Japan's Toshiba is expected to begin outsourcing production of system chips to Samsung Electronics and sell a chip production line to Sony, in an effort to reshape its chip operations, Reuters reported on December 25. Starting from fiscal 2011, which begins in April 2011, Toshiba is expected to design new system chips for new orders while outsourcing chip production to major competitor Samsung and possibly other chip foundries, including Taiwan's TSMC and US-based GlobalFoundries.

Meanwhile, Toshiba will sell a system chip production line to Sony. Situated at a Sony-owned plant in Nagasaki, the line mainly manufactures chips for use in Sony PlayStation consoles. The deal is valued at around 50 billion Yen (US$603.1 million; US$1=82.9 Yen).