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)

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“Mr. Shimura’s Essays with Historic Photos”    Semiconductor History Museum of Japan
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