Thursday, December 19, 2002
NEC Electronics intends to boost sales of system chips with DRAMs by more than doubling the speed with which the DRAMs can read and write data, aiming to promote them for use in equipment other than game consoles.
Mass production of the new chips is due to begin next summer, with annual sales projected at 50 billion yen.
The company has developed technology to make chips with a circuit width of just 130 nanometers. It uses a metal membrane, instead of a silicon one, for the memory circuit electrode to limit electric resistance. This helps more than double the speed of reading and writing data to 314 megahertz, compared with existing products made by other manufacturers.
System chips with DRAMs help reduce power consumption. In 2000, the company developed technology to make chips with a circuit width of 180 nanometers, but their use has been limited to Nintendo Co., Ltd.'s GameCube console.
NEC Electronics intends to promote use of the new chips in a wide variety of information appliances, including servers and storage systems. The company says it has already landed orders from four manufacturers.
Domestic semiconductor makers have pulled out of the commodity DRAM business, but still possess the ability to make system chips with DRAMS.
Among such companies, Toshiba Corp. intends to invest nearly 200 billion yen at its Oita Prefecture plant to set up a large-diameter wafer production facility, where it plans to make system chips with DRAMs.
By: DocMemory
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