NEC
Encyclopedia
, a Japanese multinational
IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo
, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group
, provides information technology
(IT) and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government.
The company used the name Nippon Electric Company, Limited before re-branding
in 1983. As a chip maker, NEC Semiconductors is among the worldwide top 20 semiconductor sales leaders.
and Takeshiro Maeda established Nippon Electric Limited Partnership on August 31, 1898 by using facilities that they had bought from Miyoshi Electrical Manufacturing Company. Iwadare was the representative partner. Maeda handled company sales. Western Electric
, who had an interest in the Japanese phone market, was represented by Walter Tenney Carleton
. Carleton was also responsible for the renovation of the Miyoshi facilities. It was agreed that the partnership would be reorganized as a joint-stock company when treaty would allow it. On July 17, 1899 the revised treaty between Japan and the United States went into effect. Nippon Electric Company, Limited was organized the same day with Western Electric Company to become the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital. Iwadare was named managing director. Ernest Clement and Carleton were named as directors. Maeda and Mototeru Fujii were assigned to be auditors. The overall management was handled by Iwadare, Maeda and Carleton.
es. NEC modernized the production facilities with the construction of the Mita Plant in 1901 at Mita Shikokumachi. It was completed in December 1902.
The Japanese Ministry of Communications
adopted a new technology in 1903: the common battery switchboard
supplied by NEC. The common battery switchboards powered the subscriber phone, eliminating the need for a permanent magnet generator in each subscriber's phone. The switchboards were initially imported, but were manufactured locally by 1909.
NEC started exporting telephone sets to China in 1904.
The Ministry of Communications delayed a third expansion plan of the phone service in March, 1913, despite having 120,000 potential telephone-subscribers waiting for phone installations. NEC Sales fell sixty percent between 1912 and 1915. During the interim, Iwadare started importing appliances including electric fans, kitchen appliances, washing machines and vacuum cleaners. Electric fans had never been seen in Japan before. The imports were intended to prop up company sales. In 1916, the government resumed the delayed telephone expansion plan, adding 75,000 subscribers and 326,000 kilometers of new toll lines. Thanks to this third expansion plan, NEC expanded at a time when the rest of Japanese industry was mostly in decline.
, engaging Sumitomo Densen Seizosho to manufacture cables. As part of the venture, NEC provided cable manufacturing equipment to Sumitomo Densen. Rights to Western Electrics duplex cable patents were also transferred to Sumitomo Densen.
-type model made by Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Co. (ATM) in the United Kingdom. NEC participated in the installation of the automatic switching systems, ultimately becoming the general sales agent for ATM. NEC developed its own Strowger-type automatic switching system in 1924, a first in Japan. One of the plants almost leveled during the Kanto Earthquake, the Mita Plant, was chosen to support expanding production. A new three-story steel-reinforced concrete building was built, starting in 1925. It was modeled after the Western Electric
Hawthorne Works
.
. The ceremony was held in Kyoto
in 1928. The Newspapers Asahi Shimbun
and Mainichi Shimbun
were competing to cover the ceremony. The Asahi Shimbun was using a Siemens
device. The Mainichi was planning to use French photo-telegraphic equipment. In the end, both papers acquired and used the NEC product, due to its faster transmission rate and higher picture quality.
was described by the company as being the blackest days of its history. In 1938 the Mita and Tamagawa plants were placed under military control, with direct supervision by military officers. On December 22, 1941, the enemy property control law was passed. NEC shares owned by International Standard Electric Corporation (ISE), an ITT
subsidiary and Western Electric affiliate were seized. Capital and technical relations were abruptly severed. The "Munitions Company Law" was passed in October 1943, placing overall control of NEC plants under military jurisdiction. The Ueno plant was leveled by military attack in March 1945. Fire bombings in April and May heavily damaged the Tamagawa Plant, reducing its capacity by forty percent. The Okayama Plant was totally destroyed by a bombing attack in June of the same year. At the end of the war, NEC’s production had been substantially reduced by damage to its facilities, and by material and personnel shortages. After the war, production was slowly returned to civilian use. NEC re-opened its major plants by the end of January 1946.
; NTT) in 1956. NEC began joint research and development with NTT of electronic switching systems the same year. NEC established Taiwan Telecommunication Company as their first postwar overseas joint venture in 1958. They completed the NEAC-1101 and NEAC-1102 computers the same year. In 1959 NEC demonstrated their first transistorized computer, the NEAC-2201. They demonstrated it at the UNESCO AUTOMATH show in Paris. The company began integrated circuit research and development in 1960. In 1963 NEC started trading as American Depositary Receipts, ten million shares being sold in the United States. Nippon Electric New York (now NEC America Inc.) was incorporated in the same year.
