About a month ago, a Japanese news publication claimed Sony will sell its chip making business to Toshiba in a deal that would be finalized sometime in 2008.
Just one day after the Japanese news, both Toshiba and Sony publicly denied such plans. But today, they officially announced their intent to establish a joint venture that will produce high-performance semiconductors, which not only includes the Cell Broadband Engine (Playstation 3's CPU) but also the RSX graphics engine (PS3's GPU).
Toshiba Corporation, together with Sony Corporation and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (Sony Group) today announced that they have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding expressing their intent to establish a joint venture that will produce high-performance semiconductors, including the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.) and the RSX graphics engine, and to transfer to Toshiba from Sony Group the 300mm wafer line fabrication facilities installed in Fab 2 of Sony Semiconductor Kyushu Corporation's Nagasaki Technology Center (SKC) by the end of March 2008.
Following the transfer, production on the line will be operated by the joint venture. Toshiba and Sony Group will aim to finalize the definitive agreements as soon as possible before the end of March 2008.
The price and other details have yet to be set, but sources close to the matter say the price is likely to be in excess of 100 billion yen ($858 million).
