EmergingTech from Japan

Bridgestone Corp. has decided to withdraw from the ePaper business in the face of intensifying competition from LCD panels whose prices are rapidly declining, and will terminate production by the end of October.

Panasonic Corp. has developed microcontrollers that it claims incorporate the industry's first embedded resistive random-access memory (ReRAM) and will start offering an evaluation kit for the 8-bit microcontrollers with ReRAM within this month.

Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd. and Showa Denko K.K. have agreed to establish an LED JV, provisionally named TS Opto Co. Ltd., by the end of this year. The deal will increase Toyoda Gosei's production capacity about 20%.

2011 was a terrible year for many Japanese companies. The megaquake in March was followed by flooding later in the year in Thailand where many Japanese companies have factories. These disasters occurred against the backdrop of a sluggish economy in Europe and less rapid growth in China. Renesas Electronics Corp. was one of the companies worst hit by the earthquake and its revenue for fiscal 2011 ended in March fell to 883 billion yen (US$11 billion*), a 22% drop from last year's 1,138 billion yen. About 55 billion yen of the decline in sales was directly attributable to the quake, according to Yasushi Akao, president of Renesas.

Elpida Memory, Inc. and Micron Technology, Inc. each announced today that Micron has been selected as a potential sponsor for Elpida's restructuring and will acquire Elpida's business. With the Tokyo District Court having given its approval today, Micron and the Elpida trustees have entered into negotiations for the purpose of forwarding this scheme.

PayPal and Softbank announced today that they will establish a joint-venture company, provisionally called PayPal Japan, to build a digital payments business by introducing the PayPal Here service in Japan. By promoting the PayPal Here service in Japan's retail sector, Softbank aims to leapfrog the Osaifu Keitai (electronic wallet) service widely used in the country. The iPhone's lack of an Osaifu Keitai function is often cited as a drawback in the Japanese market.

Upon Western Digital Corp.'s completion of the acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies from Hitachi, Ltd. on March 8, the HDD manufacturer became a wholly owned subsidiary of WD and will change its name to HGST Inc. by the end of this month, intending to exploit the HGST brand. The new company's Japanese subsidiary, whose registration was completed prior to that of the parent company, became HGST Japan Ltd. today. Consequently, WD will have two brands, WD and HGST.

Bankrupt Elpida Memory, Inc., Japan's sole DRAM manufacturer, on Sunday selected Micron Technology, Inc., from two bidders in the second round that closed last Friday, and will give Micron preferential negotiation rights to purchase Elpida and draw up a rehabilitation plan together with Yukio Sakamoto, Elpida's CEO and president who is the bankruptcy administrator. None of the parties mentioned has announced or confirmed anything, and the media reports cited no sources.

Better late than never seems to be the motto of the Japanese government. The government has finally announced the renewable energy feed-in tariff rates for a new scheme scheduled to come into effect this July, and its avowed intention is to stimulate and promote the use of renewables. The FIT price for solar energy is relatively high at 42 yen (50 US cents*) and all energy generated will be paid for through the FIT mechanism. It's a step in the right direction.

The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and 16 companies last Friday founded Tsukuba Power-Electronics Constellations (TPEC), an R&D organization focusing on SiC-based power electronics devices.