Our corporate research and development department started in 1971 and conducts development work geared toward future business operations. This paper introduces how the results of such R&D have contributed to the company.

We have been developing original semiconductor and MEMS devices to achieve the functionality of measurement and control equipment that requires much higher quality and performance than consumer-use products. Typical examples are timing generators for LSI test systems, analog-to-digital converters for oscilloscopes, and resonant differential pressure sensors for process use. We are expanding the coverage of MEMS technology to glass, resin and compound semiconductors, as well as to other applications including micro-reactors and biotechnological diagnosis cartridges, though our basic strategies for device development remain unchanged.

We have long been developing field computing technologies for industrial systems. The new paradigm of ubiquitous computing is also making inroads into the domain of field computing. In this paper, we describe our vision for field-ubiquitous computing from three aspects: 1) establishment of a network infrastructure based on open standards, 2) computing architecture for more flexible system expandability and common computing platforms for field facilities and 3) operation support technologies using online plant models.

We have developed compound semiconductor devices and are supplying them to the optical communications systems market in the form of ultrahigh-speed modules. We have also built an optical packet network system using the newly added ultrafast switching devices.

The ultrahigh-speed optical communications modules comprising HBT (heterojunction bipolar transistor)-based integrated circuits, including driver amplifier modules for optical modulators, logic and photodiode modules, have achieved transmission rates higher than 40 Gbps. The yield and reliability of the integrated circuits are sufficiently high for Yokogawa to market these modules as key components for telecommunications infrastructure.

Optical packet network systems, which directly switch optical signals on a packet basis without converting them into electrical signals, are considered the ultimate goal for high-speed, high-capacity optical networks but unrealistic until around 2015.

However, we have succeeded in conducting the world’s first image transmission using the network system by focusing on its application to LANs in order to relax the technical requirements and by using the latest compound semiconductor technology.