Sony Corp will invest 1.1 billion beginning in April, during the course of the business year. The purpose of the expenditure is to create cutting-edge microchip production lines, that will power a new generation of products and establish Sony as the Intel Corp of the consumer electronics world.
Primarily, these funds are earmarked for a high-powered microprocessor code-named "cell" that it is developing with Toshiba Corp and IBM.
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Intel's microprocessors run four out of every five personal computers and some industry analysts have said "cell" could become the "Pentium" of the consumer electronics world. The electronics and entertainment group will spend 120 billion yen in the new business year to make chips with narrower circuitry on new production lines using 300mm silicon wafers. The spending is part a three-year, 200 billion yen semiconductor investment plan announced last April that aims to manufacture key devices in-house to lift profitability at its mainstay electronics division. "Through these investments in semiconductors that will be at the heart of future digital consumer electronics, we believe we can differentiate our products from the competition," Sony spokeswoman Harumi Asai said. Sony plans to upgrade to state-of-the-art 65-nanometer circuitry, allowing chips to be more powerful and smaller, on larger 300 millimeter (12-inch) silicon wafers. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. |
Semiconductors account for more than half the value of Sony's PlayStation 2 (PS2) game console and the company has been pushing to incorporate more of the game division's microchip expertise into its electronics products.
I hope they are successful, but I am not to sure
with a code name of 'cell'. For the kind of money they are laying out they could
have come up with a better one than that. But, then again I don't get Pentium
either.
Source: CNN
