Qimonda, Elpida to jointly develop DRAM chips

FRANKFURT: Memory chipmakers Qimonda and Elpida have formed a partnership to develop DRAM memory chips, they said on Thursday, improving their chances of challenging industry leader Samsung. In a joint statement, the companies said Qimonda would contribute its new Buried Wordline technology and Elpida its advanced stack capacitor technology, speeding their progress towards producing ever-smaller chips.

They plan to introduce chips with circuit structure sizes of 40 nanometres, or 40 billionths of a metre, in 2010 and to subsequently shrink that to 30 nanometres, they said. Shares in Qimonda's parent Infineon which had been boosted by hopes of news of a disposal of Infineon's Qimonda stake at Thursday morning's news conference, traded flat by 0813 GMT, having earlier risen as much as 5 percent.