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News Archive - Report on Hayakawa Electric (Sharp) Developing Electronic Calculator Using LSI ICs




IC-based Electronic Calculator Under Development at Hayakawa Electric (Sharp)
Electronics Magazine
November, 11, 1968

An article stating that Hayakawa Electric (Sharp) has developed a working experimental electronic calculator (shown in the image above the article) that is smaller than anything yet produced, using eleven very advanced MOS Large Scale Integration integrated circuits for its logic. Prior to this experimental machine, electronic calculators would use up to and beyond 100 small-scale bipolar or MOS integrated circuits spread across anywhere from three to five circuit boards. The experimental calculator had one circuit board for the eleven logic ICs. The machine provided the four basic mathematical functions, and automatically positioned the decimal point for maximum accuracy. The experimental calculator was developed with the help of a $42,000 subsidy from the Japanese government's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).

The prototype used MOS LSI integrated circuits that were developed by the Japanese semiconductor company Mitsubishi, which was a well-established producer of small and medium-scale bipolar integrated circuits that were used in some of Sharp's earlier electronic calculators, such as the Sharp Compet 32 (Model CS-32A). Mitsubishi was a relative newcomer in the Japanese MOS integrated circuit arena, with Japanese competitors Nippon Electric (NEC) and Hitachi already well-established making small and medium-scale MOS integrated circuits, with both companies each investing tremendous amounts of R&D money in the development of Large Scale MOS ICs. It was a bit of a shock to both NEC and Hitachi when it was announced that Mitsubishi produced the Large-Scale MOS ICs in this experimental calculator.

Each of the chips in the calculator carried out a specific function as part of the overall architecture of the machine, with each IC containing somewhere between 300 and 400 MOS transistors elements.

Sharp's intention with this experimental calculator was to prove that the technology was attainable. The real goal, though, was to make a production calculator based on the basic design used in the experimenal calculator. Sharp's goal was to use roughly half the number of ICs in what became the production version of this experimental calculator. This meant that each chip would need to contain at least double the number of elements, which was unheard of in Japan at the time.

Mitsubishi had been having difficulty being able to reliably produce the eleven MOS chips that made up the prototype calculator's logic in anything but prototype quantities. Hayakawa Electric's engineers were concerned that Mitsubishi's MOS IC processes simply were not up to the task of cutting down the number of chips by at least half, and decided to look to US chip manufacturers, which were quite far ahead of Japanese MOS chipmakers at the time.

US chipmakers had proven that they could reliably manufacture MOS large-scale integration ICs, and had been for some time. As early as 1965, US chipmakers were creating MOS ICs with as many as 50 logic elements on a chip, and by late 1968 when Hayakawa Electric showed this experimental calculator, US chipmakers had dramatically improved the technology to pack ever-more logic elements on a single chip. By the time that Hayakawa Electric began its search in the US to find a chipmaker to design and manufacture the chips for their calculator design, companies such as AMI (American Micro-Systems, Inc), General Instrument, Philco-Ford Microelectrics and others had developed MOS LSI arrays with more than enough density to meet Hayakawa Electric's needs.

Hayakawa Electric sent a small team of engineers and management representatives to a number of US-based MOS integrated circuit manufacturers. They met with no success, even though they had money to offer up-front to get a contract for development of the ICs off the ground, as MITI had provided an additional $130,000 to Hayakawa Electric to make the experimental calculator a production reality. It isn't really clear why the US chipmakers were reluctant to work with Hayakawa Electric, however it is suspected that these chipmakers already had chip development deals going with US calculator manufacturers, as well as secret contracts with US goverment intelligence agencies as well as the various branchs of the military, and that partnering with the largest electronic calculator producer in Japan, a major competitor to these US calculator makers, might ruffle some feathers.

The story goes that the folks from Hayakawa Electric, after failing in their task, were at the airport waiting for a flight home, not knowing what the future would hold for them or their calcultor project. While at the airport, a notification came over the PA system saying that there was a call waiting for Mr. Sasaki, who was the project leader of the team. The call turned out to be from a representative of Autonetics, a subsidiary of the giant firm of North American Rockwell. Autonetics specialized in designing and fabricating high complexity MOS integrated circuits, mostly for the military and national security sectors of the US market. The team had visited Autonetics and made their pitch for development of the chips, but they were turned away, just as they had been at every other US chipmaker they visited.

