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Panasonic selling another three chip plants, all related to sensor business
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Panasonic Corp. (6752) is in talks to sell majority stakes in three chip factories in Japan to Israel’s Tower Semiconductor Ltd. Final decision may come as soon as next month. Most of the 2,500 workers at the factories will move to Tower, while the rest will switch to other roles at Panasonic, the person said.

    President Kazuhiro Tsuga is seeking alliances for the Osaka-based company’s chip business as he continues restructuring its consumer-electronics units, including ending production of plasma televisions. The company plans to cut as many as 7,000 workers in the semiconductor business, or about half of the staff.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-27/panasonic-said-in-talks-to-sell-three-chip-plants-to-towerjazz.html

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  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    TowerJazz Signs Definitive Agreement Creating Joint Venture with Panasonic Corporation to Acquire its 3 Semiconductor Factories in Japan and to Manufacture Panasonic and Additional Products

    TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry leader today jointly announced with Panasonic Corporation (First Section of TSE and NSE ticker: 6752), the signing of a definitive agreement to create a joint venture (JV) to manufacture Panasonic’s products. Within the scope of the JV, Panasonic will transfer its semiconductor manufacturing process and capacity tools of 8 inch and 12 inch wafers at its Hokuriku factories (Uozu, Tonami and Arai) to the JV, committing to acquire its products from the JV for a long term period of at least five years of volume production, and will transfer to TowerJazz 51% of the shares of this JV.

    Following this transaction, TowerJazz will rationalize its Japanese business, which may include fab consolidations between TowerJazz's Nishiwaki facility and the JV's facilities, and to this end, TowerJazz is evaluating potential ventures for the Nishiwaki facility.

    The JV will continue the production of Panasonic's semiconductor processes as Panasonic's subcontractor as well as seek to expand operations by leveraging TowerJazz's customers and businesses to capture out-of-group sales.

    http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131219006661/en/TowerJazz-Signs-Definitive-Agreement-Creating-Joint-Venture

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Official docs - http://panasonic.net/ir/relevant/2013/en131220.pdf

    Company will still be making chips and sensors for Panasonic.

    TowerJazz seems to be tightly related to Israel military lobby and controlled by Israel Corporation Ltd .

    So it can be offer that you can't pass :-) taking into account outstanding Japan and Panasonic debt and part of the debt owned by Israel affilated banksters.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Israeli chipmaker TowerJazz will produce 12-megapixel CMOS image sensors for Antwerp-based CMOSIS, a supplier of high-end image sensors for professional imaging applications.

    At least now sensors for BM and Panasonic can be produced in same place and same company :-)

  • ahblezaahbleza

    New York Times suggest that mirrorless cameras in general (not just from Panasonic) have failed to make any major inroads due to the explosive growth of smart phones.

    http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/12/29/business/29reuters-japan-cameras.html?hp&_r=3&

    From the article:

    "A 40 percent drop in Panasonic's overall camera sales in April-September left the imaging division vulnerable as the company's mid-term plan to March 2016 demands unprofitable businesses turn themselves around or face the axe.

    "If you look mid-to-long term, digital camera makers are slipping and the market is becoming an oligopoly," said Credit Suisse imaging analyst Yu Yoshida.

    Panasonic held 3.1 percent of the camera market in July-September, down from 3.8 percent a year earlier, according to IDC. Canon Inc, Nikon Corp and Sony Corp controlled over 60 percent between them.

  • rNeilrNeil

    One of the problems that "photography" in general has had since the coming of digital imaging has been how the "height" of the bar is defined for "good enough" . Professionally, in still imaging, that bar is now WAY lower. With the resultant willingness of fewer people to pay for professionally produced images at a price to sustain a middle-class lifestyle in the US, as had been quite possible earlier, even in small market areas of 5-8 thousand people. I started our studio in 1977, and my wife also has been a pro photographer since 1984. We've scored very high in the PPA competitions, both have our "M. Photog." and "CPP" "degrees" from the PPA. We've made a decent living over the years, but it is much tougher now.

    Most of our studio-owning peers now either drive a bus in Portland, work in a "call-center" for a company that has thousands of people calling others for various businesses, work the night shift in a "convenience" store, that sort of thing. People who for 20+ years took nice vacations annually and put kids through college et al.

    And yes, the quality of imaging came up somewhat with digital cameras for "amateur" use, but ... well ... cell-phone cameras are so handy, you've already got the thing with you, and heck ... you're never going to look at it other than on a phone/tablet/computer screen anyway, so ... whatever the cell-phone can do is now also good enough.

    I'd hate to own those chip factories if my main use was making dedicated cameras right now. Future doesn't look so good, unless you find an alternate buyer for what your machines and people can make.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Most of our studio-owning peers now either drive a bus in Portland, work in a "call-center" for a company that has thousands of people calling others for various businesses, work the night shift in a "convenience" store, that sort of thing. People who for 20+ years took nice vacations annually and put kids through college et al.

    It is good sign of system deterioration. One of the reason why it become possible is huge corporations and corrupt media who project "needs" to poor hamsters. People stopped respect professional work.

    Just go and check photos made 30 years ago for kids and other occasions. They can be old and such. But most of them are work of a pro. Now it is such utter crap and in such amounts that it is impossible to check mostly. Of course good pros are also present today and in good amounts, it is just very hard for them to get through all this marketers and TV advertisements.

  • dream_beamdream_beam

    Below might be for a new topic although it still relates to Panasonic sensors' factories. As mentioned earlier Panasonic sold 51% of its imaging division (http://www.43rumors.com/panasonic-sells-51-of-its-imaging-sensor-business/). Reuters believes that only Canon, Nikon and Sony will survive in smartphones era battle while Panasonic, Olympus and Fujifilm could fail. Surprising argument is that the reason behind their failure shall be involvement in mirrorless cameras market. My feeling was that the three big ones (Canon, Nikon, Sony) suffer more damage due to DSLRs sales going down and they seemed trying to get in the mirrorless growth trend.

    The full article by Reuters is here: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9BS0CC20131229?irpc=932

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