IBM, Infineon to develop magnetic memory for laptops

Thursday, December 7th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

MUNICH, Germany (AP) _ IBM Corp. and German chipmaker Infineon Technologies AG plan to start selling by 2004 a new memory system for laptop computers that uses magnetism to store data.

The companies said Thursday they will work together on producing Magnetic Random Access Memory. So-called MRAM is expected to increase battery life and slash the time users wait for their machines to power up.

The new memory will also store more information, access it faster and use less power than the electronic memory used today, they said in a statement. It also retains information when the power is switched off.

``The laptop could work more like other electronic devices such as a television or radio _ turn the power on and the machine jumps to life,'' the companies said.

Armonk, N.Y.-based International Business Machines has been working on the technology since 1974 but only produced its first MRAM chip two years ago. The U.S. computer giant is looking to Infineon to help it make the new chips small enough to be useful.

Rivals such as Motorola Inc. are racing to develop a similar product, which could also be used in products from mobile phones to game systems.

IBM has developed several memory chips over the past decade with Munich-based Infineon, which was spun off by Siemens AG in a stock sale in March.