------------------------------------------------------ Japan's chip industry to launch reconstruction program (By Yoshiko Hara -- EE Times, 09/22/00, 02:51:58 PM EDT)
TOKYO ( ChipWire) -- The Electronic Industries Association of Japan (EIAJ) is poised to launch a five-year program to support the struggling Japanese semiconductor industry, including design and process technologies required for system-on-chip products.
The Asuka program will consolidate a number of existing semiconductor research programs and is expected to be funded to the tune of about $717 million over five years, said a source familiar with the EIAJ announcement, which was expected late this week. Funding comes from private industry. --------------------
It's a stretch to call the world-class Japan tech biz struggling, but fans of the Web-culture (you know who you are) will note the unmistakeable reference to Asuka Sohryo Langley, one of the main characters of Hideaki Anno's dazzling, epochal "Evangelion" anime (whose identity is already something of an intriguing political allegory... but that's for another post).
-- Dennis