IBM and Taiwan's ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute) announced on September 17 that they will, by means of reciprocal investment, collaborate on the development of advanced solid-state racetrack memory technology and seek wider application of the Cell processors, Taiwan's Economic Daily News reported.

As per the joint development agreement, IBM and ITRI will work together on new materials and structures for racetrack memory and exchange research personnel to the purpose. The benefits of racetrack memory are projected to include reduced costs, less power consumption, low heat effusion, enhanced durability, as well as nearly 100 times more data storage capacity in the same footprint. IBM estimates that it will be approximately four years from now before commercially viable racetrack memory chips to be available.

Furthermore, the ITRI has set up a Cell innovative application development center on its Hsinchu campus. Around ten researchers will work on the development of multicore parallel computing technology based on IBM's Cell Broadband Engine Architecture, according to the Economic Daily News report.