, named Himawari.
to manufacture PABX and telephone systems in 1978. They also acquired Electronic Arrays, Inc. of California
the same year to start semiconductor chip production in the United States. In 1980, NEC created the first digital signal processor
, the NEC µPD7710. NEC Semiconductors (UK) Ltd. was established in 1981, producing VLSI
s and LSIs. NEC introduced the 8-bit PC-8800
series personal computer in 1981, followed by the 16-bit PC-9800 series in 1982. In 1983 NEC stock was listed on the Basel, Geneva and Zurich, Switzerland exchanges. NEC changed its English company name to NEC Corporation the same year. NEC Information Systems, Inc. started manufacturing computers and related products in the United States in 1984. NEC also released the V-series processor the same year. In 1986, NEC delivered its SX-2 super computer to the Houston Advanced Research Center
, The Woodlands, Tx. In the same year, the NEAX61 digital switching system went in to service. In 1987, NEC Technologies (UK) Ltd. was established in the United Kingdom to manufacture VCRs, printers and computer monitors and mobile telephones for Europe. Also that year, NEC licensed technology from Hudson Soft
, a video game manufacturer, to create a video game console called the PC-Engine (later released in 1989 as the TurboGrafx-16 in the North American market). Its successor, the PC-FX
, was released in Japan in 1994. NEC USA, Inc. was established in 1989 as a holding company for North American operations.
", was completed. Additionally, joint-venture agreements were established to manufacture and market digital electronic switching systems and LSIs in China. In 1993 NEC's asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching system, the NEAX61 (Nippon Electronic Automatic Exchange) ATM Service Node, went into service in the United States. NEC Europe, Ltd. was established as a holding company for European operations the same year. The NEC C&C Research Laboratories, NEC Europe, Ltd. were opened in Germany in 1994. NEC (China) Co, Ltd. was established as a holding company for Chinese operations in 1996. In 1997 NEC developed 4Gbit DRAM, and their semiconductor group was honored with one of the first Japan Quality Awards. In 1998, NEC opened the world's most advanced semiconductor R&D facility.
Computer (ESC), the fastest supercomputer
in the world from 2002 to 2004, and since produced the NEC N343i
in 2006.
In 2007, NEC and Nissan
Co. Corp. started evaluating a joint venture to produce lithium ion batteries for hybrid and electric car
s.
On April 23, 2009, Renesas Technology Corp and NEC Electronics Corp struck a basic agreement to merge by around April 2010.
On April 1, 2010 NEC Electronics and Renesas Technology merged forming Renesas Electronics
which is set to be fourth largest semiconductor company according to iSuppli published data.
On January 27, 2011, NEC formed a PC joint venture with Chinese PC maker Lenovo, the fourth largest PC maker in the world. As part of the deal, the companies said in a statement they will establish a new company called Lenovo NEC Holdings B.V., which will be registered in the Netherlands. NEC will receive US$175 million from Lenovo through the issuance of Lenovo's shares. Lenovo, through a unit, will own a 51% stake in the joint venture, while NEC will hold a 49% stake. In February 2011, Bloomberg News said the joint venture would allow Lenovo to expand in the field of servers
, and NEC's Masato Yamamoto said NEC would be able to grow in China
.
NEC has structured its organization around three principal segments: IT solutions, network solutions and electronic devices.
The IT solutions business delivers computing solutions to business enterprises, government and individual customers — in the form of software, hardware and related services.
The network solutions business designs and provides broadband network systems, mobile and wireless communications network systems, mobile handsets, broadcast and other systems.
NEC's electronic devices business includes semiconductors, displays and other electronic components. NEC produces Versa
notebooks for the international market and the LaVie series for Japanese markets.
NEC ranked consistently in the top four companies over the previous five years for the number of U.S. patent
s issued, averaging 1764 each year.
competition until 2002, when BNP Paribas
took over the sponsorship.
NEC sponsored the English football club Everton
from 1985 to 1995. The 1995 FA Cup Final triumph was Everton's final game of the decade-long NEC sponsorship, and Danka
took over as sponsors.
NEC also sponsor the Harlequin RUFC
and RLFC rugby teams from London, as well as the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
NEC signed a deal to sponsor the Sauber F1 team for the 2011 season.
s, but over the years came to include professional players:
NEC also used to own Montedio Yamagata
of the football (soccer)
J. League
, but just sponsors them along with other local companies.
