Sony and Qimonda form joint venture to design DRAM chips

Barely a fortnight after Sony disclaimed reports that it was pondering the sale of its PS3 chip production facilities, the firm has decided to partner up with Qimonda in a 50-50 venture "to design DRAM chips for consumer and graphics applications." The new entity will be dubbed Qreatic Design, will be based in Tokyo and is scheduled to start operating by the end of 2007. Of note, financial terms of the deal weren't released, but Qimonda's chief executive did state that the agreement would "support its future product design and solutions development and would further pave the way for product diversification in non-PC applications." [Warning: read link requires subscription]

[CobraRob @ Oct 3rd 2007 5:36AM]

What exactly is their definition of operating? There is currently no facility there, and you don't just make a fab appear. There is also no orders in to their equipment suppliers so they are looking atleast a year and half out and ~3billion USD to even thing about "operating"