Japanese equipment manufacturers are stepping up purchases of foreign semiconductors, although efforts are frequently undermined by sporadic parts shortages.
Ajax"What we really need now is (4-meg) DRAMS, but the only U.S. companies we can get them from are TI and Motorola," said Naoki Yoshimura, purchasing manager in NEC's International Purchasing division. Parts are purchased from Tohoku Semiconductor, the Motorola-toshiba joint facility in Sendai, and from Ti's Miho facility. Mr. Yoshimura noted supply is tight from both companies.
NEC is now negotiating with Micron Semiconductor for DRAMs, but i!s having problems coming to a purchase arrangement, according to Mr. Yoshimura.
As for SRAMs, he said a number of U.S. suppliers are being evaluated, but "whether we can get large volume supply or not is still up in the air" in many cases. NEC is already getting SRAMs from Cypress semiconductor.
Mr. Yoshimura noted more, than 30 percent of what NEC uses is memory, which accentuates the current supply pinch.
Flash is another item high on the wish list. "We were hoping for supply from Intel, but NMB (Semiconductor) hasn't been able to get production up and running," Mr. Yoshimura said, adding that Advanced Micro Devices is another prospect but supply is only a trickle at the moment.
NEC also is looking for custom gate arrays but delivery times from foreign makers have been a problem. "We need (parts) in two, three, six months ... but this does not seem possible in a lot of cases," he said, adding Japanese suppliers are typically quicker with deliveries than their U.S. counterparts, though the latter "have shown vast improvement recently."
But gate arrays appear to be a relatively minor problem compared to NEC's need for memory, which touches on problems that the U.S. government has brought up with Japan. "Some Japanese companies tend to request what they know they can't get," said Roger Mathus, a director at the SIA office in Japan.
On the bright side, NEC has become a prolific user of Intel MPUs - as have other Japanese PC makers - and is slated to use well over one million 486s in the PCs it sells in Japan in 1993. The company is also beginning to use U.S.-made graphics boards and graphics ICs in its PCs.
The increasing use of U.S. circuits in NEC's PCs was shown in a recent survey by NHK, a major public broadcasting network in Japan. According to the survey, well over half the circuits used on some motherboards in NEC's high-end PCs are from U.S.-based suppliers.
NEC also sees large opportunities for U.S. makers in other areas of U.S. strength. NEC is especially interested in ICs for local area networks, particularly wireless LANs. "This is an area where the U.S. has excellent technology. We hope U.S. suppliers really come out and try to offer products here," said Mr. Yoshimura.
A Canon spokesman said in laser printers and copy machines the portion of foreign-made circuits ranges between 20 and 30 percent, and much of this is supplied by National Semiconductor in the form of microprocessors and microcontrollers. Canon said in some peripheral products the foreign memory content is as high as 90 percent. Canon, however, would not specify exactly what type of memory this is or where it is coming from.
watches-j Canon also claimed foreign parts account for over 20 percent of the componentry it uses. "Several" Motorola controller ICs are used in its standard auto-focus cameras, an
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