Cover Story
Will the Kingdom of Cameras Last Forever?
As the replacement of film cameras draws to an end, the digital camera market is now entering a fresh stage of competition. There is no longer much of a gap between the technological capabilities in Japan and overseas and Japan's ability to survive the next few years will determine whether it can continue to be called the "Kingdom of Cameras."
Strategy
The last line of defense for Japanese consumer electronics-survival in the digital camera market
Inside an H.264 Camcorder
Sony is committed to short-term development but doubts are raised about packaging quality
Approaches
Commercially available parts help lower prices for advanced functions
Analysis
The new electrical appliance recall system-product safety being called into question
Special Feature
Multicore Will Change Software Development
The spread of multicore microprocessors, in which multiple CPU cores are integrated on one chip, is providing software developers with much broader opportunities to display their skills. This is because programming skills for extracting parallelism holds the key to maximizing processing performance.
Keyword
xvYCC
Tech Tale
Renewing Information Is the Key to a Car Navigation System (Part 7):
"Maybe I Should Run Away to Somewhere"
Guest Paper
A Proposal for the Revitalization of the Japanese Semiconductor Industry
Japanese semiconductor manufacturers are unable to pull themselves out of this prolonged slump. In fiscal 2005, NEC Electronics Corp. and Elpida Memory, Inc. fell into the red. In comparison, overseas players Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Intel Corp. have been maintaining large profits, with operating income ratios around 30 percent. This gap in profit ratios is showing up as a gap in the capacity to invest, and therefore the disparity with highly-profitable companies is set to increase further. Capital investment by the top seven Japanese semiconductor companies is forecast to exceed \1 trillion for the first time in fiscal 2006, but the amount of investment per company pales in comparison with Samsung and Intel, which are spending \700 billion each. Why are Japanese semiconductor manufacturers wallowing in low levels of profit? Takashi Yunogami of the Institute for Technology, Enterprise and Competitiveness (ITEC) at Doshisha University, and formerly a semiconductor engineer at Hitachi, Ltd., prescribes a formula for revival that Japanese semiconductor manufacturers should follow.
NETs Buyers' Guide
Analysis Devices Using Fluorescent X-Ray Technology
The RoHS Directive came into effect on July 1, 2006 and electronics manufacturers are still taking action to eliminate the substances it restricts. Here we take a look at the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, an essential tool for managing substances contained in products and parts. Table-top spectrometers have been employed right from the start in efforts to meet RoHS requirements, but attention is now focusing on portable types and others that possess new features such as higher degrees of precision, which require separate detection principles. Nevertheless, the performance of conventional table-top spectrometers is likely to keep improving, too, due to the fierce competition among manufacturers.
NETs Seminar
Interactive Interface Functionality for Next Generation Optical Disks (Part 5):The Reason Why HD DVD Used Web Standards
Previous installments in this series explained in detail about Blu-ray Java, used in interactive interface functionality for Blu-ray Discs. Now we will clarify all the facts about interactive interface functionality for the rival specification, HD DVD. In developing this functionality, the HD DVD team chose to employ standard World Wide Web (WWW) technologies. Over three installments, Microsoft Corp., which headed the development, will explain the background to their adoption of WWW technologies and provide an overview of those technologies.
NETs Seminar
Solar Cells (2nd Half): Solar Cells Also Get a Foundry; SMIC Aims for Yearly Production of over 50MW in 2010
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), a silicon foundry, has ventured into contract manufacturing of solar cells. In the second quarter of 2006, the company commenced mass production with initial annual output of 2.5MW and plans to increase that to 5-10MW by the end of 2006 and to over 50MW by 2010.
NETs Seminar
The Start of the IPTV Standardization Process (Part 3): Guarantying a Fixed Quality Level over an IP Network
The recent rise in solar cell production has highlighted a shortage of polycrystalline silicon (polysilicon) materials. Polysilicon solar cells make up a large portion, around 70 percent, of solar cells and demand for polysilicon materials is set to continue. In this installment, we receive an explanation of the current supply and demand status of polysilicon materials as well as an outlook for the future.
What's New
- Sony's New Mobile Communication Device Searches for a New Market
- Intel's Multicore Strategy Speeds Up with the Productization of a Quad-Core Processor
- A Revision of HDD Recoding Density Will Bring a 275GB 1.8 Inch HDD in 2009
- Sony Develops a Low Power Wireless Communication Technology Using Reflection Waves for Mobile Devices
- With a Capacity of 512MB, PRAM Aims to Replace NOR Flash Memory
- With SCE Implementing It throughout the PSP, CoC Technology Is Taking Off
