Bloomberg reports that Sony has joined forces with Infineon Technologies AG in order to reduce development costs for its consumer electronics division.

Both companies will own equal stakes in Qreatic Design, a new Tokyo-based venture that will design DRAM chips for use in Sony's consumer electronics including cameras and mobile phones as well as the Bravia and PlayStation brands.

"This deal allows us to combine Sony's chip-designing ability with Qimonda's chip-making ability," Sony President Ryoji Chubachi said in an interview today. "That way, we can share a roadmap to cut costs."

According to a joint statement from Sony and Infineon, the venture will probably begin operations by the end of the year. If all goes well, SCE president Kazuo Hirai will hopefully have decided to turn his thoughts into action by that time.

IBM, together with the Macronix and Qimonda research team, has demonstrated a device that claims to be the "Flash-killer." Why? Apparently, the prototype storage device is 500 times faster than Flash and uses less than half the power of Flash memory and can be built in super thin form factors.

The prototype would be showing what its got on the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineer's (IEEE) conference in San Francisco which happens this week. For those techies who want details, the IBM thingamajig uses a new Germanium-Antimony semi-conductor alloy in a device with a 3nm by 20nm cross section.

In layman's terms - it is smaller than today's flash and it is something that would take ages to perfect. Aside from that, the 500 time faster than flash memory is also blessed with a less than one-half the power consumption. Commercial availability - 2015

The IBM-Macronix-Qimonda project isn't the only one trying to do this. Samsung is also developing their very own phase-change RAM (PRAM) which is 30 times faster than flash and is targetted for a 2008 release. Intel and ST Microelectronics are doing the same thing and Elpida is targetting for a 2010 start of commercial PRAM production.