OSAKA -- Sharp Corp. said Thursday it has agreed with Taiwanese microchip maker Winbond Electronics Corp. to jointly develop next-generation flash memory chips in a deal aimed at slashing development costs.
Under the agreement, Sharp and Winbond Electronics will develop 128 megabit and 256 megabit flash memory chips, which have twice and four times the memory capacity of today's standard 64 megabit chips, Sharp said.
Sharp said it hopes to have the new products on the market in the first quarter of 2004. They will be available under each company's brand.
Sharp is currently the world's fourth-largest maker of flash memory.
The companies said they will consider mutually supplying the products in the future.
Flash memory is a semiconductor that maintains data after power is cut. It is commonly used in products such as mobile phones due to its small size and large memory capacity.