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo
Minato, Tokyo
is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. As of 1 March 2008, it had an official population of 217,335 and a population density of 10,865 persons per km². The total area is 20.34 km².Minato hosts 49 embassies...
, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group
Sumitomo Group
is one of the largest keiretsu, founded by Masatomo Sumitomo.-History:The Sumitomo group traces its roots to a bookshop in Kyoto founded circa 1615 by a former buddhist priest,...
, provides information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
(IT) and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government.
The company used the name Nippon Electric Company, Limited before re-branding
Rebranding
Rebranding is the creation of a new name, term, symbol, design, or a combination of them for an established brand with the intention of developing a differentiated position in the mind of stakeholders and competitors....
in 1983. As a chip maker, NEC Semiconductors is among the worldwide top 20 semiconductor sales leaders.
Company formation
Kunihiko IwadareKunihiko Iwadare
was a Japanese businessman. A graduate of the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo, he worked as a telegraph engineer for the Japanese government. He left Japan in 1886 and traveled to New York. He was introduced to Charles Batchelor, an assistant of Thomas Edison. Iwadare was hired to work...
and Takeshiro Maeda established Nippon Electric Limited Partnership on August 31, 1898 by using facilities that they had bought from Miyoshi Electrical Manufacturing Company. Iwadare was the representative partner. Maeda handled company sales. Western Electric
Western Electric
Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management...
, who had an interest in the Japanese phone market, was represented by Walter Tenney Carleton
Walter Tenney Carleton
Walter Tenney Carleton was an early international businessman. He was one of the three founding directors of NEC Corporation, the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.- Youth and education :...
. Carleton was also responsible for the renovation of the Miyoshi facilities. It was agreed that the partnership would be reorganized as a joint-stock company when treaty would allow it. On July 17, 1899 the revised treaty between Japan and the United States went into effect. Nippon Electric Company, Limited was organized the same day with Western Electric Company to become the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital. Iwadare was named managing director. Ernest Clement and Carleton were named as directors. Maeda and Mototeru Fujii were assigned to be auditors. The overall management was handled by Iwadare, Maeda and Carleton.
Early production
The company started with the production, sales and maintenance of telephones and switchSwitch
In electronics, a switch is an electrical component that can break an electrical circuit, interrupting the current or diverting it from one conductor to another....
es. NEC modernized the production facilities with the construction of the Mita Plant in 1901 at Mita Shikokumachi. It was completed in December 1902.
The Japanese Ministry of Communications
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
The ' or Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is a cabinet-level ministry in the Government of Japan. The English name Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications was used prior to 2004...
adopted a new technology in 1903: the common battery switchboard
Telephone switchboard
A switchboard was a device used to connect a group of telephones manually to one another or to an outside connection, within and between telephone exchanges or private branch exchanges . The user was typically known as an operator...
supplied by NEC. The common battery switchboards powered the subscriber phone, eliminating the need for a permanent magnet generator in each subscriber's phone. The switchboards were initially imported, but were manufactured locally by 1909.
NEC started exporting telephone sets to China in 1904.
Changes in management
In 1905, Iwadare visited Western Electric in the U.S. to see their management and production control. On his return to Japan he discontinued the "oyakata" system of sub-contracting. It was replaced by a new system where managers and employees were all direct employees of the company. Inefficiency was also removed from the production process. The company paid higher salaries with incentives for efficiency. New accounting and cost controls were put in place. Time clocks were installed.Expansion of the Japanese telephone service
Between 1899 and 1907 the number of telephone subscribers in Japan rose from 35,000 to 95,000. NEC entered the China market in 1908 with the implementation of the telegraph treaty between Japan and China. They also entered the Korean market, setting up an office in Seoul in January 1908. During the period of 1907 to 1912 sales rose from 1.6 million yen to 2 million yen. The expansion of the Japanese phone service had been a key part of NEC's success during this period. This expansion was about to take a pause.The Ministry of Communications delayed a third expansion plan of the phone service in March, 1913, despite having 120,000 potential telephone-subscribers waiting for phone installations. NEC Sales fell sixty percent between 1912 and 1915. During the interim, Iwadare started importing appliances including electric fans, kitchen appliances, washing machines and vacuum cleaners. Electric fans had never been seen in Japan before. The imports were intended to prop up company sales. In 1916, the government resumed the delayed telephone expansion plan, adding 75,000 subscribers and 326,000 kilometers of new toll lines. Thanks to this third expansion plan, NEC expanded at a time when the rest of Japanese industry was mostly in decline.
Association with Sumitomo
In 1919, NEC started its first association with SumitomoSumitomo Group
is one of the largest keiretsu, founded by Masatomo Sumitomo.-History:The Sumitomo group traces its roots to a bookshop in Kyoto founded circa 1615 by a former buddhist priest,...
