Murder at the Drum Tower. Beijing Bureau Chief Melinda Liu reports on the case of Tang Yongming, who stabbed to death Todd Bachman, father-in-law of U.S. men's Olympic indoor-volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon, and then jumped to his death from the balcony of Beijing's Drum Tower. Authorities figured out that Tang was no terrorist, but the troubles that destroyed him -- the loss of his job, the collapse of his marriage, heartbreak over his wastrel only child -- are all too-common across China. The country is the world's most stressful: three decades of reforms have shredded China's safety net and transformed society beyond recognition. That's why, as Chinese leaders prepare to mark the 30th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping's capitalist reforms next month, they're also frantically pumping more than half a trillion dollars into their economy in hopes of staving off a downturn.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/169164

POINT OF VIEW: The Most Anti-American Nation. Soner Cagaptay, senior fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writes that while Obamania will help, more will need to be done to change Turkey from the most anti-American country in the world. Cagaptay addresses Obama, "The lesson for you, President-elect Obama, is clear: with such anti-Western rhetoric, and because Turkish attachment to the West is so tenuous, your strategy must be to constantly remind Turks that they belong to the West ... Your policy ought to be zero tolerance toward official anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric in Turkey."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/169267

Cutting Things Down to Size. Special Correspondent Mac Margolis examines why, as Brazil becomes Latin America's economic pacesetter, its neighboring countries are viewing it as target No. 1. With a $1.4 trillion economy and a global political agenda, Brazil stands out in a region hobbled by poverty and poor governance. Its industry eclipses that of its neighbors, assuring Brazil a fat regional trade surplus. And as Brazil's fortunes soar, it casts a harsh spotlight on the shortcomings of its neighbors. The result: increased animosity from across its borders.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/169266

A Bigger Clubhouse. David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of "Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making," writes that in this time of transformation of the international system, emerging-market powers will define the new "new world order." The need for broad global engagement around not only the financial crisis but many other world challenges will almost certainly lead the Obama administration to more actively engage the BRICs-a term coined in 2001 to refer to the biggest of the emerging powers Brazil, Russia, India and China -- and that in order to manage the challenges of the world economy, potential rivals will become vital partners.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/169262

The One Big Buyer. Hong Kong Bureau Chief George Wehrfritz and Special Correspondent Akiko Kashiwagi examine why today's financial crisis has been good for Japan. Japanese companies are now spending more than $1 billion a week in outbound mergers and acquisitions, making them a critical source of new investment in a global M&A industry battered by this year's financial crisis. This spending spree runs counter to a sharp retrenchment globally. With their foreign purchases surging in value in 2008 and Japanese firms spending $61 billion overseas since Jan. 1, Japan has become the top source of outbound M&A investment in Asia and among the top seven in the world.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/169260

PROJECT GREEN: Not Sky-High. Jeremy Oppenheim, leader of McKinsey's Climate Change Special Initiative, Eric Beinhocker, senior fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute, and Diana Farrell, director of the Institute, write that we can dramatically reduce greenhouse gases and grow the global economy for less than we think. New research shows that with the right mix of policies, investments, new technologies and changes in behavior, we can shift to a clean-energy economy. They write, "Economic growth and a healthy climate need not be opposing goals. By dramatically increasing carbon productivity, just as we have increased labor and capital productivity in the past, we can have both."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/169258

WORLD VIEW: Obama's 250 Tough Calls. Contributing Editor Stuart Taylor Jr. examines what approach Obama's administration may take in dealing with suspected terrorists, and what will become of the 250 men who are locked up in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. "Obama should and probably will renounce all brutal interrogation methods, not just those that the Bush administration defines as torture," Taylor writes. "He should and probably will discontinue or overhaul the widely derided and largely failed system of 'military commissions' that President Bush created in 2001 to try suspected terrorists for war crimes. And he should and probably will announce a detailed plan to close Guantanamo, possibly within a year."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/169175

THE LAST WORD: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author and former trader. Taleb talks about his distrust of bankers and his advice to individual investors. "Never take advice from anyone in a tie. They'll bankrupt you. Don't ask a general for advice on war, and don't ask a broker for advice on money. Think about the derivatives mess -- buying credit derivatives from these banks was like buying insurance for the Titanic from people who were on the Titanic!"

http://www.newsweek.com/id/169336

SOURCE Newsweek

http://www.newsweek.com/

Were happy we won, said Notre Dame president Fr. Romeo Saniel, OMI, who heads the lean but mean Midsayap delegation.

