Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Thursday, September 11, 1997

30-year mortgages
steady at 7.53%

WASHINGTON -- Thirty-year fixed home mortgage rates were unchanged at 7.53 percent this week compared with last week, according to a national survey released today by Freddie Mac.

The mortgage giant also reported that the average adjustable mortgage rate rose slightly to 5.59 percent this week from 5.58 percent last week. Fifteen-year mortgage rates averaged 7.07 percent this week, down from 7.08 percent last week.

Rivals join to create
faster computer chips

NEW YORK -- Three major chip-making rivals today joined with the U.S. government to work on ways to dramatically shrink microprocessor circuits, which could make computers 100 times faster.

The drive links efforts by Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Motorola Inc. with three U.S. Department of Energy labs, two of which were formerly devoted to developing nuclear bombs.

The partnership plans to design a new technique for etching ever-tinier patterns in silicon chips, enabling more transistors to be crammed into each microprocessor. The technique employs ultra-violet light to etch lines smaller than one-thousandth the width of a strand of human hair -- 60 percent smaller than in the best chips now available. In addition to making microprocessors 100 times more powerful, the companies said memory chips could store 1,000 times more than is now possible.