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Technology Stocks : Energy Conversion Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Hoff who wrote (3658)	5/20/1999 10:48:00 AM
From: Futurist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8393

Will these folks see our batteries as "long lasting" enough? Taiwan Chemical Giant To Make Cars .c The Associated Press TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Formosa Plastics Group, Taiwan's largest business conglomerate, said Thursday it will invest $2 billion to make electric cars and auto parts, primarily for export. Chairman Wang Yung-ching said the chemical giant hopes to capitalize on lower tariffs on Taiwanese cars following Taiwan's admission by the World Trade Organization, which is expected late this year. The group chose to make electric cars because Taiwan's conventional car production has fallen too far behind other countries for it to catch up, Wang said. ''In the past few years, we have focused on chemical products, but our next target will be the electric cars,'' Wang told a shareholders meeting. Construction of the auto plant will begin in three years after a new industrial park in northern Taoyuan County is ready to accommodate factories, Formosa officials said. The Formosa auto plant is expected to turn out 500,000 electric cars a year after mass production begins in 2006, they said. The group has held discussions with several foreign car makers, including Renault of France, about possible technology transfer, they said. Officials said they believe there will be a huge market for electric cars once technologies become available to produce longer-lasting batteries. Formosa Plastics' plan comes at a time Taiwanese makers of conventional cars are bracing for a hard time because of competition from foreign carmakers after Taiwan is admitted to the WTO. Taiwan has agreed to phase down its car import duties from the current 30 percent to 17.5 percent by 2008

To: Tom Hoff who wrote (3658)	5/20/1999 11:44:00 AM
From: Don Devlin	Respond to of 8393

Thanks Tom, Here is the article: May 19, 1999 Hitachi, U.K. Researchers Create New Storage Device By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter LONDON -- Hitachi Ltd. of Japan and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom said they developed a new way of storing data on a semiconductor chip that the researchers said potentially may replace traditional memory chips and hard-disk drives in personal computers. The researchers call the new device a PLEDM, or Phase-state Low Electron(hole)-number Drive Memory. They said it has the advantages of being fast, like today's dynamic random-access memory chips, as well as nonvolatile, or able to store data when the power is off, like a flash chip or hard disk. The PLEDM chip also may use very little power. Hitachi Marketing Manager Robert Fusco said the technology could take five years to commercialize but eventually could store multiple gigabits of data on a single chip, compared with about 64 megabits in today's average chip. A thousand megabits make up a gigabit. Others working on improving memory chips include large memory-chip makers, Pageant Technologies International and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Ramtron International Corp., Colorado Springs, Colo., and Energy Conversion Devices Inc., Troy, Mich.