, engaging Sumitomo Densen Seizosho to manufacture cables. As part of the venture, NEC provided cable manufacturing equipment to Sumitomo Densen. Rights to Western Electrics duplex cable patents were also transferred to Sumitomo Densen.
The Great Kanto Earthquake
The Great Kanto Earthquake struck Japan in 1923. 140,000 people were killed and 3.4 million were left homeless. Four of NEC's factories were destroyed, killing 105 of NEC's engineers and workers. Thirteen of Tokyo's telephone offices were destroyed by fire. Telephone and telegraph service was interrupted by damage to telephone cables. In response, the Ministry of Communications accelerated major programs to install automatic telephone switching systems and enter radio broadcasting. The first automatic switching systems were the StrowgerStrowger switch
The Strowger switch, also known as Step-by-Step or SXS, is an early electromechanical telephone switching system invented by Almon Brown Strowger...
-type model made by Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Co. (ATM) in the United Kingdom. NEC participated in the installation of the automatic switching systems, ultimately becoming the general sales agent for ATM. NEC developed its own Strowger-type automatic switching system in 1924, a first in Japan. One of the plants almost leveled during the Kanto Earthquake, the Mita Plant, was chosen to support expanding production. A new three-story steel-reinforced concrete building was built, starting in 1925. It was modeled after the Western Electric
Western Electric
Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management...
Hawthorne Works
Hawthorne Works
The Hawthorne Works, in Cicero, Illinois, was a large factory complex built by Western Electric starting in 1905 and operating until 1983. It had 45,000 employees at the height of its operations. Besides telephone equipment, the factory produced a wide variety of consumer products, including...
.
Radio broadcast
NEC started its radio communications business in 1924. Japan's first radio broadcaster, Radio Tokyo was founded in 1924 and started broadcasting in 1925. NEC imported the broadcasting equipment from Western Electric. The expansion of radio broadcasting into Osaka and Nagoya marked the emergence of radio as an Industry. NEC established a radio research unit 1924. NEC started developing electron tubes in 1925. By 1930, they were manufacturing their first 500 W radio transmitter. They provided the Chinese Xinjing station with a 100 kW radio broadcasting system in 1934.Photo-telegraphic equipment
Photo-telegraphic equipment developed by NEC transmitted photos of the accession ceremony of Emperor HirohitoHirohito
, posthumously in Japan officially called Emperor Shōwa or , was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from December 25, 1926, until his death in 1989. Although better known outside of Japan by his personal name Hirohito, in Japan he is now referred to...
. The ceremony was held in Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
in 1928. The Newspapers Asahi Shimbun
Asahi Shimbun
The is the second most circulated out of the five national newspapers in Japan. Its circulation, which was 7.96 million for its morning edition and 3.1 million for its evening edition as of June 2010, was second behind that of Yomiuri Shimbun...
and Mainichi Shimbun
Mainichi Shimbun
The is one of the major newspapers in Japan, published by .-History:The history of the Mainichi Shimbun begins with founding of two papers during the Meiji period. The Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun was founded first, in 1872. The Mainichi claims that it is the oldest existing Japanese daily newspaper...
were competing to cover the ceremony. The Asahi Shimbun was using a Siemens
Siemens
Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...
device. The Mainichi was planning to use French photo-telegraphic equipment. In the end, both papers acquired and used the NEC product, due to its faster transmission rate and higher picture quality.
Carrier transmission equipment
In 1929 Nippon Electric provided Japan's Ministry of Communications with the A-type switching system, the first of these systems to be developed in Japan. Nippon supplied Japan's Ministry of Communications with nonloaded line carrier equipment for long distance telephone channels in 1937.Microwave research
In 1939, Nippon Electric established a research laboratory in the Tamagawa plant. It became the first Japanese company to successfully test microwave multiplex communications.World War II
World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
was described by the company as being the blackest days of its history. In 1938 the Mita and Tamagawa plants were placed under military control, with direct supervision by military officers. On December 22, 1941, the enemy property control law was passed. NEC shares owned by International Standard Electric Corporation (ISE), an ITT
ITT Corporation
ITT Corporation is a global diversified manufacturing company based in the United States. ITT participates in global markets including water and fluids management, defense and security, and motion and flow control...
subsidiary and Western Electric affiliate were seized. Capital and technical relations were abruptly severed. The "Munitions Company Law" was passed in October 1943, placing overall control of NEC plants under military jurisdiction. The Ueno plant was leveled by military attack in March 1945. Fire bombings in April and May heavily damaged the Tamagawa Plant, reducing its capacity by forty percent. The Okayama Plant was totally destroyed by a bombing attack in June of the same year. At the end of the war, NEC’s production had been substantially reduced by damage to its facilities, and by material and personnel shortages. After the war, production was slowly returned to civilian use. NEC re-opened its major plants by the end of January 1946.
