▲ Source: Hitachi

Hitachi stated at the shareholder meeting that, rather than providing financial support to Rapidus, Hitachi hopes to cooperate closely with Rapidus in areas such as manufacturing and inspection equipment. Hitachi will provide Rapidus with Hitachi’s products, such as semiconductor manufacturing equipment and technology, to help Rapidus improve advanced semiconductor processes and manufacturing processes.

Hitachi pointed out that not only Rapidus, Hitachi is willing to cooperate with all manufacturers that increase investment in the semiconductor field in Japan. According to reports, Rapidus is a foundry service provider headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. It was established in August 2022 with the support of eight companies including Sony, Kioxia and Toyota. Its goal is to build a 2nm test line in 2025. Production line and mass production in 2027.

It is noticed that Hitachi High-tech, a subsidiary of Hitachi, is the ninth largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer in the world, and its products include dry etching systems, CD-SEM and defect inspection equipment.

The history of Hitachi Semiconductor’s business changes as follows:

 In 1999, Hitachi Semiconductor merged the memory business into Elpida.

 In 2003, Hitachi Semiconductor merged into Renesas Electronics, stopped the research and development of SuperH processor, and its self-developed SH instruction set was inherited by Renesas.

 In 2008, the wafer fabrication business was sold to Chartered Semiconductor of Singapore, which was subsequently merged into GlobalFoundries.

 In 2010, Hitachi gave up cooperating with IBM to develop 28nm process.

 In 2011, Hitachi sold "HGST Hitachi Global Storage", which is in charge of the storage business, to Western Digital for US$4.3 billion.

 In 2012, "Hitachi Display," which was in charge of LCD panel manufacturing, was merged into JDI.

 In 2019, Showa Denko acquired Hitachi Chemical, which is responsible for semiconductor substrates, packaging materials and battery technology, for 964 billion yen.

 In 2020, Hitachi sold its semiconductor business for power equipment to Nantong Jianghai Capacitor.

 In 2021, Applied Materials will acquire semiconductor manufacturer Hitachi International Electric for US$3.5 billion.

The post Hitachi will not invest in Rapidus but hopes to provide products appeared first on TechGoing.

Japanese Companies Restrict Use of ChatGPT

SoftBank warned employees last month about the use of ChatGPT and other business applications, saying, “Do not enter company-identifiable information or confidential data.” Although SoftBank has introduced guidelines for the use of cloud services such as interactive artificial intelligence, the rules continue to be repeated in light of the increased attention chatbots have received recently. SoftBank plans to create rules that dictate which businesses can use the technology and which applications can be used.

On March 1 of this year, ChatGPT developer Open AI released an application interface that allows businesses to pay to integrate ChatGPT into their services. Open AI says the data collected from ChatGPT will not be used to improve performance, but its website indicates that when the service is used for free, “we may use the data you provide to improve our models. In this case, the information being entered, such as products being developed, can be used to answer questions from other companies.”

In addition to SoftBank, Hitachi will consider new ethical rules to govern the use of interactive AI and whether data is being used correctly. The company plans to refine guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence set for 2021.

Fujitsu last month briefed employees on legal and ethical issues related to ChatGPT and other interactive AI services, including information protection. The company has established a department to determine the use of AI. in February 2022, Fujitsu established a governance office to address ethical issues in product development and commercial use that include AI. Through this office, the company will alert the public to the risks of interactive AI.

In January, ChatGPT surpassed 100 million users just two months after its launch. Microsoft’s integration of ChatGPT into Bing search last month pushed the search engine past 100 million daily users for the first time a month later. And the use of this technology in enterprise operations is expected to grow significantly as well. However, the growing use of interactive AI by people and businesses is also a concern, as the technology could spread false information and trigger data breaches, leading some companies to ban its use.

Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation have banned the use of ChatGPT and other services in their corporate operations. Mizuho’s restrictions prevent employees from accessing the site from their work terminals in order to “prevent the leakage of important information such as customer and financial transactions due to improper use by employees.” IT company NEC has also banned employees from using ChatGPT.

Atsuhiro Goto, a research professor at Japan’s Graduate School of Intelligence and Security, said, “The ease with which interactive artificial intelligence can be used on personal computers makes employees less cautious, and there is a risk that confidential data could be accidentally entered and used outside the company. These services should be tested by a dedicated internal team to clarify the rules of use and the information that can be entered.”

Panasonic Connect, a Panasonic Holdings group company, began using interactive artificial intelligence to create documents after taking steps to prevent data breaches and other problems. To reduce the risk of data breaches, the company reached an agreement with Microsoft, a co-developer of the software, not to use the content for secondary purposes such as AI training. At the same time, employees were warned not to enter personal information.

The post Softbank, Hitachi and many other Japanese companies restrict the use of ChatGPT to prevent leaks appeared first on TechGoing.

Few cars are currently capable of bi-directional charging, where the car can become a power source for the home or feed energy back to the grid.

In earthquake-prone Japan, Nissan and Hitachi Building Systems Ltd. are exploring the wider use of electric vehicle batteries as they focus on keeping elevators running when the power supply is down.

In a pilot project announced Friday, the companies said they were able to run a nine-person elevator at low speed for 10 hours by drawing power from the batteries of the Sakura, an all-electric miniature “Kei” car made by Nissan.

The V2X system uses the Nissan-backed CHAdeMO charging standard, said a Nissan Building Systems executive. This allows it to also draw power from larger Nissan electric vehicles, such as the Ariya and Leaf models.

For his part, Tatsu Takahashi, director of Hitachi Building Systems’ domestic business management division, said he expects the company to begin offering the system to apartment buildings starting in the fiscal year beginning in April.

The post Nissan and Hitachi collaborate to temporarily power elevators via electric vehicle batteries appeared first on TechGoing.