In response to the recent partnering between Intel and Samsung, Toshiba will be joining with Hitachi and Renesas will be possibly building a semiconductor foundry for the purpose of shared research, development and manufacturing. Such a task would be costly, but in the end result in much faster development as we've seen in the past how well partnerships for research go with high tech. Though the cost of the entire plan has been reduced significantly over initial estimates, the companies are still tinkering with the idea. Overall, they are looking to reclaim the semiconductor market which they previously dominated.