Domestic growth
NEC began transistor research and development in 1950. It started exporting radio-broadcast equipment to Korea under the first major postwar contract in 1951. NEC received the Deming prize for excellence in quality control in 1952. Computer research and development began in 1954. NEC produced the first crossbar switching system in Japan. It was installed at Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation (currently Nippon Telegraph and Telephone CorporationNippon Telegraph and Telephone
, commonly known as NTT, is a Japanese telecommunications company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Ranked the 31st in Fortune Global 500, NTT is the largest telecommunications company in Asia, and the second-largest in the world in terms of revenue....
; NTT) in 1956. NEC began joint research and development with NTT of electronic switching systems the same year. NEC established Taiwan Telecommunication Company as their first postwar overseas joint venture in 1958. They completed the NEAC-1101 and NEAC-1102 computers the same year. In 1959 NEC demonstrated their first transistorized computer, the NEAC-2201. They demonstrated it at the UNESCO AUTOMATH show in Paris. The company began integrated circuit research and development in 1960. In 1963 NEC started trading as American Depositary Receipts, ten million shares being sold in the United States. Nippon Electric New York (now NEC America Inc.) was incorporated in the same year.
Global expansion
NEC supplied KDD with submarine cable systems for laying in the Pacific Ocean in 1964. They supplied short-haul 24 channel PCM carrier transmission equipment to NTT in 1965. NEC de Mexico, S. A. de C. V., NEC do Brasil, S. A., NEC Australia Pty. Ltd. were established between 1968 and 1969. NEC supplied Comsat Corporation with the SPADE satellite communications system in 1971. In 1972, Switzerland ordered a NEC satellite communications earth station. The same year, a small transportable satellite communications earth station was set up in China. Shares of NEC common stock were listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in 1973. NEC also designed an automated broadcasting system for the Japan Broadcasting Corporation the same year. NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH was also established. In 1974, the ACOS series computer was introduced. The New Central Research Laboratories were completed in 1975. In 1977, Japan's National Space Development Agency launched the NEC geostationary meteorological satelliteGeostationary meteorological satellite
Himawari orGeostationary Meteorological Satellite , was a series of Japanese weather satellites operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency. The first GMS satellite was launched 14 July 1977 from Cape Canaveral. The fifth and final satellite was launched 18 March 1995 from Tanegashima...
, named Himawari.
C&C era begins
During this period NEC introduced the concept of "C&C", the integration of computers and communications. NEC America Inc. opened a plant in Dallas, TexasDallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
to manufacture PABX and telephone systems in 1978. They also acquired Electronic Arrays, Inc. of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
the same year to start semiconductor chip production in the United States. In 1980, NEC created the first digital signal processor
Digital signal processor
A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with an architecture optimized for the fast operational needs of digital signal processing.-Typical characteristics:...
, the NEC µPD7710. NEC Semiconductors (UK) Ltd. was established in 1981, producing VLSI
Very-large-scale integration
Very-large-scale integration is the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistors into a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when complex semiconductor and communication technologies were being developed. The microprocessor is a VLSI device.The first semiconductor...
s and LSIs. NEC introduced the 8-bit PC-8800
NEC PC-8801
The NEC PC-8801 was an early Zilog Z80-based computer exclusively released in Japan, where it became very popular, by NEC Corporation in 1981. It was informally called the "PC-88"....
series personal computer in 1981, followed by the 16-bit PC-9800 series in 1982. In 1983 NEC stock was listed on the Basel, Geneva and Zurich, Switzerland exchanges. NEC changed its English company name to NEC Corporation the same year. NEC Information Systems, Inc. started manufacturing computers and related products in the United States in 1984. NEC also released the V-series processor the same year. In 1986, NEC delivered its SX-2 super computer to the Houston Advanced Research Center
Houston Advanced Research Center
The Houston Advanced Research Center, commonly referred to as HARC, is a 501 not-for-profit organization based in The Woodlands, Texas dedicated to improving human and ecosystem well-being through the application of sustainability science and principles of sustainable development. HARC employs a...
