Katsuya Hasegawa

A planar InGaAs PIN/JFET fiber-optic detector

A planar structure monolithic optoelectronic integrated circuit (OEIC), comprising an InGaAs PIN photodiode and an InGaAs junction field effect transistor (JFET), has been developed. A cutoff frequency of 1.3 GHz has been successfully obtained. A low dark-current characteristic has also been obtained by polyimide passivation. Design principle, fabrication procedures, and operation characteristics of the PIN/JFET are described.

Effectiveness of a university-industry matching program at creating collaborative research

To realize technological innovation based on advanced university technologies, it is important to establish collaborative research projects between universities and industry in the early stages of R&D. One way to stimulate the creation of university-industry collaborative research is to have a systematical coordinating mechanism between a university and industry. We analyzed the effectiveness of a university-industry coordination program at creating university-industry collaborative research projects. We used data from the matching program called Proprius21 at the University of Tokyo and found out that the matching program has increased collaborative studies at the University of Tokyo. We also analyzed the R&D characteristics of various firms using the relation between the firms R&D intensity and the range of firms R&D areas. The matching program is especially effective for large companies in ICT-related fields, although it is not so effective for efforts involving life science technologies, which are overall the most active area for university-industry collaboration. Results show that the matching program is most effective for creating collaborative studies with technology-oriented firms engaged in various business domains.

Evolution of the corporate venture capital operations of Japanese electronics companies

We analyzed corporate venture capital (CVC) activities of Japanese corporations through case studies of six major electronics companies over the past 15 years. All six companies started their CVC operations in the mid-1990s, mostly in Silicon Valley, with subsequent expansion to other regions. All CVCs we studied emphasize strategic return rather than financial return as the CVC mission. A corporations strategic motive of having a CVC function is either the exploration or exploitation of external technologies. The orientation between exploration and exploitation varies among companies, but a common pattern exists in the structure of CVC operations. When the strategic emphasis of CVC is to explore new technologies outside of the corporation, a CVC tends to invest through external venture capital funds and when the CVC goal is to exploit external technologies for the businesses of the parent corporation, CVC operations are preferred to have internal direct investment functions. The CVC operations often show changes in goals and structures because of factors such as management change and the parent companys performance, but some common evolution patterns can be identified. An explorative CVC often evolves into an exploitive CVC, but not vice versa. A CVC with internal direct investment functions typically seeks to make operations more independent from the parent corporation as they accumulate CVC knowledge, but the corporation often avoids losing control of the CVC by restricting its autonomy. Strategic return and financial return are not mutually exclusive goals of a CVC. A CVC should be positioned to pursue various kinds of strategic goals under the condition that an investment will be recovered financially. Financial success is important to secure continuation of CVC operations even if the CVC is purely strategically driven.

Design methodologies for consumer-use video signal processing LSIs

This paper describes the methodologies used to design a Hi-Vision MUSE decoder for Japanese HDTV and codec LSIs for digital VCRs. Since a large amount of input video data is needed to verify the algorithms and logic designs, reducing the verification time is a key issue in designing these LSIs. We describe the methodology used to verify the video signal processing algorithm and that of the physical design.

Characteristics of university startups in Japan

Although university startup companies are expected to be a source of innovation around the world, economic effects of university startups have not been investigated thoroughly, especially outside of the United States. As described in this paper, we analyzed the characteristics and economic effects of companies started at The University of Tokyo, a world-recognized research university. Results show that very few successful startup companies account for most of the economic value created by all university startups. If the startup companies are expected to be a source of innovation, then it is necessary to have a large number of startup companies, assuming that most of them will end in failure. University-related startups are of two types: student-driven startups and faculty-driven research-based startups. The economic value created by student-driven startups is roughly equal to that created by faculty-driven research-based startups. To achieve economic development, promoting student entrepreneurship is equally important as promoting commercialization of the outcomes of academic research at universities.

Non-linear conductivity of monoclinic TaS3

Strongly non-ohmic conduction is observed in the semiconducting charge-density-wave (CDW) state of monoclinic TaS3 above a very sharp threshold field. These features could be interpreted in terms of depinning or tunneling of pinned CDW under applied electric field. We also found that large noise appears with the onset of the non-linear conductivity and fades away as the current through the samples is increased, which behaves as the decreasing function of frequency.