April 4, 2002 – Tokyo, Japan – NEC Corp. has reorganized the structure of its system chip business, the core of its semiconductor division, aiming to restore the division to profitability.

The centerpiece is the formation of the output headquarters responsible for supervising all system chip production, reported Asia Pulse. The R&D department, which used to be organized into five sections by application, such as home electronics and PCs, will be reorganized into six groups by basic technology, such as microprocessors and memory.

NEC has four locations in Japan and abroad where it performs the processes of etching circuitry on silicon wafers for system chips. It hopes to optimize production and capacity utilization through central management.

The semiconductor division expects to post an operating loss of 100 billion yen (US$750.26 million) on revenue of 630 billion yen for fiscal 2001. System chips account for about 60% of the division’s revenue.