Sony and Toshiba to Establish Chipmaking JV

Staff -- Semiconductor International, 10/18/2007 6:01:00 AM

A month after early reports that Sony Corp. would sell to Toshiba Corp. the Sony logic production line in Nagasaki used to make Playstation chips, the companies announced their intent to establish a joint venture.

Toshiba will own 60%, with Sony and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. holding the rest of the yet-to-be-named joint venture, which will be based in Nagasaki with a Toshiba executive as the CEO. The deal will transfer Sony’s 300 mm line, within Fab 2 of Sony Semiconductor Kyushu Corp.’s Nagasaki Technology Center, to the joint venture by the end of March 2008. The mid-September report said that Sony would sell the Nagasaki line for an estimated $900M.

The joint venture will produce high-performance semiconductors, including the Cell Broadband Engine and  RSX graphics engine. Starting out with 65 nm production, the companies said they will migrate to 45 nm “by leveraging their knowledge and experience, targeting migration to 45 nm process mass production.”

The deal is part of a larger consolidation trend, as the cost of leading-edge fabs has escalated. It is part of a reversal by Sony, which several years ago said it intended to internally design and manufacture more of the highly integrated logic chips used in its consumer electronics products.