The first International Meeting on Ferroelectric Random Access Memories (FeRAM2001) was held at the Guest House of the Japan. Federation of Economic Organizations, Gotemba, Shizuoka Prefecture, from November 19 through 21, 2001. The international meeting focused on materials, processes, element structure, drive circuitry, and applications.

Opening session
  Planning Manager Tokumasu (Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry) gave a speech on the integration and enforcement of multiple R&D programs and administrative policies, suggesting a shift to working on social issues and solutions from the existing R&D systems on individual subjects. Office Manager Kubota (NEDO) explained the FeRAM Project as the base for supporting future IT industry and positioned FeRAM devices as the key
devices in the coming information age. He reported some remarkable achievements on FeRAM devices.

Plenary session
  Mr. Nishi (Texus Instruments Japan Ltd.) spoke on "Integrated Circuits Technology in the Internet Era," followed by Mr. Kayama (Toshiba Corp.) who spoke on "SoC Directions and FeRAM Solutions", and followed then by Professor Ishihara (Tokyo Institute of Technology) and the project leader who gave a speech on "Current Status of Ferroelectric Memories."

Panel discussion
  Professor Ishihara (Tokyo Institute of Technology) coordinated discussions on "FeRAM for the New IT World." The panelists were Mr. Tano (NTTDoCoMo Inc.), Mr. K. KIM (Samsung Elec.Co.Ltd.), Mr. Nishi (ASCII Corp.), Mr. Kaku (Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.), and Mr. DeHerr (Motorola Inc.). They exchanged opinions on applications and their optimal memories, especially their memory capacities, costs, low-powered consumption, and high speed.

The international meeting invited 24 guest speakers, who gave a speech on recent research and development activities of materials, process, element structure, drive circuitry, and applications.

Photography