IBM joins Infineon to compete in magnetic chip market

IBM is teaming up with Europe's Infineon, formerly Siemens' IT division, to bring the magnetic memory chip to market - but the two companies look likely to be beaten to the punch by a Taiwanese company.

The technology is over 25 years old, but has been neglected until recently following the growing demand for memory in net appliances. Magnetic memory chips need significantly less power than silicon, and retain information when turned off. The low power requirement will significantly extend the battery and usage times of mobiles, laptops, handhelds and next-generation appliances now in the pipeline. IBM and Infineon are concentrating on the technology to bring M-Ram into mass production, and say that the chips could be commercially available as early as 2004. Taiwanese chipmaker Union Semiconductor claims that it will be in commercial production of a 1Mb M-Ram in the first quarter of next year.