Andrew Pollack and Steve Lohr, The Chip That Powers Cars; A Japanese plant struggles to produce a critical auto part. New York Times, Apr 28, 2011 (title in print).
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/business/global/28chip.html?scp=1&sq=chip%20car&st=cse
Quote:
"It Renesas] is also farming out some manufacturing of automobile controllers to GlobalFoundries, a contract manufacturer in Singapore that has produced microcontrollers in the past
"In automobile microcontrollers, Renesas’s main competitors include Freescale Semiconductor and STMicroelectronics.
Translation: established as merger of two cities (勝田市, 那珂湊市) and abuts Cities of Tsukuba and Hitachi.
(ii) 茨; 荊; 棘 【いばら; イバラ】(n): "thorny shrub"
Jim Breen's online Japanese dictionary
(b) microcontroller
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcontroller
(a self-contained system with a processor, memory and peripherals; The first computer system on a chip optimized for control applications was the Intel 8048, released in 1975, with both RAM and ROM [read-only memory] on the same chip; Nowadays microcontrollers are low cost)
Quote: "A typical home in a developed country is likely to have only four general-purpose microprocessors but around three dozen microcontrollers. A typical mid-range automobile has as many as 30 or more microcontrollers. They can also be found in many electrical devices such as washing machines, microwave ovens, and telephones.
(c) Tetsuya TSURUMARU, senior vice president in charge of manufacturing
テクノロジ 業務執行役員 鶴丸 哲哉
(i) テクノロジ technology
(ii) 執行 役員: company executive
(d) The report mentions "billionths of a meter" which is nanometers.
(e) Ricoh is headquartered at Tokyo.
Company History. Rocoh, undated.
http://www.ricoh.com/about/company/history/
("Ricoh’s origins date to a decision of the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research to commercialize the fruits of its R&D by setting up Rikagaku Kogyo. In 1936, Rikagaku Kogyo established [理研感光紙株式会社, hence the current name 理光] Riken Kankoshi Co., Ltd. (renamed 理研光学工業株式会社 Riken Optical Co., Ltd., in 1938, and Ricoh Company, Ltd., in 1963), to manufacture and sell sensitized paper. The Company started its camera business in 1937.")
(i) RIKEN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIKEN
(Founded in 1917, it now has approximately 3000 scientists on seven campuses across Japan; an Independent Administrative Institution whose formal name is RIkagaku KENkyūsho 理化学研究所 [Institute of Physical and Chemical Research]; almost entirely funded by the Japanese government, and its annual budget is approximately 88 billion yen (US$760 million))
Independent Administrative Institution 独立行政法人: "a newly designed type of legal body for Japanese governmental organizations regulated by the Basic Law on Reforming Government Ministries of 1998" Wikipedia
(f) mi-con マイコン, where マイ is pronounced "mai."
(g) Endo is a Japanese surname 遠藤.
(h) The report says, "The Naka factory once belonged to Hitachi and is in a region where the electronics giant was founded as a motor manufacturer in 1910.
日立製作所
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E7%AB%8B%E8%A3%BD%E4%BD%9C%E6%89%80
(日本最大の総合電機メーカー [maker]; main plants and administration at Hitachi-shi 日立市; 小平 浪平 founded in 1910 at 茨城県日立村 (later elevated to 日立市) manufactured the first motor in Japan (five-horsepower induction motor) 国産第1号の5馬力誘導電動機)
* 日立製作所 is namesake, and part, of 日立グループ Hitachi Group.
* 小平 浪平 ODAIRA Namihei (1874-1951)
(i) Freescale Semiconductor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freescale_Semiconductor
(created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004; Freescale focuses their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embedded and communications markets; Headquarters Austin, Texas)