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Volume 52 (Feb 09, 2006)
NEC Electronics' motor driver ICs for lens control in today's most talked-about digital movie cameras (2/2)
The reliability that comes with products from NEC Electronics
We began our interview with Sugimoto by asking him to tell us a little about the development concept behind the Xacti VPC-C5. "From the very beginning, our company has primarily focused its business development activities on movie cameras. We therefore incorporated the moving image technology we had developed over the years into the development of a new lightweight, compact digital camera capable of simultaneously taking still pictures and recording moving images."
By focusing its efforts on development of the Xacti series and generically classifying digital movie cameras that use a memory card as a recording medium as "silicon movie cameras," Sanyo has managed to carve out an entirely new market. And while the original Xacti series proved to be immensely popular with those middle-aged or older with families, the Xacti VPC-C5 is targeted at active men and women in their 20s and 30s. Thus, this model is not only compact and lightweight, but also sophisticated in terms of design.
Sanyo has been using NEC Electronics' motor driver ICs since the launch of its Xacti VPC-C1 model in 2003. Sugimoto explains the reason behind this, saying, "Although there are other companies out there that offer various types of ICs, we chose to use motor driver ICs from NEC Electronics because of the reliability of its products and of its supply." He went on to praise the products themselves and highly evaluate NEC Electronics' prompt after service support.
NEC Electronics' outstanding technological capabilities and sincere approach to customer satisfaction
So what is it that users look for in a motor driver IC? As previously mentioned, silence during motor driving is a must when it comes to digital movie cameras. Sugimoto emphasizes this, saying, "Motor driver ICs are dealt the task of further reducing noise and vibrations caused by the use of two stepping motors. Although we of course focused on noise reduction in the development of previous models, we made an even more concerted effort to reduce noise in the Xacti VPC-C5. In fact, we placed just as much emphasis on reducing noise as we did on making this model lighter and more compact. In this respect, we are very satisfied with the performance of the motor driver IC we are currently using. We still feel, however, that there is room for improvement in terms of noise reduction. To date, there has been little discussion about what can be done to make operation of the actuator quieter. I feel that at this point it is necessary for us to consider how to best match components with motor driver ICs and collectively think about actuators, software and motor driver ICs."
Sugimoto also discussed his expectations for further reductions in size and weight. "It is no exaggeration to say that further reductions in size and weight are absolutely vital to the success of digital movie cameras. Therefore, it is only natural for us to have high expectations for the continued miniaturization of motor driver ICs. Although NEC Electronics already has a 64-pin FLGA package (6 mm x 6 mm) motor driver IC in its product lineup, we hope to work together to miniaturize sets by reducing circuit board space through the integration of power supply and other functions on a single chip."
United efforts between users and vendors
Sugimoto concluded the interview by talking about his company's future expectations for its relationship with NEC Electronics. "Digital electronics can actually be thought of as 'perishables' due to the fact that they have extremely fast product cycles. To create products that can maintain pace with these cycles, semiconductor and set manufacturers must make a collaborative effort to delve into development. Moreover, these manufacturers need to freely share information on technologies they have already developed and are currently developing, and trends they are seeing in their respective markets. Since our company deals with digital products, both ICs and software are very valuable assets for us. Looking ahead to the coming year and even the year after that, I hope that through future discussions and the development of an even stronger cooperative framework with NEC Electronics, we will be able to continue creating excellent products."
NEC Electronics will continue to support Sanyo in its development of digital movie cameras.
