TOKYO — Touting itself as Japan's first independent design house with an analog and RF focus, Analog and RF Tec. Inc. plans to integrate analog features into an RF IC in one year, design an RF large-scale integrated circuit in two years, and score major intellectual property (IP) sales for new generations of Honda and Sony robots along the way.

And that's not all. The IP house also wants to train new generations of analog engineers that Japan so badly needs, said Tomoyasu Kato, a former Bell Labs engineer who now serves as president of Analog and RF.

To attain these goals, Kato and his management team will exploit a clutch of academic connections while emulating U.S. design houses to support customer demands for cutting-edge architectures. Analog and RF's first big opportunity, Kato said, will be in adding analog to RF ICs for major mobile phone circuit makers such as Kyocera Corp., Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd. and TDK Corp. While all are notable suppliers of RF system-on-chip ICs, Kato said they have neither high-frequency component capability nor the personnel resources to push further integration.

"Our target is very open and clear; we'll try to meet customers quickly-changing needs," Kato said. "The chip component vendors and the IC vendors are separate. Not one of our potential customers have finished programs. If we can integrate [analog] on-chip we can support their technologies."

While the company has only about $80,000 in startup capital, all raised by the four founders themselves, Kato believes he has access to all the resources the company will need. First is a rare luxury in Japan: cheap labor. In a case of academic-industry cooperation, Kato has recruited Atsushi Iwata of Hiroshima University to provide analog expertise, and Makoto Nagata from Chuo University (Tokyo) to provide analog power know-how. Both Iwata and Nagata are acting as technology counselors to Analog and RF.

Secondly, Kato has hired Hinata Technology Inc. (Kawaski, Japan), a CAD/Verilog training consultancy led by fellow Analog and RF founder Hitomi Sato, to boost the company's recruitment and digital capabilities. Hajime Kobayashi, a retired general manager of NEC Corp.'s semiconductor sales division, is another founder.

Analog and RF, which has already attracted interest from Toppan Printing Co. Ltd. and from undisclosed CAD design ventures, plans to reach sales of almost $1 million in its first year, Kato said.

Kato said it will be relatively easy to hit the company's first objective of integrating analog components into an RF IC. But the company's longer-term objectives, and big money earners, relate to the linking of disparate technologies.

"Japanese companies have many excellent in-house digital LSI design teams and RF IC teams. There are also a growing number of ASIC houses. But digital, RF and analog LSI design are separated," Kato said.

"I have the RF [expertise], Iwata has the analog and Sato-san has the digital customers. This is a real venture. We can do it by ourselves, and we are open to every customer," he said.

Beyond his company's integration goals, Kato plans to target sensor integration aimed at future generations of robots by companies such as Sony and Honda.

"Robots need big analog components and so many analog chips. I don't say we can do that now, because we are a very small company, but they might need us," he said.

Challenge seeker

Kato, a 53-year-old RF engineer who served stints at Oki Corp., TI Japan and Fairchild Semiconductor, said he was frustrated to be pushed out of design and into a managerial role to support a limited Japanese customer base for AT&T. His solution was to found Analog and RF.

"I am a high-frequency guy," he said. "I needed the challenge."

Prior to founding Analog and RF, Kato's career is an unfortunate and familiar story for analog engineers in Japan, said vice president Sato. Talented engineers are expected to go into management as part of the routine job-rotation practices at large corporations. But pay is also becoming a critical issue, she said, enough to threatened Japan with a brain drain of talent to the United States.

"Engineers here do not earn enough," she said. "Top masters and PhDs can go to the United States and earn a lot more."

Another problem — increasingly aired across Japan — is a crisis in training itself, said Kato. Echoing comments made by other Japanese executives, Kato suggested that Japan needs to rethink its analog education programs from the ground up. At Japanese universities, Kato said students are given typical circuit models and are asked to write papers on them. He called this "making paper."

"If a Japanese semiconductor company says to a young engineer, 'Hey, design a new RF chip in one year,' how are they going to do it?," he asked. "In Japan, basic education is done in the company for three years, and Japanese companies and their customers don't have that sort of time anymore."

"We should solve the shortage of engineers," said Tetsuya Iizuka, chief executive officer of Thine Electronics Inc., a fabless chip design firm, said. "It's becoming a very serious problem."

Analog and RF has already cracked some institutional barriers by recruiting Iwata, who as an academic is prevented by the Ministry of Education Science and Technology from founding his own businesses, Kato said.

Iwata had established his own analog research faculty at Hiroshima in the mid-90s, and said he had amassed considerable expertise but felt unable to connect to industry. "Analog-based devices have become one of the keys to unlocking development of next-generation LSIs," he said. "We want to address the lack of engineers in Japan and this is a new style venture."

Analog and RF also wants to play a reciprocal role with Hiroshima and Chuo Universities by introducing training programs and lessons on forming ventures there. Kato will play an important role in recruiting talent from a clutch of startups near the company's base in KRP Research Park (Kawasaki, Japan). And the company is not averse to recruiting from Japan's larger companies, Kato said.

"We are going to use our connections and the universities and we will recruit Japan's skillful engineers. If they want to come to us, we are open to them. If he or she is skillful, we are open," he said. "Anything is open."