By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
Samsung Electronics and Hynix Semiconductor, the world's two largest memory chip manufacturers, have agreed to join hands to develop the next generation of semiconductors so that South Korea can stay competitive with its foreign rivals.
``The two companies said they would jointly invest 9 billion won in a state-supported research and development (R&D) program to acquire technologies needed to produce future memory chips,'' the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said.
Under the three-stage plan that began in 2004 and will run through July 2011, a total of 52.58 billion won will be spent to design and build futuristic chips such as the spin-torque-transfer magnetic-random-access-memory (STT-MRAM) and various non-volatile memory devices.
The government plans to shoulder 28.45 billion won of the total cost, with companies expecting to use the technologies developed to grab 40 percent of the non-volatile memory market by 2012. Samsung and Hynix will make their investments this year and in 2009.
The ministry said these future chips promise a new potential for electronic devices because manufacturers can overcome the current 40-nanometer integration ceiling of flash memory units.
Non-volatile memory devices are gaining importance because of their ability to store information even if power goes off.
``This alliance is their first since the two local companies worked together to develop the 64 megabit DRAMs in the 1990s,'' said Cha Dong-hyung, head of the semiconductor and display division at the ministry.
He said Samsung and Hynix would regularly exchange information on technological gains and cross-examine and evaluate advances made by the two companies as part of their joint R&D effort.
Cha said cooperation between the two companies is vital because Japan's Toshiba, NEC and Fujitsu have joined forces and agreed to spend 3 billion yen from 2006 to 2010 to develop the STT-MRAM.
``Because South Korea was a late starter in the memory chip field, local companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars every year to companies like Intel and Toshiba, that hold patents to DRAMs and NAND Flash memory devices,'' Cha said. ``By conducting R&D, South Korean companies can develop and hold patents on technologies for future chips and avoid paying royalties.''