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Sony plan to spend $1.14Bn on Cell Production

Sony have announced that they will be spending $1.14 billion in 2005 to build the next generation of microchips, using narrower 65 nanometre circuitry on 300mm silicon wafers. The majority of this money will go towards the production process of the "Cell", Sony’s PS3 chip, which will be manufactured in conjunction with Toshiba and IBM. Sony said it will be spending 53 billion yen to upgrade its plant in Nagasaki, Japan and 36 billion yen on the IBM run East Fishkill plant in New York, and 31 billion yen on Toshiba’s factory in Oita, Japan. The three production plants are expected to have a combined monthly capacity of 15,000 wafer units, with test production starting in early 2005.