まゆの部屋

Eco-friendly chip planned by 4 makers
The Yomiuri Shimbun

Four domestic major semiconductor makers will launch a joint project to develop a next-generation large-scale integrated circuit whose electric power consumption will be about one-tenth of the power used by current chips, company sources said Wednesday.

The four chipmakers--Toshiba Corp., Fujitsu Ltd., NEC Electronics Corp. and Renesas Technology Corp.--hope to complete the energy-saving LSI chip in five years, according to the sources.

The use of the envisaged LSI chip is expected to considerably reduce the power consumption of information-technology devices, thus helping corporations and ordinary households save energy. This will greatly curtail greenhouse gas emissions from the power generation, according to analysts.

LSI chips are vital components of flat-screen TV sets, cell phones, video game consoles and other IT devices. The current LSI chips require an input voltage of 1 volt or more.

In developing the next-generation LSI semiconductor, Toshiba and the three other chip manufacturers will seek to ensure that even an ultralow voltage of less than 0.4 volt can run the new chip.

To achieve this goal, the four corporations will drastically rethink their circuit-design technologies and study what kind of material would best fit the production of the energy-saving LSI chip.

The aim is to make sure the power consumption by the next-generation LSI will be about 10 percent of the power used by current LSIs.

The LSI is a high-performance semiconductor used in computers, household electrical appliances and cars in large numbers for computing data and storing programs. Efforts to speed up the computation process of such equipment and reduce power use require nanotechnology, including an increase in the density of a circuit in the LSI chip.

The four chipmakers will use laboratories and other facilities to be set up in the spring by the government for the study of nanotechnology in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, to conduct their joint undertaking. Experts from these corporations will jointly work to test-manufacture a next-generation LSI.

NEC Electronics and Renesas plan to integrate in April.

The government likely will extend about 10 billion yen in aid for the project, which will also involve Tsukuba University.

The government has said it will seek a 25 percent reduction in Japan's global-warming gas emissions, compared with 1990 levels, by 2020.

However, it has proved extremely difficult to cap greenhouse gas emissions in this country.

In 2008, for example, the nation's carbon dioxide emissions increased by about 40 percent in office operations and other nonmanufacturing activities of the corporate sector and by about 30 percent in emissions from ordinary households from the 1990 levels, despite a reduction of more than 10 percent in the industrial sector that year.

The electric power consumed by IT equipment is projected to see a fivefold increase by 2025, compared with 2006 levels.

The new LSI development can be regarded as a highly promising project in that pursuing the 25 percent reduction target will inevitably require the use of energy-saving equipment in various sectors of society, analysts said.

(Feb. 18, 2010)