There strength is in developing and delivering complex chips with an average of about 20 chips per year.

The center initially developed wireless products including remote irrigation systems and later developed leading chips such as the 68030.

Beans that get knocked around develop chips and lesions in their seed coats and dry out even more.

Both camps are spending billions to build new factory lines, hire engineers and develop more powerful chips in a bid to gain supremacy.

The two companies currently manufacture small memory chips at a factory in France and develop larger chips.

Executives at both companies stressed yesterday the leverage they would gain from cooperating on developing new chips.

It takes six to eight weeks to develop chips using the gate-array method and about 10 weeks using the cell approach.

The fledgling American semiconductor industry got its start developing chips for the Minuteman missile in the 1960's and only later began selling to computer companies.

Under the agreement, the two companies will develop chips, known as static random access memories, using technology provided by Paradigm.

The company has invested billions of dollars since the mid-1980's to develop advanced chips.