More than 20 Japanese and US chipmakers plan to jointly develop technology to mass-produce a next-generation semiconductor using magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), the business daily Nikkei reported yesterday.
US chip giant Micron Technology Inc and Tokyo Electron Ltd of Japan will lead the joint project, hoping to perfect the technology within three years and start mass production as early as 2018, the newspaper said without citing sources.
MRAM is touted as the next frontier for computing memory over the current standard, dynamic random access memory (DRAM). The technology under development will have a memory capacity 10 times that of DRAM and reduce its electricity draw to about two-thirds of the existing standard, the Nikkei said.
FASTER COMPUTERS
According to MRAM’s backers, the real-world benefits would include much faster computing times and lower power consumption, leading to longer-lasting batteries.
The Nikkei said that other participants in the research project based at Tohoku University in Sendai, northern Japan, include Shin-Etsu Chemical Co Ltd, Renesas Electronics Corp and Hitachi Ltd.
Japan’s Toshiba Corp and South Korea’s SK Hynix Inc are jointly developing MRAM in a separate project while South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co is doing its own research on the new chip, the report said.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) quarterly sales topped estimates, reinforcing investor hopes that the torrid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending would extend into this year. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported a 39 percent rise in December-quarter revenue to NT$868.5 billion (US$26.35 billion), based on calculations from monthly disclosures. That compared with an average estimate of NT$854.7 billion. The strong showing from Taiwan’s largest company bolsters expectations that big tech companies from Alphabet Inc to Microsoft Corp would continue to build and upgrade datacenters at a rapid clip to propel AI development. Growth accelerated for
RSS