Front Page || Main Index || Corpus Christi News || Business || Texas || Sports || Entertainment || Selena
Tuesday, Jul. 21, 1998
Motorola to share copper chip technology with AMD
And AMD will share secrets of its `flash' memory chips
Associated Press
NEW YORK - Motorola Corp. has agreed to share with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. its method for making microprocessors with copper, intensifying an industry drive to improve performance for an array of computers and electronics products.
The agreement, part of a broad technology swap the companies announced Monday, is critical to AMD's struggle to compete against Intel Corp., whose microprocessors are the brains in 90 percent of all personal computers.
AMD and other chip makers are rushing to overhaul their manufacturing processes to handle copper after International Business Machines Corp. disclosed last year it found a way to switch from aluminum, long the metal of choice in chips. Copper carries electrical signals faster than aluminum but chip makers needed to figure out a way to keep the metal from contaminating a microprocessor's silicon surface.
``This gives (AMD) the ability to stay competitive,'' said Jim Barlage, a financial analyst with Salomon Smith Barney Inc.
In exchange for getting Motorola's technology, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD will share its manufacturing process for making ``flash'' memory chips, the circuitry that lets computers and other devices hold information even when they're turned off. The chips are heavily used in electronics gear such as digital cameras, which store images as computer code even when the battery is idle.
Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola, which makes an array of electronics equipment such as cellular phones, plans to use AMD's technology to help it integrate flash memory chips into single chips that control entire systems.
The cross-licensing deal will help both companies save money while speeding up the time it takes to bring to market products made with the technology. Motorola has come under increasing pressure to cut costs amid a slump in Asia and intense chip-making competition that has battered profits.
AMD's manufacturing of copper chips should start late this year with the chips beginning to appear in personal computers sometime next year.
AMD recently overcame production problems that kept it from fully supplying its customers with chips for computers costing less than $1,000, an area where it has managed to steal some share from Intel.
But the pint-size rival to Intel still has its work cut out for it, Barlage said. He noted that Intel, with far greater financial resources, can more rapidly introduce new technologies such as copper chips.
``They are faced with Intel as a competitor that is moving the performance standards one grade higher every quarter,'' Barlage said. ``They are chasing a very rapidly moving target.''Post your comments about local news eventsFront Page || Main Index || News || Business || Texas || South Texas Outdoors || Birdwatching || Sports || Entertainment || Selena || Education || South Texas Attractions || World Wide Web