Fujitsu : Awarded Prizes for Science and Technology

Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., Fujitsu Ten Limited, and Socionext Inc. have announced that in the Fiscal 2015 Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology they have received a Prize for Science and Technology in the Development Category for their "Development of a System Giving Wraparound, 3D View of Vehicles." Fujitsu Laboratories was also honored in the Research Category for its "Research in Electronic Ceramic Materials and Processes for Microelectronics Packaging Technology."

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) commends individuals for their important achievements in science and technology R&D and their promotion of science and technology understanding. The awards are aimed at motivating researchers and helping to raise the level of Japan's science and technology.

This category recognizes people who have made extraordinary R&D achievements or inventions that have real-world applications and that improve Japan's society, economy, and the lives of its citizens.

Seiya Shimizu (Strategic Sales Division, Socionext)
Masami Mizutani (Innovation Manager, Automotive Innovation Laboratories, Applied Innovation Research Center, Fujitsu Laboratories)
Jun Kawai (Research Manager, Media Processing Laboratory, Fujitsu Laboratories)
Tohru Tsuruta (Project Director, Media Processing Laboratory, Fujitsu Laboratories)
Hiroshi Yamada (Project General Manager, Product Planning Group, Fujitsu Ten)

Existing synthetic-image technologies to visualize a vehicle's surroundings have been limited to a range of view of 2 to 3 meters, making a broader field of view without blind spots highly desirable. This development, which differs from the technologies in existing products, created and brought into practical implementation wraparound-view monitor technology that takes the novel approach of using 3D graphic-processing technology. Using images from four vehicle-mounted cameras, it synthesizes a 3D-like 360° image of the vehicle's surroundings, covering a wide range, including distant views in addition to the vehicle's immediate surroundings, and can freely and flexibly change the perspective to any view the driver wants to see. This technology improves recognition of surrounding objects and generates a broad field of view in a way that existing products cannot match, and makes it possible to display the relationship between surrounding objects and the vehicle from a perspective that ensures easier comprehension. These achievements promise to markedly improve driving safety for passenger cars and large buses, contributing to safer and more secure motor-vehicle transportation.

This category recognizes people who have had highly creative research achievements or inventions with the potential to advance science and technology in Japan.

Yoshihiko Imanaka (Research Manager, Device & Materials Laboratories, Fujitsu Laboratories)

To improve the functionality of wearable electronic devices, producing thin-film passive elements on flexible and thin polymer sheets is demanded. However, since ceramics conventionally used for passive elements require high-temperature processing in manufacturing and are brittle in nature, integrating ceramic film that functions as a passive element to polymer sheets was difficult. In this research, the methodology for forming electronic ceramic crystalline film with high crystallinity under the endurance temperature of polymer and the melting point of metal was discovered by applying nano-particles having high surface cohesive energy as an intermediate material. And the deposition mechanism was also clarified. Moreover, because fine-hole forming technology by dry etching and chemical etching, and multi-layer processing can be adopted for the new ceramic film, a multi-layered ceramic structure with internal copper wiring, which had been difficult to achieve using conventional methods, can be produced at low temperatures. Furthermore, by controlling the nano-composite structure in the film, high reliability at the interfaces between polymer, ceramic, and metal was achieved. This achievement paves the way for thin, high-performance wearable electronics, and is also expected to lower microelectronics packaging costs and to reduce the environmental burden.

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