42) Bringing US/Japan Experts Together with Okinawan Cuisine

  
Robert Noyce and Japanese semiconductor experts at a social gathering, when Noyce visited Japan in 1971


Robert Noyce, thought to be the enemy of Japanese companies at the front of the US-Japan semiconductor war, would break into a smile to try to sell their products to Japanese customers and talked passionately about technology, regardless of time.

Noyce attended a social gathering with Japanese semiconductor experts when he came to Japan in 1971. In the photo, Noyce sits in the center of the front row, with Yasuo Tarui second from the left. In the back row, from the left are Junichi Nishizawa, Takuo Sugano, Seiichi Denda, and Shimura.

The venue was an Okinawan restaurant in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. It was chosen because Noyce, who played the oboe and cello, said, "I want to have a chance to listen to the sound of the jabisen (Okinawan instrument, similar to the shamisen)". In the previous year, he was captivated by the sound of the koto at a restaurant in the Gion district of Kyoto, where he was invited by Kazuo Inamori of Kyocera. The next day, he bought a koto as a souvenir to take back to the Silicon Valley.

One day when we were talking about music, Noyce said, "Everyone involved in electronics has a good sense of music."

| To page top | To Part 2 index |

“Mr. Shimura’s Essays with Historic Photos”    Semiconductor History Museum of Japan
Society of Semiconductor Industry Specialists (SSIS), General Incorporated Association
Shiota Bldg 202, 6-27-10 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Japan, 160-0022, Tel:81-3-6457-3245 Fax:81-3-6457-3246 E-mail:info@ssis.or.jp Url:http://www.ssis.or.jp
All the contents including the texts and the photos herein published are neither allowed to be reproduced, nor copied without permission of SSIS.
Copyright (C) 2016, SSIS All Rights Reserved