The same kind of cost-sharing force majeure is behind another agreement announced yesterday, this time between Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Fujitsu Ltd. The two companies will acquire shareholdings of less than 5% in each other to seal a deal under which they will establish a 50-50 joint venture in Japan which will build a $700m wafer fabrication facility to produce non-volatile memory devices such as EPROMs and Flash memories, and co-operate in marketing and sales of the devices on a worldwide basis. The new facility, which is expected to be operational in 1994, will process 8 wafers to 0.5 micron and smaller design rules. The Sunnyvale, California company and Fujitsu will provide their product designs and process and manufacturing technologies to the joint venture and will collaborate in developing manufacturing processes and designing devices for the joint venture to fabricate. Microprocessors are not mentioned in the announcement, but Fujitsu Ltd was an official Japanese second source for the Intel Corp 8086, and Advanced Micro’s interest in the iAPX-86 market is well known. If all the legal hurdles that dog its Am386 clone of Intel’s 80386 are overcome, it seems likely that Fujitsu will become a second source of the Am386.
