IBM Corp is building an impressive roster of customers for its semiconductor foundry services and yesterday added Japanese consumer electronics giant Sanyo Electric Co Ltd for which it will make large-scale integration chips for use in digital devices and co-develop an ASIC Sanyo will utilize as a consumer engine. Under the two-part agreement IBM will manufacture highly-integrated semiconductors using its store of Blue Logic core libraries – including PowerPC – for use in Sanyo’s digital TVS, cameras, DVD players and new networked consumer devices. In addition Sanyo has licensed certain IBM process technologies for use in its plants. Under this – and other foundry services agreements – Sanyo can get access to IBM’s 0.18 micron a smaller processes, but not to its copper technology processes. The two will co-develop new designs for ten product categories including mobile phones, PDAs and digital cameras. IBM does not manufacture or market these kinds of devices itself. The two will work on the design of a new engine for consumer devices using Sanyo’s mixed digital/analog technology. Sales of jointly-developed products are expected to be worth some $70m in 2000, according to Sanyo president Sadao Kondo. Sanyo rivals, including Sony and Matsushita, have struck software alliances with Microsoft, while Sanyo hasn’t declared any choice of software provider. IBM didn’t know whether any Sanyo intellectual property would flow back into its microelectronics division as a result.
