Toshiba have announced that they would join the group led by IBM to research and develop the next generation of 32-nanometer circuitry. Research and production costs for switching to the 32-nanometer node are roughly estimated at about $3 billion and major semiconductor manufacturers have teamed up to split the initial investment.

The Japanese semiconductor producer will join the alliance comprised of AMD, Samsung Electronics, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Infineon Technologies AG and Freescale Semiconductor Inc, that are already tackling a new approach at miniaturizing transistors.

IBM and Toshiba have signed a partnership back in 2005 and have collaborated on advanced research for finding viable solutions that would allow mass production of the 32-nanometer node. Both companies have set up research facilities in Yorktown and Albany, New York.

This is not the only 32-nanometer project Toshiba has enrolled on. The company has previously signed an agreement with NEC Electronics to work on the 32-nanometer technology, but this alliance concerns researching methods of chips' mass-production, and not the development. The new "fellowship" is committed to team up by 2010 and will focus on designing, developing and producing chips using the 32-nanometer node.

"This is a promising collaboration", said Mr. Shozo Saito, Corporate Senior Vice President of Toshiba Corporation and President & CEO of Toshiba's Semiconductor Company. "In addition to continuing the successful collaboration on fundamental advanced research, Toshiba will jointly develop the state-of-the-art 32nm bulk CMOS process integration technology, as a member of the world-class seven-company IBM Alliance."

If the companies find a solution to produce smaller-scale circuits, this would reflect in increased productivity as well as more powerful chips, but the process is too complex and too expensive for a single company to undertake.

"This agreement caps a year of extraordinary momentum for IBM and its semiconductor Alliance Partners", said Gary Patton, vice president for IBM's Semiconductor Research and Development Center.