Sony Get Out Of Cell Processor Making

Forbes reports that Sony is to sell its Cell processor production facilities to joint partner Toshiba for, "about 100 billion yen" - that's 'about' £418,884,720.

This follows reports earlier this month that Sony was looking to offload its loss-making semi-conductor manufacture.

Hilariously, Forbes also reports that "Toshiba appears to be the best available buyer: Along with IBM, Toshiba helped Sony develop the Cell, which bungles (sic) multimedia game features onto a single chip using 65-nanometer technology. Cell is produced in a plant in western Japan in Nagasaki; costly investment would be needed to prepare it to produce chips using next-generation 45-nanometer technology."

Nikkei further reports that "Toshiba is expected to pay 30 billion yen (£126 million) for manufacturing equipment for a line of image-processing chips also used in the PlayStation 3."

Now, we can already hear certain SPOnG forum posters letting rip with, "That's it then, Sony has given up on PS3!" - hold your horses there... remember that back in February the then new head of the semiconductor and components unit, Yutaka Nakagawa, already mooted selling off the semiconductor business.

This, therefore, is part of a larger plan - CEO Howard Stringer's three-year plan, in fact - to streamline the Sony business. If anything it appears to focus more accurately on consumer electronics.

^{Source: Forbes}