Friday, June 22, 2012

Sony Invests 80B yen to Stacked Sensors Production at Nagasaki Plant

Sony PR: Sony announces its plans to invest in its Nagasaki Technology Center ("Nagasaki TEC") from the first half of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013 through the first half of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, to increase the production capacity for stacked CMOS sensors, aimed mainly to smartphones.

This investment is intended to provide for new wafer processing equipment for stacked CMOS image sensors, and to increase and transform wafer lines capable of manufacturing CMOS image sensors. With this development, Sony plans to increase total production capacity for CCD and CMOS image sensors to approximately 60,000 of 300mm wafers per month by the end of September 2013.

The investment amount is approximately 80 billion yen ($997M), of which, the amount to be invested in the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2013 (approximately 45 billion yen) was included in the forecast of the capital expenditures for semiconductors in the current fiscal year announced at the annual earnings release on May 10, 2012. In addition, Sony will utilize a governmental subsidy in its investment plan which will be provided by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan, through the "Subsidy for Domestic Location Promotion Projects" program.

Sony Nagasaki Technology Center

10 comments:

  1. It's very appreciable that SONY invests massively in technology development in its most difficuly time. But the japanese big companies don't understand the change of the economical context and continue to believe that only technology can win the business and profit. It's sad to see that the virtual business such as Facebook drains so much money inside, but it's also sad to see that this wonderful SONY continues in their old business model. SONY is not TSMC !

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    1. Without tech you couldn't run facebook. Main reason of crisis was virtual financial pyramids. Facebook value also is virtual.

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    2. I would like to say is that SONY didn't invent era-chaning products since Walkman, Trinitron. Of course Facebook is a real joke in value creation. It's just a game for teenagers or for sex workers.

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    3. I used FB alot and I am not a teenager....

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    4. But do you think that this company is worth more than 1000B US$ on the stock exchange?

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    5. Things are worth only what people are willing to pay for them. Intrinsically FB does not seem worth the $70B market cap it presently has. But, people seem willing to pay that much. Why is gold worth so much? What is its intrinsic value?

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    6. This is exactly called speculation. People are duped to will to pay much simply because other can make buzz with the controlled media. This financial captalism is killing the industrial captialism. Gold is worth due to its reference value and also the intrinsic work to extract it. Do you think that Wall street 1% has more value than a scientist like you & me?

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  2. Sony also in the news re: speculation of a 10% stake in Olympus (via EETimes)

    Reports: Olympus-Sony partnership
    http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4375957/Reports--Olympus-Sony-partnership-

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  3. Isn't government subsidy violation of US laws and WTO agreement?

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    1. I thought Japan is not part of the US :)
      And no, not against WTO.

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