Despite reports that the three prime consumer electronics giants will be working on next-generation, cutting-edge chips by 2010, Sony, Toshiba and NEC Electronics have all denied such claims. In fact, only Toshiba and NEC Electronics are attempting to renew the chip development alliance, and have left Sony out of the talks.

For the next line of 45nm chips for consumer electronics, Sony will be going their own separate way. "We have no intention of joint production. We make products ourselves, and if our capacity is not sufficient, we can turn to outside suppliers," a Sony representative said.

Next-generation development of smaller and more intricate chips require deeper pockets as development costs and upgraded facilities require more financial resources than usual.

Only experienced and money-burning giants, such as Intel and IBM, have every ability to develop next-generation chips without outside help. Whether or not this has any effect on the STI alliance (Sony Computer Entertainment, Toshiba, and IBM) for the Cell BE, Sony consumers will just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, Intel has already been successful with a next-gen, 45nm-prototype of the Core 2 Duo processor ("Penryn"), and plans to mass produce a 32nm, 80-core processor ("Westmere") by around 2009.

Set to rival Samsung's Platinum card phone (SCH-V870), NEC has unveiled its own version of the credit card-sized phone - the N908. This tiny phone is sure to appeal to the touch screen generation, as the company decided to get rid of the keypad. Think of it as a DS phone, only much much smaller. The "do away with the keypad" design enables NEC to cut down the phone's size while giving the impression that it's one step ahead of its rival. NEC was able to squeeze in a 1.3 megapixel camera, a dual stereo speaker, and a microSD card slot in one tiny package. It's obviously being marketed to multimedia junkies who are always on the go. The phone supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, 3Gp, and MPEG4 formats. Wireless connection via Bluetooth is an added sweetener.

No word on pricing but the N908 is headed for an Asian release in Q3.