Apparently the word that the folks from Hayakawa Electric with money to spend were turned away got up to higher levels of management within North American Rockwell, and a decision was made that a deal would be made with the Japanese, prompting the hurried call to Mr. Sasaki at the airport.

Negotiations between Hayakawa Electric and Autonetics proceeded with speed and little dispute, and the decision was made to go with Autonetics. While the decision was made, there were some government hoops to go through. First, Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) would have to approve of the deal, as it was going to be making grants to Hayakawa Electric to help in the development of a commercially-viable version of the calculator, and the US Federal Trade Commission(FTC) also had to give its stamp of approval for the deal. Both governmental approvals came off with relatively few problems, but there was some contention by US calculator manufacturers stating that allowing Hayakawa Electric access to advanced US MOS integrated circuit technology could start a flood of other Japanese calculator manufacturers rushing to get set up with US chipmakers, and be able to produce an electronic calculator equivalent to a given US-made calculator for a less-expensive retail price. The concern was that this could create a situation where US calculator manufacturers could no longer effectively compete in the calculator marketplace. While this concern very quickly came to pass, with the Japanese calculator manufacturers taking over all but the most high-end (calculators with computer-like capabilities such as those from Hewlett Packard and Wang Laboratories) calculator market.

The FTC and MITI had not all that long ago brokered a heated dispute over calculator display technology (the Nixie tube), as well as complaints by Texas Instruments that Japanese chip makers were infringing on TI's intellectual property rights by producing their own chips that were being used in Japanese calculators that were being imported into the US without paying royalties. These issues were quite contentious, and in the end required Japanese companies to pay royalties for some devices that were clearly copies of US-held designs In comparison, the Hayakawa/Autonetics deal was quite straightforward, with every aspect of the proposed calculator except for the chip design and fabrication having been developed in Japan with careful respect for US intellectual property rights, as well as all of the funding for the development coming from Japan. While the US calculator manufacturers were right in their concern over the Hayakawa/Autonetics deal, in reality, the deal resulted in a sizable amount of money coming into the US from Japan, money that directly benefitted the US integrated circuit manufacturers. At the time, the US position on integrated circuits was that it was of strategic importance that it keep its position as the technological leader in integrated circuit development, and as such, any deals that would put money in the chipmakers' pockets that could be used for further chip technology development were good deals. Such concerns overrode the concerns of potential competition from Japan in the electronic calculator marketplace.

Autonetics would go on to successfully develop the IC's for the production calculator, which became the Sharp QT-8D. It is interesting to note that the article repeatedly states that the calculator being developed was a pocket calculator, but the QT-8D was hardly pocket-able. It also required mains power to operate, limiting its portability. Despite these perhaps optimistic claims in the article, Autonetics managed to pack all of the logic into four MOS LSI integrated circuits, with a fifth bipolar clock driver chip used to generate the master clock signals that were used to orchestrate the internal operations of the chips and synchronizing the chips' communication with each other.

While the QT-8D was not technically the first MOS LSI electronic calculator in the world (that title technically belongs to the Victor 3900), the QT-8D would go on to be historically recognized as claiming that title, due to the fact that the Victor 3900 was too much of a stretch of the technology at the time. The 3900 was plagued with constant delays for delivery of the calculators due to problems manufacturing the chips in production quantities, as well as reliability issues once in the hands of customers. All told, the Victor 3900 ran the company that was contracted to make the chips into financial ruin, resulting it it being sold off, and the calculator discontinued not long after that.

Hayakawa Electric (which was renamed Sharp Corporation on January 1, 1970) received a prestigious IEEE Milestone Award in December, 2005, recognizing the company's pioneering work between 1963 and 1974 in th development of electronic calculator technology, with the Sharp QT-8D and its MOS Large Scale Integration integrated circuits heralded as one of the major innovations that Sharp created, among many others relating to electronic calculator technology, that led to the IEEE granting the award.