, The Woodlands, Tx. In the same year, the NEAX61 digital switching system went in to service. In 1987, NEC Technologies (UK) Ltd. was established in the United Kingdom to manufacture VCRs, printers and computer monitors and mobile telephones for Europe. Also that year, NEC licensed technology from Hudson Soft
Hudson Soft
, formally known as , is a majority-owned subsidiary of Konami Corporation is a Japanese electronic entertainment publisher headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo Midtown, Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, with an additional office in the Hudson Building in Sapporo. It was founded on May 18, 1973...
, a video game manufacturer, to create a video game console called the PC-Engine (later released in 1989 as the TurboGrafx-16 in the North American market). Its successor, the PC-FX
PC-FX
The is a video game console released in Japan on December 23, 1994 by NEC Corporation. It is the 32-bit successor to NEC's PC Engine ....
, was released in Japan in 1994. NEC USA, Inc. was established in 1989 as a holding company for North American operations.
C&C for human potential
In 1990, the new head office building, known as the "Super TowerNEC Supertower
The , headquarters of NEC Corporation, is a 180 metre tall skyscraper in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It was completed in 1990 and was designed by Nikken Sekkei. Its primary use is offices...
", was completed. Additionally, joint-venture agreements were established to manufacture and market digital electronic switching systems and LSIs in China. In 1993 NEC's asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching system, the NEAX61 (Nippon Electronic Automatic Exchange) ATM Service Node, went into service in the United States. NEC Europe, Ltd. was established as a holding company for European operations the same year. The NEC C&C Research Laboratories, NEC Europe, Ltd. were opened in Germany in 1994. NEC (China) Co, Ltd. was established as a holding company for Chinese operations in 1996. In 1997 NEC developed 4Gbit DRAM, and their semiconductor group was honored with one of the first Japan Quality Awards. In 1998, NEC opened the world's most advanced semiconductor R&D facility.
A new century
NEC celebrated their 100th anniversary in 1999. NEC Electronics Corporation was separated from NEC in 2002 as a new semiconductor company. NEC Laboratories America, Inc. (NEC Labs) started in November, 2002 as a merger of NEC Research Institute (NECI) and NEC USA’s Computer and Communications Research Laboratory (CCRL). NEC built the Earth SimulatorEarth Simulator
The Earth Simulator , developed by the Japanese government's initiative "Earth Simulator Project", was a highly parallel vector supercomputer system for running global climate models to evaluate the effects of global warming and problems in solid earth geophysics...
Computer (ESC), the fastest supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
in the world from 2002 to 2004, and since produced the NEC N343i
NEC N343i
The NEC N343i is a GSM 900 – GSM 1800 – GSM 1900 mobile phone which was manufactured by NEC. Announced in quarter 2 of 2005, the phone's most attractive point was its modern new looks; at just 109 × 43 × 12.7 mm and weighing only 95 g, the phone was one of the smallest candy-bar models...
in 2006.
In 2007, NEC and Nissan
Nissan Motors
, usually shortened to Nissan , is a multinational automaker headquartered in Japan. It was a core member of the Nissan Group, but has become more independent after its restructuring under Carlos Ghosn ....
Co. Corp. started evaluating a joint venture to produce lithium ion batteries for hybrid and electric car
Electric car
An electric car is an automobile which is propelled by electric motor, using electrical energy stored in batteries or another energy storage device. Electric cars were popular in the late-19th century and early 20th century, until advances in internal combustion engine technology and mass...
s.
On April 23, 2009, Renesas Technology Corp and NEC Electronics Corp struck a basic agreement to merge by around April 2010.
On April 1, 2010 NEC Electronics and Renesas Technology merged forming Renesas Electronics
Renesas Electronics
is a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer. It is based in Tokyo and has manufacturing, design and sales operations in around 20 countries. Renesas is one of the world's largest manufacturers of semiconductor systems for mobile phones and automotive applications. It is the world's largest...
which is set to be fourth largest semiconductor company according to iSuppli published data.
On January 27, 2011, NEC formed a PC joint venture with Chinese PC maker Lenovo, the fourth largest PC maker in the world. As part of the deal, the companies said in a statement they will establish a new company called Lenovo NEC Holdings B.V., which will be registered in the Netherlands. NEC will receive US$175 million from Lenovo through the issuance of Lenovo's shares. Lenovo, through a unit, will own a 51% stake in the joint venture, while NEC will hold a 49% stake. In February 2011, Bloomberg News said the joint venture would allow Lenovo to expand in the field of servers
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
, and NEC's Masato Yamamoto said NEC would be able to grow in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
.
Company structure
The IT solutions business delivers computing solutions to business enterprises, government and individual customers — in the form of software, hardware and related services.
