Motorola Alliance May Be 1st in Chip Roll-Out

U.S. based Motorola Inc. said its partnership with two other semiconductor makers probably will be the first to produce a new generation of microchips, beating Intel Corp. by at least six months.

Early this week, Motorola, STMicroelectronics and Philips jointly unveiled a design platform to build chips based on 90-nanometer circuitry, versus the current 130-nanometer standard. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.

Thinner circuitry makes each separate chip cheaper to produce, faster and more energy-efficient.