IBM to build on alliance

International Business Machines is reported to be planning to expand its alliance with the German computer firm Siemens to build next-generation computer microchips.

Industry sources said they believed that an IBM news conference called for tomorrow would see the announcement of a new joint venture with Siemens to build 16-megabit computer chips and to develop a 64- megabit chip.

The two companies reported in December that they had built a prototype 64-megabit microchip - the first of its kind - capable of holding 3,000 pages of text on a fingernail-sized slice of silicon.

The companies will also become the first to develop a production model of the chip, from which the high-capacity memory chips would be jointly produced. The microchips would be used to build smaller, more powerful computers.