Nikkei BP Announces Winner Technologies of the Twelfth Nikkei BP Technology Awards

Tokyo -- March 27, 2002 -- Nikkei Business Publications has announced technologies that won the twelfth Nikkei BP Technology Awards. Established in 1991, the Nikkei BP Technology Awards honor breakthrough technologies that lead to fundamental change in the industry and in society. Dr. Yutaka Ohno, Professor Emeritus of Kyoto University, chaired the screening committee of twenty-one members representing the most notable academic and research organizations in Japan.

Among the technologies developed anew during 2001, the Grand Prize of the 2002 Nikkei BP Technology Awards went to Matsushita Refrigeration and Toshiba for their respective inventions of a technology that prevents coolant explosion, leading to the development of a refrigerator that uses isobutene as refrigerant in stead of CFC. The new technology prevents defrost heaters and motors from igniting non-CFC refrigerants.

In addition to the Grand Prize, fourteen Section Prizes were presented in the seven categories of electronics, info-communications, personal computing, mechanical systems, construction, healthcare/biotechnology and ecology. The award winning technologies are as follows:

Grand Prize
Explosion-protection technology that realizes a CFC-free refrigerator

Section Prizes

Electronics
Technology that produces high-density multiplayer boards by pressing together all constituting substrates
Low-energy electron-beam proximity projection lithography (LEEPL) technology for the next-generation system LSIs

Info-communications
"Usogres" that clusters PostgreSQL, an open source RDBMS
"ENCORE" that automatically detects channel failure of inter-autonomous systems

Personal Computing
"i-Appli," a Java-based application platform of i-mode services for mobile phones
"Net MD," a high-speed recording technology from the Internet to mini-discs

Mechanical Systems
A lightweight 3-D network representation method
Coating technology for linerless aluminum alloy engines

Construction
Greening technology at Across Fukuoka
Commercialization of composite material bridges including steel-concrete composite arch bridges

Healthcare/Biotechnology
Invention of a highly efficient ribozyme
Development of a non-invasive blood pressure/pulse wave monitoring device that depicts the level of arterial sclerosis

Ecology
Recycling technology that chemically decomposes used plastic bottles for the regeneration of raw material for plastic bottles
Technology using electrolysis of water/ultrasonic waves for washing clothes without detergent

The awarding ceremony of the twelfth Nikkei BP Technology Awards will be held at Hotel Okura on April 5, 2002.

For further details, please contact:
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