Intel, Samsung, Toshiba teams up to develop 10 nm chips

By siliconindia   |   Saturday, 30 October 2010, 11:31 IST
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Bangalore: Intel, Samsung and Toshiba have teamed up to develop technologies that can halve the size of semiconductor to nearly 10 nanometers by 2016, according to the Japanese Nikkei newspaper. While Intel is the world's largest chipmaker, Samsung and Toshiba are the top two makers of NAND-type memory. The team intends to form a consortium inviting 10 firms working in semiconductor materials development and manufacture. For the R&D efforts, around $61.21 million of the $123 million would be provided by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan. The rest will come from the members of the consortium, according to the Nikkei report. Intel is currently working on a 32 nanometer NAND (nm - a millionth of a millimeter) process, which it hopes to shrink down to 22nm within two years. According to Nikkei report, Toshiba and Samsung hope to use the technologies to make 10 nanometer-class NAND flash memory and other chips, while Intel will likely use it to develop faster microprocessors. This will pave the way for a stamp-sized chip to hold 400 gigabytes, equivalent to approximately 100 high-definition movies.