GE Joins Toshiba, Siemens AG in Computer Venture : Companies to Create Chip Library

NEW YORK —  General Electric said Wednesday that it is joining Japan’s Toshiba Corp. and West Germany’s Siemens AG to create a shared library of the components for customized computer chips.

The big electronics companies will design pieces of chip circuitry that can be combined and recombined into bigger integrated circuits according to customers’ specifications.

The existence of a standard library of chip components--or cells--should make it easier and faster for customers to design customized chips with the aid of computers, the companies said.

Custom chips made from standard cells are one of the fastest-growing segments of the chip industry. Customers like the ability to get chips tailor-made for their specific needs without having to design them from the silicon up.

Worldwide sales of cell-based integrated circuits should rise to $3.4 billion by 1990 from a little more than $260 million last year, according to Dataquest, a San Jose-based market research firm.

The custom chips are used in products ranging from computers and phone switches to cars and consumer electronics.

Nearly all of the big U.S. and Japanese chip makers are expected to get into the market, said Peter Reisinger, manager of the strategic business development group at GE’s semiconductor operations in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

However, GE, Toshiba and Siemens are hoping to establish their library of components as a world standard. They plan to broaden their partnership to include other chip makers, they said in a joint news release.

Reisinger said the three partners are waiting until they have more to show for their work before they actively seek out other partners.

“Rather than being a lot of sound and wind, let’s make sure we’re credible,” Reisinger said.

General Electric is the newest member of a partnership that was formed by Toshiba and Siemens in March. All three companies have agreed to base their designs on advanced metal oxide semiconductor technology. The companies have also agreed to do an equal amount of engineering work and will have equal rights to use each other’s cells, Reisinger said.

Toshiba was the world’s third-biggest semiconductor supplier last year, including production for internal use, behind Japan’s NEC Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., according to a survey by Goldman, Sachs & Co. Siemens and GE ranked out of the top 10.

So far, custom chips made from standard components are not as popular as ones made from gate arrays. Using gate arrays, designers create circuits to their specifications by opening and closing a series of gates on a chip. They take less time to design but are not as flexible and do not run as fast.

Dataquest expects demand for the cell-based chips to grow as more standardized cells are available and the design process speeds up.

The chip makers make money by charging customers for the right to use their library of standard cells to design a chip and later by producing the custom-designed chip in mass quantities.