The network solutions business designs and provides broadband network systems, mobile and wireless communications network systems, mobile handsets, broadcast and other systems.
NEC's electronic devices business includes semiconductors, displays and other electronic components. NEC produces Versa
Versa
Versa is a RDF query language, used to query RDF data.Versa differs from most other RDF query languages, which are typically based on SQL or specialized XML vocabularies. Although the design of Versa was inspired by XPath, its compact, functional syntax also somewhat resembles Lisp...
notebooks for the international market and the LaVie series for Japanese markets.
Products
- NEC MobilePro - a handheld computer running Windows CEWindows CEMicrosoft Windows CE is an operating system developed by Microsoft for embedded systems. Windows CE is a distinct operating system and kernel, rather than a trimmed-down version of desktop Windows...
- NEC Aspire hybrid small business phone system
- Electric vehicle batteries (Automotive Energy Supply Corporation, a joint-venture between Nissan, NEC Corporation and NEC TOKIN)
- NEC mobile phone
- NEC America MultiSync Monitors and Fax devices
- NEC Information Systems, Inc. LaVieLavieThe Lavie was a French automobile manufactured in Paris around 1904. The company produced a few 6cv twin-cylinder voiturettes; one is reported to survive....
/ NEC VERSAVersaVersa is a RDF query language, used to query RDF data.Versa differs from most other RDF query languages, which are typically based on SQL or specialized XML vocabularies. Although the design of Versa was inspired by XPath, its compact, functional syntax also somewhat resembles Lisp...
notebook - NEC Information Systems, Inc. POWERMATE desktop PC
- NEC Information Systems, Inc. Valuestar / NEC POWERMATE hybrid computerHybrid computerHybrid computers are computers that exhibit features of analog computers and digital computers. The digital component normally serves as the controller and provides logical operations, while the analog component normally serves as a solver of differential equations.In general, analog computers are...
- NEC (Division unknown) Car Stereos and Keyless Entry Systems
- NEC accelerator mass spectrometryAccelerator mass spectrometryAccelerator mass spectrometry differs from other forms of mass spectrometry in that it accelerates ions to extraordinarily high kinetic energies before mass analysis. The special strength of AMS among the mass spectrometric methods is its power to separate a rare isotope from an abundant...
systems - PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16 in US) and all related hardware and successors; co-produced by Hudson SoftHudson Soft, formally known as , is a majority-owned subsidiary of Konami Corporation is a Japanese electronic entertainment publisher headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo Midtown, Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, with an additional office in the Hudson Building in Sapporo. It was founded on May 18, 1973...
. - PC-FXPC-FXThe is a video game console released in Japan on December 23, 1994 by NEC Corporation. It is the 32-bit successor to NEC's PC Engine ....
Achievements
Achievements of NEC include:- the discovery of single-walled carbon nanotubeCarbon nanotubeCarbon nanotubes are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure. Nanotubes have been constructed with length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1, significantly larger than for any other material...
s by Sumio IijimaSumio IijimaSumio Iijima is a Japanese physicist, often cited as the discoverer of carbon nanotubes. Although carbon nanotubes had been observed prior to his "discovery", Iijima's 1991 paper generated unprecedented interest in the carbon nanostructures and has since fueled intense research in the area of... - the creation of the Earth SimulatorEarth SimulatorThe Earth Simulator , developed by the Japanese government's initiative "Earth Simulator Project", was a highly parallel vector supercomputer system for running global climate models to evaluate the effects of global warming and problems in solid earth geophysics...
, the fastest supercomputerSupercomputerA supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
in the world at the time - the invention of the widely used MUX-scan design for testDesign For TestDesign for Test is a name for design techniques that add certain testability features to a microelectronic hardware product design. The premise of the added features is that they make it easier to develop and apply manufacturing tests for the designed hardware...
methodology (contrast with the IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
-developed level-sensitive scan design LSSD-scan methodology) - the world's first demonstration of the one-qubitQubitIn quantum computing, a qubit or quantum bit is a unit of quantum information—the quantum analogue of the classical bit—with additional dimensions associated to the quantum properties of a physical atom....
rotation gate in solid state devices.
NEC ranked consistently in the top four companies over the previous five years for the number of U.S. patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
s issued, averaging 1764 each year.
Supercomputers
- 1983 Announced the SX-1 and SX-2 supercomputers
- 1989 Introduction of SX-3
- 1994 First announcement of SX-4
- 1999 Delivery of SX-5
- 2002 Introduced SX-6NEC SX-6The SX-6 is a supercomputer built by NEC Corporation that debuted in 2001; the SX-6 was sold under license by Cray Inc. in the U.S. Each SX-6 single-node system contains up to eight vector processors, which share up to 64 GB of computer memory...
