Good place to work

Now this sounds like a good place to work: (Patent Factory: Camas lab churns out new ideas to keep Sharp on cutting edge)

In the super-competitive marketplace of the early 1990s, Japan’s Sharp Corp. sought to quicken the pace of product innovation by diversifying its brainpower. America, a fast-food nation fueled by instant coffee and sugar-coated breakfast cereal, a land of rock stars, risk-takers and entrepreneurs, was the place to turn.

Sharp Laboratories of America in Camas, established in 1995, has pretty much met the need.

Researchers working on the Sharp campus at 5750 N.W. Pacific Rim Blvd. have won 286 patents over the past eight years. Last year alone they filed 199 patent applications, keeping Sharp ahead of the curve on a number of competitive fronts — liquid crystal display technology, software design for multipurpose document imaging systems, semiconductor materials research, wireless phone technology and advanced television systems.

Sharp executives in Japan appear satisfied and are funding laboratory operations to the tune of $50 million a year. It’s an employment gold mine for Camas. Starting salaries for the lab’s research and development people range from $75,000 to $100,000 a year, depending on experience and education, with senior people in much higher salary categories. Total Camas employment: 183.

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While the lab’s cultural glue may be American, the researchers themselves are a diverse group, representing some 18 nations. That’s despite the fact that Sharp only hires people already working in the U.S.

“Really, our most important accomplishment is that we were able to make this work at all,” said Jon Clemens, who retired last week as the lab’s first president and CEO. “People here are transferring information to people 7,000 miles and seven time zones away who have a different language and culture and who are asleep when we’re awake. You’ve got to have good (information) receptors on both ends to do that.”

The lab’s greatest technology success has come with liquid crystal display technology (low-power screen technology that aligns material suspended in a liquid to reflect light and display characters). By studying how humans process visual data, Sharp researcher Scott Daly and the lab’s information systems researchers have significantly helped lower Sharp’s LCD production costs.

In addition to operations in Camas, Sharp Labs opened a software development facility in Bangalore, India, employing about 100 people to increase development capacity and reduce costs. The lab also has affiliated operations in Huntington Beach, Calif.; Vienna, Va.; and Japan.

Lab officials say employment here and in the other locations is expected to “gradually” increase.

Early vision

The laboratory sprang from the early vision of Atsushi Asada, a Japanese Ph.D. engineer who in the mid-1980s was among Sharp’s top executives. Asada recognized the importance of tapping into the American entrepreneurial spirit and management style to boost product development. The Japanese also liked the location on the West Coast and the Northwest’s quality of life, including schools public schools as well as the evolving Washington State University Vancouver campus.

Last year, Sharp provided adjunct teaching faculty to WSUV’s new engineering department. That collaboration will likely grow, said Ching-shih “Daniel” Chiang, WSUV assistant professor in engineering.

Asada first sought a partnership with RCA to put a computer chip design and manufacturing operation in Camas. When General Electric Co. acquired RCA, the deal came apart with G.E. eliminating RCA’s research group.

But by the end of the 1980s Sharp had moved ahead with its own plan, establishing Sharp Microelectronics Technologies of the Americas on the former RCA-Sharp site on Prune Hill in Camas. The operation focused primarily on integrated circuit development for the U.S. market.

Development of the separate Sharp Laboratories soon followed with Clemens, a former RCA researcher and former senior vice president of science and technology at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, Calif., at the helm. An expert on photo voltaic panel technology, Clemens set out to establish an applied research facility where scientists would “not just write wonderful papers” but take specific technology developments and bring them into Sharp’s primary businesses.

“We looked for practical team-oriented people willing to share ideas,” said Clemens in describing his core group of researchers.

There were early successes in the software area when Sharp Lab researchers developed the first embedded software for Sharp’s digital printers and copiers, delivering the product in 18 months. Sharp Labs software also went into the company’s first cell phone handset sold in the U.S.

“Jon has been very good at hiring people,” said Ibrahim Sezan, director of information systems technology at the lab and former researcher with Eastman Kodak. “Among labs like ours, and there are several, we are probably at the top in terms of doing good R&D with the freedom to go and think.”

Asada has since become senior vice president at Nintendo.

Jack Van Oosterhout, 58, who also has been with the organization from the beginning, assumed the lab’s top post last week. He said Clemens created an open, innovative atmosphere where all information is shared information.

“This operation is critical to Sharp for several reasons,” Van Oosterhout said. “American researchers are risk-takers ? we push the edge, make mistakes and try again. They expect us to go down a bunch of tunnels.”

Economic reality

The American researchers say working for a Japanese company in today’s global marketplace is an economic reality.

“We are all competing globally,” Clemens said. “There are many other labs like ours. We Americans do certain things well. Developing countries do certain things well.”

Jon Shroyer, who retired a few years ago as president of Sharp Microelectronics, sees the relationship as two-way.

“Many times technology flows from the Japanese into the U.S. through these organizations and structures,” Shroyer said. “Secondly, technology being developed for the North American market needs to be geared to the needs of this market. It may not be obvious, but it’s extremely important.”

For example, Shroyer said flat-screen LCD televisions are an exciting product in Japan because space is at a premium in smaller Japanese homes, while in the U.S., large, high-quality images are more important than size.

“These products have to be reasonably market specific even though they are globally manufactured,” he said.

Along those lines, Sharp Labs is working on adaptations to North American lifestyles of the company’s 3-D combination cell phone-camera units, already a hot item in Japan.

With Sharp’s stated intention of moving entirely to LCD technology for all its display products, that area of research will only grow in importance.

