Toshiba Corp. said Tuesday it has agreed to develop 65-nanometer field programmable gate arrays, a type of logic chip that supports thousands of gates, with Xilinx Inc. of the United States.

Toshiba and Xilinx, a California-based supplier of programmable logic solutions, struck the deal following the success of their project to produce 65-nanometer FPGA prototype wafers, including programmable logic circuits.

The deal may pave the way for a further arrangement, under which Toshiba would manufacture 65-nanometer devices on behalf of Xilinx, Toshiba said.

The two companies will also explore the possibility of developing even more advanced FPGAs using Toshiba's technology for 45-nanometer devices.

At present, Toshiba makes 90-nanometer FPGAs at its plant in Oita Prefecture for the U.S. company as part of an agreement signed in October 2004.

Toshiba aims to consolidate its lead in the system chip business by making state-of-the-art devices for the major U.S. technology firm.