NEC Will Build .10 Micron ChipsNEC Will Build .10 Micron Chips

Japanese computer and chipmaker NEC Corp. said Wednesday that it has designed a process to build next-generation microchips that will drive everything from consumer electronics to supercomputers. The new large-scale-integration chips will have circuitry smaller than .10 micron (1/1000th the width of a human hair), fitting more transistors on a single chip set and making them more powerful.

Most chips are currently based on .18 or .13 micron designs, and semiconductor companies have been working to come up with the technology and processes needed to build chips at the .10 level. In May, Japan's largest chipmaker, Toshiba, revealed an agreement with Sony Corp. to develop .10 and .07 micron large-scale-integration chips, and the two companies had said in March that they would work with IBM to develop a .10 micron "supercomputer on a chip."

"Everybody's been trying to get to a tenth of a micron," says Creative Strategies analyst Tim Bajarin. "The big question has been getting to a manufacturing process. [NEC] has a plan now to do that."

To complete the designs and build the chips, NEC will team up with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. NEC hopes to start taking orders for the chips in the first quarter of 2003.