Toshiba's total NAND flash memory production will increase to 40,000, 200mm wafers/month by 2002 — nearly on a par with Toshiba's planned DRAM production of 50,000 wafers/month in 2002. Of that 40,000 wafers/month, 22,500 wafers will be produced at Toshiba's Yakkaichi plant and the remainder will be produced at Dominion.

SanDisk will purchase 50% of the flash memories made at Dominion. Toshiba also will ship some of the flash memories made at their Yakkaichi plant to SanDisk.

Before the JV operations start up in the US, Toshiba said it will begin flash memory production at the Yakkaichi plant, partly by borrowing some of its DRAM lines for flash memory production. According to Toshiba, more than 90% of semiconductor equipment used for DRAM production can also be used for NAND type flash memory production. This gives Toshiba flexibility in manufacturing either product, allowing it to shift production according to market demand and pricing.

Japan plans a 5-year, US$2 billion semicon development project

The Japanese government and 10 major semiconductor firms are discussing plans to launch a five-year, US$2 billion national project starting in 2001 that will resemble the early Sematech consortium in the US. A cooperative research institute would be established for jointly developing 0.1µm (and below) process technologies by MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) and the 10 participating companies.

The new national project is a proposal to MITI by the Semiconductor in New Century Committee (SNCC) of the Semiconductor Industry Research Institute (SIRIJ), Tokyo. In 2000, a feasibility study will be conducted, followed by establishment of the cooperative research facility with a pilot wafer processing line in 2001, perhaps in or near Tokyo. The 5-year program is expected to start in April, 2001, with the government-funded portion of the 200 billion yen not yet determined.

Participating companies would be NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Matsushita, Sony, Sharp, Sanyo, and Oki. MITI is carefully studying the proposal, and is expected to approve it within this FY because the agency recognizes that otherwise Japan will be behind in the development race for next-generation device/process development. The companies feel that they will not individually be able to carry the tremendous cost burden of developing the technologies for 0.1µm and below.

Some 20 years ago, Japan set up a VLSI cooperative research institute under a joint consortium linking MITI and the semiconductor companies in a structure very similar to what is now proposed. The successful work of this group enabled Japan to move into the front ranks in global semiconductor technology. In the US, Sematech was a government/industry consortium set up to keep the US in front in semiconductor processing. More recently, it has dropped US government funding and incorporated members from Europe, Taiwan, and Korea, but not Japan, even though it does continue to work with Japan's SELETE consortium on 300mm wafer development and in other areas, such as environment, safety, and health.

Sony outlines roadmap for PlayStation

Sony, Tokyo, has outlined an aggressive roadmap for its Emotion Engine MPU, with plans to bring a third generation of the microprocessors to market by 2005 for use in advanced digital image processing applications.

The Emotion Engine (EE) will make its debut in Sony's upcoming PlayStation 2 video game console, due out in March, 2000; the 128bit, 300MHz MPU will be manufactured using 0.18µm design rules, and is part of a larger $1 billion investment at the company. Sony expects to see PlayStation move beyond its current status as a toy to become an advanced image processing system.

Following introduction of PlayStation 2, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony's game subsidiary, will deploy the EE MPU in a new workstation suitable for developing game software and making digital movies. In its second generation, the EE2 MPU will use 0.13µm design rules, with 40 million transistors/chip. Sony expects the EE2 to be capable of allowing the transfer of movie contents directly to movie theaters electronically via a telecommunications network.

Sony's third phase, which is expected to come in 2005, brings the EE3 using 0.1 design rules with 100 million transistors/chip. The EE3 will be used in digital broadcasting equipmen, Sony said.