December 20, 2001	Thursday	Shawwal 4, 1422

SEOUL, Dec 19: South Korea’s cash-strained Hynix Semiconductor Inc. on Wednesday said it has made a breakthrough to develop the world’s fastest memory chip with wide-ranging graphics applications.

Hynix claims its 128M DDR SDRAM (double-data-rate synchronous dynamic random access memory) chip is the fastest available in the same class of chips.

Manufactured with 0.16-micron technology, the company said the new chip would benefit memory-intensive graphics applications in desktop and portable computing, as well as high-end consumer electronics.

The new device “underscores Hynix’s strong technology leadership in the DRAM market and our ability to meet the rapidly changing demands of today’s memory-hungry applications,” Farhad Tabrizi, vice president of worldwide memory marketing, said in a statement.

Tabrizi said the new device “demonstrates (Hynix’s) continued viability as a key player in this highly competitive market.”

Hynix said the new DDR SDRAM — initially priced at $10 per unit — reduces power consumption by more than 40 per cent and increases memory capacity and efficiency while doubling the performance of the memory sub-system.

The announcement came as Hynix embarks on a second round of talks with Micron Technology Inc. on forging a strategic tie-up, possibly including mergers and acquisitions.

Hynix president Park Chong-Sup left for the United States on Tuesday to pursue the negotiations with Micron despite the US chipmaker’s surprise purchase deal with Japan’s Toshiba Corp.

Toshiba Corp. has announced it will sell its US semiconductor unit to the US giant, arousing concerns here the acquisition would undermine Hynix’s efforts to join forces with Micron.

Micron chief executive Steve Appleton said that “the Toshiba transaction is separate from the Hynix transaction and I would not say that one precludes the other.”—AFP