- 2002 Installation of the Earth SimulatorEarth SimulatorThe Earth Simulator , developed by the Japanese government's initiative "Earth Simulator Project", was a highly parallel vector supercomputer system for running global climate models to evaluate the effects of global warming and problems in solid earth geophysics...
, the world's fastest supercomputer from 2002 to 2004 reaching a speed of 35,600 gigaflopsFLOPSIn computing, FLOPS is a measure of a computer's performance, especially in fields of scientific calculations that make heavy use of floating-point calculations, similar to the older, simpler, instructions per second... - 2005 NEC SX-8 in production
- 2006 Announced the SX-8R
- 2007 Announced the SX-9NEC SX-9The SX-9 is a supercomputer built by NEC Corporation. The SX-9 Series implements an SMP system in a compact node module and uses an enhanced version of the single chip vector processor that was introduced with the SX-6...
Sponsorship
NEC was the main (title) sponsor of the Davis CupDavis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation and is contested between teams of players from competing countries in a knock-out format. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Britain and the United States. By...
competition until 2002, when BNP Paribas
BNP Paribas
BNP Paribas S.A. is a global banking group, headquartered in Paris, with its second global headquarters in London. In October 2010 BNP Paribas was ranked by Bloomberg and Forbes as the largest bank and largest company in the world by assets with over $3.1 trillion. It was formed through the merger...
took over the sponsorship.
NEC sponsored the English football club Everton
Everton F.C.
Everton Football Club are an English professional association football club from the city of Liverpool. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of English football...
from 1985 to 1995. The 1995 FA Cup Final triumph was Everton's final game of the decade-long NEC sponsorship, and Danka
Danka (copier supplier)
Konica Minolta Danka Imaging is a St. Petersburg, Florida based North American independent provider of copiers, printers, fax machines and other office imaging and document management equipment....
took over as sponsors.
NEC also sponsor the Harlequin RUFC
Harlequin F.C.
The Harlequin Football Club is an English rugby union team who play in the top level of English rugby, the Aviva Premiership. Their ground in London is Twickenham Stoop...
and RLFC rugby teams from London, as well as the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
NEC signed a deal to sponsor the Sauber F1 team for the 2011 season.
NEC's own teams
These started as works teamWorks team
A works team is a sports team that is financed and run by a manufacturer or other business. Sometimes, works teams contain or are entirely made up of employees of the supporting company.-Africa:...
s, but over the years came to include professional players:
- NEC Blue RocketsNEC Blue RocketsNEC Blue Rockets is a men's volleyball team based in Fuchu city, Tokyo, Japan. It plays in V.Premier League. The owner of the club is NEC.-Honours:Japan Volleyball League/V.League/V.Premier League*Champion : 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1998...
(men's volleyballVolleyballVolleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
) - NEC Red RocketsNEC Red Rocketsis a women's volleyball team based in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan. It plays in V.Premier League. The owner of the team is NEC.The club was founded in April 1978 as NEC’s corporate team, participating the same year in the 10th V.Challenge League tournament...
(women's volleyball) - NEC Green RocketsNEC Green RocketsNEC Green Rockets is a Japanese rugby union team in the Top League. The team's captain is . The previous captain was Takuro Miuchi, who is currently the captain of the Japan national rugby union team. Before the semi-professional Top League was created, the team was just known as "NEC"...
(men's rugby unionRugby unionRugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
)
NEC also used to own Montedio Yamagata
Montedio Yamagata
Montedio Yamagata is a professional association football club based in Yamagata Prefecture in Japan. The club plays in J. League Division 1.Montedio is a coined word combining two Italian words Monte and Dio .-History:...
of the football (soccer)
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
J. League
J. League
The or is the top division of and is the top professional association football league in Japan. It is one of the most successful leagues in Asian club football and the only league given top class 'A' ranking by the AFC. Currently, J. League Division 1 is the first level of the Japanese...
, but just sponsors them along with other local companies.
See also
- Hudson SoftHudson Soft, formally known as , is a majority-owned subsidiary of Konami Corporation is a Japanese electronic entertainment publisher headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo Midtown, Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, with an additional office in the Hudson Building in Sapporo. It was founded on May 18, 1973...
- List of Computer System Manufacturers
- Turbografx 16
- Other electric vehicle battery manufacturers:
- SanyoSanyois a major electronics company and member of the Fortune 500 whose headquarters is located in Moriguchi, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Sanyo targets the middle of the market and has over 230 Subsidiaries and Affiliates....
- Sanyo