22) Origin of Hitachi Musashi was "Kamaboko* Barrack"
Transistor R&D facility of Hitachi Central Research Laboratory, that was
called "Kamaboko* Barrack"
Hitachi Musashi was once renowned popularly for a women's volleyball
world champion team which they sponsored. But, it was also one of the globally
top-ranked enterprises in its main semiconductor business.
Needless to say, "Rome was not built in a day." Masami Tomono at
Hitachi Central Laboratory then, who later became General Manager of Semiconductor
Division of Hitachi Ltd., and President of Hitachi Denshi Engineering Ltd.,
had strongly supported from R&D side to build up the semiconductor business
of Hitachi. According to him, when he tried to start a research program under
the theme of "Research on Transistors" in 1951, the plan met with
strong opposition from some company executives, saying, "Research of
such tiny components as transistors is meaningless for a heavy electric machinery
manufacturer like Hitachi." The research on transistors was finally started
by changing the theme to "Research on Special Semiconductors" to
get approval of the board.
In 1953, Hitachi finally adopted the R&D of semiconductors as an official
program. They carried out the development of germanium single crystal growth
technologies and fabricated test samples of point-contact transistors using
the crystals.
It is very interesting that such an advanced research was carried out in the
facility called "Kamaboko* Barrack" as shown in the photo.
Under the idea that the wooden building was unsuitable for fabrication of
fine structure devices like transistors, Hitachi already completed a 2-story
reinforced concreate building named No. 21 Building on the campus of Central
Research Laboratory in Kokubunji City in Tokyo by the fall of 1953, which
had an air conditioned cleanroom. However, the space became too tight to cope
with the rapidly increasing requirement of transistors for radio sets. The
building was modified to a 3-story building by putting a semi-cylindrical
shape (kamaboko-shape) roofed structure on the flat top of the building in
the fall of 1957.
It reminds me that Seikichi Miyagi, Senior Manager of Transistor Department
at that time told me, "Female workers working in air conditioned cool
environment were envied by other division people".
Musashi Factory mentioned previously in this article, was also built in the
fall of the same year as "Transistor Laboratory,"surrounded by cabbage
fields in near-by Kodaira City.
(Photo: by courtesy of Hitachi Ltd.,)
*Kamaboko is a traditional popular Japanese processed food that consists of
boiled fish paste attached on a palm-sized wooden board in the shape of a
semi-cylinder. (Translator's note)