Samsung Electronics and Hynix Semiconductor, the world's two largest memory chip manufacturers, have agreed to join hands to develop the next generation of semiconductors so that South Korea can stay competitive with its foreign rivals.

Under the three-stage plan A total of about 50M$ will be spent to design and build futuristic chips such as the spin-torque-transfer magnetic-random-access-memory (STT-MRAM) and various non-volatile memory devices.

Hynix aims to produce a next-generation memory chip called Phase-change Random Access Memory (PRAM) by 2009. Industry analysts expect it to become the main memory device, replacing high-density flash memories, within the next decade.