Now is a good opportunity for development of NEC electronic semiconductor business on Chinese Market

China economy is developing rapidly. Facing the Chinese market with a large number of local manufacturers, the Japanese semiconductor manufacturers eager. March 2006, NEC Electronics announced that it will strengthen the semiconductor business for the Chinese market. The future business strategy, the reporter interviewed the day before NEC (China) general manager Urase Moomin. (Interviewer: Itou Oki)

- why did you decide to develop the Chinese market at this time?

Pu Lai: the Chinese market began to grow or in recent years. Rich people who can afford high priced goods such as flat screen TVs are increasing in coastal cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. In fact, in the large home appliance retail market flat-panel TVs accounted for almost all the counters, CRT TV can not see the shadow.

With the continuous increase of income, the consumption desire of Chinese people is gradually increasing. Chinese manufacturers are also seize this opportunity to expand the lineup of products. Because of this, I regard it as a good opportunity to provide semiconductor solutions. In fact, STMicroelectronics has begun to carry out the same business in china. If you do not enter, will not be able to stand in the Chinese market. We will continue to push forward the development of our business so as to enable sales to reach 100 billion yen by 2010.

Would you please tell us something about the business of the branch in China?.

China is the fourth largest market after Japan, the United States and europe. In the high-speed economic growth China, open development is Chinese manufacturers. The goal of our semiconductor business is to sell our goods to these rapidly growing Chinese manufacturers.

In particular, there are 3 areas of development, including automotive use of microprocessors, digital home appliances using SoC, as well as liquid crystal drive IC and other discrete components. China's mobile phone market is currently exploring the transition to the third generation, China's independent standard TD-SCDMA has been optimistic about the industry. Electronic (China) is promoting the development of baseband LSI based on TD-SCDMA standard.

What should you pay attention to when you sell semiconductor products to Chinese manufacturers?

Pu Lai: a big difference with Japan is to assume that only provide LSI, Chinese manufacturers simply ignore. They will not be interested in providing reference boards. I think, after the card design, in order to simply add some software to complete the entire product to provide such a state, in order to promote Chinese manufacturers.

The increasingly fierce competition in the future will be the use of flat-panel TVs SoC. China's growing demand for flat-panel tvs. But on the counter of the Chinese manufacturers to produce their own LCD TV, even if a compliment, the picture quality is not beautiful. I think these manufacturers also hope to develop a LCD TV can display a beautiful image.

- can you sell the semiconductor developed by Japan to Chinese manufacturers?

I think it's hard. Suppliers to the Japanese electronics manufacturers for Chinese manufacturers, I am afraid that the specification is excessive. We want to reduce the size of the semiconductor developed for Japan, to provide cheap semiconductor manufacturers in china.

- how many technicians are there?

A total of 237 people. Among them, the Japanese only 4 people, the rest are all chinese. Whether it is hardware or software technology, is attracting more and more talented people. Every year we visit 20 ~ 30 colleges and universities, corporate publicity.

What language is the common language of NEC Electronics (China)?

English and japanese. The enthusiasm of the Chinese to learn a foreign language is surprising. Especially quick to understand. Just 2, March, you can master the basic daily conversation in japanese. After the work, we will gather together to learn japanese. The atmosphere is like a college class. Once they reach the level of daily conversation, they will be sent to Japan for a year or so.