Rumble Time: Y-1 (Symetrix) vs. PZT (Ramtron/Racom)
This is the battle that matters.......
October 20, 1997
Volume 35, Number 1,796 Issued: Wed. October 22, 1997
2:00 p.m. JST
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* Two Giants Join Hands On Smart Cards
* Internet Erasing Some Old Business Forms
* Digital Dream Kids Take High-Tech Route To School
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Two Giants Join Hands On Smart Cards
BY ATSUHIRO YAMAZAKI and YURI MOMOI
Staff writers
Matsushita Electronics Corp. and major U.S.
semiconductor manufacturer Motorola Inc. will
cooperate on next-generation smart-card technologies.
Matsushita Electric Industrial [smart card photo]
Co., the parent of Matsushita
Electronics, said last week Matsushita hopes to
that the subsidiary and establish a de facto
Motorola will develop standard for
semiconductors for next-generation smart
high-performance cards, as well as the
noncontact-type smart cards. memory technology to
And starting in 1999, both are be used in them.
to begin global marketing of both the chips and the
cards.
Through this arrangement, Matsushita aims to kill two
birds with one stone, establishing a de facto
standard not only for next-generation smart cards,
but for ferroelectric random-access memory (FeRAM),
the technology to be used in the cards.
There are three main points to the agreement:
* Matsushita will license its production
technology for the memory to Motorola.
* The two companies will jointly develop chips
combining Matsushita's FeRAM with Motorola's
microprocessors for use in noncontact-type smart
cards.
* Both companies will have marketing rights to the
chips and the cards.
With the agreement, Matsushita Electronics will enter
the FeRAM business in earnest, expecting it plus
microprocessors to grow into a 100 billion yen ($826
million) business in 2005. Matsushita Electric, for
its part, will work to develop electronic-money
systems, intelligent traffic systems, and a variety
of other products related to smart cards that comply
with the standards of the newly developed chips and
cards.
Warring camps
But there is more to this agreement than a simple
joining of hands of two companies. The backdrop is a
larger war between two camps, each trying to promote
its own version of FeRAM.
FeRAM is a type of nonvolatile memory. That means
that, unlike with dynamic random-access memory, the
data remains in the chip even after the power is cut.
The present generation of contact-type smart cards
also employs a type of nonvolatile memory, but FeRAM
can process data 20 times faster and hold 10 times
more information.
There are two basic FeRAM technologies, one developed
by Symetrix Corp. and based on Y-1 ferroelectric
materials, and the other developed by Ramtron
International Corp. and based on lead zirconate
titanate (PZT) materials.
These two U.S. companies have each rallied a group of
the world's leading semiconductor manufacturers
around their respective FeRAM banners, and companies
in each camp have licensed the FeRAM technology and
are fervently working to develop commercial
technologies.
Matsushita Electronics has developed FeRAM-based
chips and smart cards and will begin marketing them
in December for use in such applications as building
security systems. "We're the first to put a Y-1
product on the world stage," boasted Gota Kano, head
of its technology division.
Actually, the first company in either camp to
commercialize a FeRAM product was Rohm Co., which
licensed Ramtron's PZT technology and began making
FeRAM chips at a rate of 10,000 per month at the
start of the fiscal year in April.
However, Kano deserves to boast a bit, because the
Y-1 technology is more advanced and more difficult to
work with than PZT-based FeRAM.
Set to expand
And now, with the tie-up with Motorola, a leader in
smart cards, the company's FeRAM business is set to
expand. "Matsushita Electronics' integrated-circuit
card memory is truly superior," said Shigeru Togano,
operations manager at Nippon Motorola Ltd.
In August, Motorola signed a technology agreement
with Sony Corp. concerning chips for a hybrid type of
contact/noncontact smart card for the growing
European market. But "that's only a partial
agreement; the deal with Matsushita, which has its
eye on next-generation high-performance chips, is of
much broader scope," said Togano.
How did this deal come about? It certainly seems out
of character for Matsushita Electric, which has a
tradition of going it alone and is sometimes
ridiculed for its cautious tendency to follow the
lead of others and come out second with products.
The answer is that Matsushita Electronics has
abandoned both traditions under the aggressive
leadership of Kazu-hiro Mori, who took over the
presidency in June 1996.
Under Mori, Matsushita Electronics has launched a
series of new projects, including investing in new
lines of liquid crystal displays and deciding to
build a rationally planned low-cost factory for
next-generation semiconductors. |
