News Releases

São Paulo, Brazil, September 2 – The Embassy of Japan in Brazil and Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry welcomed back to Brazil twenty Brazilian engineers who participated in an intensive semiconductor design engineering program in Japan from January to June this year. The welcome home reception was held on September 2 at the Blue Tree Towers Paulista in São Paulo, and was attended by guests from the Japanese and Brazilian governments. The Brazilian engineers received intensive training at Toshiba Corporation in Japan as part of a program to foster development of the Brazilian semiconductor industry, under the framework for reinforcing cooperation in economic and industrial development between Brazil and Japan.

Twenty Brazilian engineers in their 20s and 30s, employees of the Werner von Braun Center for Advanced Research, one of Brazil's leading electronic engineering research institutes, completed the five-month programme in semiconductor design engineering at Toshiba's Microelectronics Center in Kawasaki, Japan.

In parallel with this program, Toshiba has seconded two semiconductor design engineers to Brazil since March this year, under the auspices of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), to support education of semiconductor engineers under the Brazilian government's "IC Brazil" project, which seeks to nurture semiconductor industry as a growth industry. The engineers will spend a year in Brazil teaching training programmes at Campinas, São Paulo.

Commenting on Toshiba's contributions to the Brazil-Japan cooperation framework, Mr. Shozo Saito, Corporate Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of Electronics Devices & Components Group, Toshiba Corporation, said: "The engineers studied very hard when they were in Japan. While Toshiba is a private company, we are happy to contribute toward realization of the Brazilian government's vision for the development of a semiconductor industry. In considering how we could best contribute, we realized that long-term progress will rest on securing excellent people who can provide leadership. We wanted to develop such people, and recognized that it is especially important to enhance skills in the essential field of semiconductor design. We believe that the training in Japan was useful and successful, and I hope the trainees will make great contributions to building a Brazilian Semiconductor industry."

Background

In April 2006, Japanese and Brazilian governments signed a memorandum of understanding on the introduction of an ISDB-T-based digital television system in Brazil and the enhancement of the Brazilian electric and electronics industry in relation to the television system. In line with this, Japan is cooperating with Brazil in executing a roadmap shared between the Japanese and Brazilian governments towards cultivating a semiconductor industry.

Toshiba, seeking to support the development roadmap, undertook a comprehensive study of growing a domestic semiconductor industry in Brazil, including the feasibility of construction of semiconductor fabrication plants. The study found that steady and sustained growth of the Brazilian semiconductor industry would require, ahead of all else, training people who could build and drive forward the industry. The Toshiba engineers in Brazil today are there to support this process. Other key issues identified by the study included the need to reinforce infrastructure, including power supply, and to nurture the semiconductor market.

While various business models are employed in the worldwide semiconductor industry, Toshiba's market study found that a knowledge-intensive fabless model that allowed Brazil to optimize use of human resources offered the best choice of primary model. Toshiba has shared these findings and accompanying recommendations with concerned parties in both the Japanese and Brazilian governments.