Sony Corp. said Monday its group will invest 200 billion yen through March 2006 to produce cutting-edge semiconductors being jointly developed by IBM Corp. and Toshiba Corp.
The announcement comes as Japanese makers -- once leaders in the global chip market -- desperately search for high-value products to beat other Asian rivals.
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., the group's computer games arm, will start turning out the microprocessor for next generation game consoles.