Samsung said in a filing that it would work with US-based Intel, the world's top maker of semiconductors, and Taiwan's Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, to help migration of manufacturing standards from the current 12-inch silicon wafers to 18-inch discs that would yield more than double the number of chips.

The South Korean company said the co-operation plan called for a first pilot line to be operable by 2012.

The world's largest chipmakers have been exploring the move to pizza-sized silicon wafers to help them grab market share as demand surges for gadgets such as Apple's iPod.

"Increasing cost due to the complexity of advanced technology is a concern for the future," Mark Liu, TSMC's senior vice president of advanced technology business, said in a statement.

"Intel, Samsung, and TSMC believe the transition to [18-inch] wafers is a potential solution to maintain a reasonable cost structure for the industry," said Liu.

The size of the wafer is critical to make production more efficient. A new generation of larger wafers typically comes out each decade or so.

The group is planning to co-operate with the whole semiconductor industry in order to establish common standards through the International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI) consortium.