INFORMATINON WORLD Japanese setting the pace in chip production

Press, 7 April 1987, Page 33

INFORMATINON WORLD Japanese setting the pace in chip production

American protectionist threats show ' how successful the Japanese are in the C semiconductor industry. s- As Japanese heavy industry becomes less competitive because of rising living standards and its booming currency, the '■ country moves into higher technology « products. The car industry puts plants in r South-East Asia and licenses technology .. to South Korea. Steel companies begin moving into fields such as ceramic . engines. For several years Japanese corpora- - tions have been pouring billions of yen n into research and development. Meanwhile much of Western industry has happily dozed, dreaming that the Japanese are just super copy cats and un- . creative. After chips, the next shock wave may « be in software. Fujitsu, for example, for ► about five years has had huge software t research centres. One of these is set in picturesque tea fields, and has dormitories and recreation facilities for about 7 700. This makes it 15 times the size of Z Christchurch’s Unisys LINC centre. Meanwhile, many in the Western industry dogmatically assert that the Japanese will never be a strength in software. Once, the Asians were thought caps able of making only second-class pro- ► ducts. Now Westerners often prefer ’ Asian-made goods. Seagate has its hard r disks made in Singapore, Hewlett-Pack-ard laser printers come from Asia, the ► “American” Leading Edge micro- . computers come from South Korea. The Asians are racing ahead on their own. In 32-bit microcomputers, for example, Multitech has brought out a machine SUS2SOO cheaper than the pioneer production model from Compaq. About 20 other Taiwanese companies are reported to have launched 32-bit models — all before IBM’s new line was announced. 4Mb RAMs Meanwhile Japan moves forward in . chips. The Nippon Telegraph and Tele- ■ phone Corporation (NTT) has intro- ; duced a 16-megabit dynamic random access memory chip. One megabit RAM chips have just r begun arriving on the market in volume, mostly supplied by Japanese companies. , NTT has integrated 40 million transis- ; tors and capacitors on a chip B.9mm by ; 16.6 mm. Technology allowing a 0.7 mi- ' cron circuit is used. , Five Japanese chip makers have announced they have separately devel- , oped 4 megabit RAM memories. They are: Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, and Matsushita. Mitsubishi’s will be sold in America under National Semiconductor’s brand name. A 256-kilobit RAM is the most widely used memory chip at present. Optical disk Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has developed ultra-high-density optical disk material. The recording density is 100 times that of the present most advanced optical disk. It allows 10 billion bits of information per square centimetre.

The development was financed by a Japanese Government research grant. It uses a technique called photochemical hole burning, observed when molecules are cooled to near absolute zero and subjected to a laser beam. IBM used this process in achieving high recording density in 1982, but Mitsubishi says it achieved a density level 10 times that of IBM.

An optical disk using the new material could hold 100 times the information of a current optical disk. That might mean 2000 books on one disk, for example. Software directions Spreadsheets have about saturated the market of microcomputer users. Another software product that will complement the abilities of spreadsheets is available. "What if?” is a strength of spreadsheets. By changing various variables the user can see their effects on the over-all result. But the very best result may be difficult to find if there are many variables. This is where packages using linear programming thrive. (Remember linear equations from sixth form maths?) Such programs have been round for microcomputers for some time. TKlSolver is an example. But now easier-to-use programs are available. What’s Best! lets users of Lotus 1-2-3 set up information on costing and other constraints in a spreadsheet and then let the computer find the optimal course. The price in America is between SUSI 99 and SUSIOOO, depending on how many variables are to be handled. Hatchet buried Commodore and Atari have settled their three-year legal dispute. This began when Commodore’s founder and deposed president, Mr Jack Tramiel, bought Atari. Silicon algorithms Advances may be made in image processing, radar, and communications systems by the British development of a digital signal processor. This incorporates real-time algorithms directly into the silicon. Unlike conventional digital signal processing products which can be programmed to run several different algorithms, the new family incorporates specialised devices, each implementing just one algorithm. This allows a much higher throughput than with programmable devices. The processor comprises four CMOS chips. It allows processing of incoming image or radar signals at 10 to 20 megasamples a second. The initial applications will be radar or target recognition in which an image from a TV camera or radar antenna is digitised, processed, and then either displayed on a screen or analysed to provide a decision. —Neill Birss