There was rampant speculation in the Far East yesterday that Intel Corp was plotting an alliance with a raft of DRAM vendors. Local reports suggested the Santa Clara, California-based company was in talks with Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor Corp, Hitachi Ltd, NEC Corp and Mitsubishi Electric Corp.

The reports coincided with speculation that NEC, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric are planning to integrate their DRAM operations by next Spring.

However, he also pointed out that as part of its normal course of business the company was often in conversations with memory vendors about future technology directions and other strategic issues. The implication seems to be that run of the mill conversations between CPU vendor Intel and its DRAM counterparts have been blown out of proportion.

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