Six core areas

Right now, Sharp Labs is focusing on six core research and development areas: digital audio-video systems, multimedia communications, digital imaging systems, information systems technologies, integrated circuit process technology and LCD process technology. A small group of about 30 people work in each area.

Among Sharp Labs “underground” successes, said Clemens, has been the development of software and hardware that allows secure printing. Such equipment means a manager using a password can print a sensitive document only when he or she is at the printer.

“It’s a whole new field,” he said, “especially with governments.”

Researcher Scott Daly’s work with the human visual system not only applies to LCDs hardware technology but also has software applications for printers, cameras, X-rays, video games and personal computers.

Other research at the lab will soon allow high-definition television users to subscribe through their cable and satellite services to customized sports coverage being called High Impact Sports. The programming equipment will select only the most important action in a sports event thus reducing a two-hour baseball game to 30 minutes of seamless viewing.

As well, the lab has made a big contribution to the development of the company’s RRAM memory technology, which allows information to be stored permanently and at high speeds. Much of the work has focused on finding new materials for chip components contributing to lower power usage. The technology means better battery life for such products as MP3 players and cell phones and gives them more onboard data storage capacity

Built on innovation

Based in Osaka, Sharp began its life in the early 1900s as a manufacturer of mechanical pencils. By the mid-1960s the evolving company had become an early leader in global consumer electronics markets, introducing the world’s first electronic calculator in 1964. By the 1980s, the “sharp minds” at Sharp were designing and producing a variety of electronic components and consumer devices.

Sharp Corp., built its business on invention and innovation, and operates labs similar to Sharp Laboratories of America in Great Britain and Japan. The company has been more successful than some Japanese companies in the past 10 years in keeping up with the breathtaking pace of high-tech product development.

Last year Sharp’s global sales totaled $16.8 billion, up 11.1 percent from 2001. The company, with 46,600 employees spread around the world, ranks 300th on the Global 500 list of major corporations.

Subsidiary Sharp Electronics, based in New Jersey, is a leading seller of LCDs, racking up $3.2 billion in sales last year. The displays can go into everything from airplane cockpits to PCs and pinball machines.

Clemens, 65, has mixed feelings about stepping away from the Camas facility and sees many new exciting research opportunities in LCD technology, the Internet, cell phones, digital imaging, printer-copiers, and video games.

“What we’re doing here is really good work,” said Clemens, who will stay on as a lab consultant. “This is a very good group of people.”

Sharp Laboratories at a glance

* WHAT: Applied research facility exploring advanced technologies in six core research and development units

* WHERE: 5750 N.W. Pacific Rim Blvd., Camas

* ESTABLISHED: 1995

* EMPLOYEES: More than 300, including 183 in Camas; 100 in Bangalore, India; 25 in Huntington Beach, Calif.; and about 15 in Vienna, Va.

* OWNERSHIP: Subsidiary of Sharp Electronics Corp., Mahwah, N.J., but also has links to Sharp Corp., Osaka, Japan

* ANNUAL OPERATING BUDGET: $50 million

* PRESIDENT AND CEO: Jack Van Oosterhout, who replaced retiring Jon Clemens, founding president, last week

* LOOKING AHEAD: Employment is expected to gradually increase in Camas and at other facilities as the lab explores new areas of R&D.

SHARP LABORATORIES RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

* Sharp Labs researchers and scientists have lately been averaging about 200 new patent applications a year and have secured 286 patents over the past eight years.

* Software developed by Sharp Labs went into the company’s first cell phone handsets, which went on sale in the U.S. in 2002.

* Researcher Scott Daly has applied his work on the human visual system to image production on liquid crystal display screens. The resulting proprietary Bit Depth Extension technology has reduced Sharp’s LCD production costs and enhanced image quality.

* Cable and satellite television subscribers soon may be able to buy High Impact Sports broadcasts, which, for instance, can electronically edit a two-hour baseball game into 30 minutes of seamless viewing. Sharp’s content extraction technology will make it possible.

* Software developed at the lab called Sharpdesk is being used to handle scanned images in multipurpose document imaging systems.

* The lab made a “major contribution” to development of Sharp’s RRAM computer chip technology. The chips allow information to be stored permanently and at higher speeds.

* The lab is serving as a liaison between Sharp Corp. and top U.S. companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Verizon and others.

AMONG SHARP LABORATORIES’ KEY RESEARCHERS

Ibrahim Sezan, director of information systems technology, leads research on image enhancement used in a variety of Sharp products, including televisions, personal computers, cell phones, printer-copiers and other devices.

Scott Daly, a Sharp Laboratories of America Fellow, is a leading expert on the human visual system. Daly’s work in the area of information systems has resulted in major improvements in worldwide LCD technology and one-of-a-kind electronics products for Sharp.

Sheng Teng “Victor” Hsu, director of integrated circuit process technology, joined Sharp Microelectronics in 1992 before Sharp Laboratories was established. Hsu, formerly working for RCA and Stanford Research Institute, leads a team working on Sharp’s RRAM memory technology.

Mike Detlef, director of mobile communications research, is bringing advanced cell phone technology, including 3-D LCD screens, to Sharp handsets sold in the U.S. market.

Julia Anderson, Columbian business editor, writes about high-tech for The Columbian. To reach her, call 360-759-8071 or send e-mail to [email protected].

Copyright ? 2003 by The Columbian Publishing Co. P.O. Box 180, Vancouver, WA 98666. No part of this publication may be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or reproduced in any way, including but not limited to photocopy, photograph, magnetic or other record, without the prior agreement and written permission of the publisher.