IBM and Hitachi team up on chip research

IBM AND HITACHI have signed a two-year agreement to fund joint semiconductor metrology research .

This will be the first time Hitachi, and IBM will have collaborated on chip technology, even though the two already work together on enterprise servers and other products.

The partnership will focus on 32-nm semiconductor research, with a view to also developing 22 nanometre devices at some point in the near future.

Intel too is focusing its drive to 22 nanometres, before chips become so slim they don't exist.

New pals IBM and Hitachi said that they plan to use new technologies to thoroughly probe semiconductor devices and structures, with a view to improving the characterisation and measurement of transistor variation.

Hitachi's Vice President and Executive Officer, General Manager of Research & Development Group, Eiji Takeda, said: "Our two companies have a long history of successful business collaboration and we look forward to extending this to include the semiconductor metrology research arena." µ