Actually, were already happy just participating here because this is a good break for the kids from war, he added.

Mati City, Davao Oriental, which hosted the postponed Mindanao Friendship Games four years back, likewise boosted its campaign after it blasted Rizal Special Education, 70-18, while Dona Pilar Learning Center enhanced its own bid by bashing host UM, 82-28, to join Midsayap in the medal hunt.

Ateneo de Davao and Holy Cross of Davao City, for their part, struck in girls volleyball as the two downed Notre Dame, 25-8, 25-9, and Dona Pilar, 25-11, 25-14, respectively, to emerge the early favorites in the three-day Sports for Peace project organized by Philippine Sports Commission chair William Butch Ramirez.

Ramirez, a native in this city deep down South who is a former educator at the Ateneo de Davao, officially ushered in the meet for both school and out-of-school athletes aged 13 years old with simple opening rites attended by a thousand athletes, some from conflict areas in the region.

This is for the children of Mindanao regardless of their religion, Ramirez told the participants from as far as Cagayan de Oro, General Santos City, North Cotabato ad nearby Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur and Davao Oriental.

PSC commissioners Eric Loretizo, Gillian Akiko Thomson and Fr. Vic Uy, SVD along with Davao del Norte provincial sports coordinator Anthony del Rosario and Davao City Sports Council chief Councilor Peter Lavinia were also present.

RP diver Sheila Mae Perez, a native here who is a former two-time Olympic veteran and Southeast Asian Games gold medal winner, gave participants an inspirational message on her road to success.

In table tennis action, Piedad Elementary Schools Glaciel Ablanque and Lloyd Jay Villamor bested Slum Improvement Resettlement Elementary Schools Ronel Gumahin and Ellah Gracia Rubia, 11-2, 11-9, 11-5, to snare the first semifinal berth in mixed doubles. (PNA)<br>LOR/pr

The new MCUs fill the need for increased speed and functionality, delivering the features and computing capabilities essential for safety systems that help drivers avoid potential accidents. The devices' SH-4A CPU has been used in MPUs for car navigation systems, a market in which Renesas currently holds the top share worldwide(1). This 32-bit superscalar RISC-type CPU can smoothly process the large volumes of sensor data that characterize obstacle-detection and danger-avoidance functions. Examples of such "proactive" in-vehicle features include lane-departure warning systems, adaptive cruise control functions and blind-spot monitors. These and similar options are migrating down from premium automobiles to become persuasive selling points for buyers of mainstream vehicles.

"The SH74504 and SH74513 make it possible to build reliable preventative-safety designs that deliver important application benefits, while also meeting the tight cost targets necessary for affordable pricing," said Paul Kanan, marketing manager, automotive business unit, Renesas Technology America, Inc. "In the years ahead, such technologies will play an important role in creating an anxiety-free driving experience by enhancing safety and convenience."

When operating at 240MHz, the MCUs achieve high levels of performance -- 432 MIPS (432 million instructions per second) and 1.68 GFLOPS (1.68 billion floating point operations per second) -- when consuming only 1.5 watts of power. Additionally, the high-speed calculating capabilities of the built-in hardware floating point unit (FPU) accelerate vector and sine/cosine arithmetic computations. Thus, the devices can process data quickly to deliver rapid situation updates in fast-changing real-world driving situations. Their large on-chip flash memory (2Mbytes for the SH74504, 1.5Mbytes for the SH74513) can store the complex, sophisticated code typical of image-recognition and threat-analysis programs. Additionally, the MCUs' 512Kbyte on-chip SRAM allows the chips to handle large amounts of data, and their 64Kbyte cache (32Kbytes for instructions, 32Kbytes for data) enables the SH-4A CPU core to achieve the best possible throughput.

Further, the SH74504 and SH74513 integrate the following on-chip peripheral functions specifically required by many driver-assist systems:

-- Functions for onboard camera control -- A 3-channel direct RAM input interface (DRI) function supports a direct parallel connection at up to 40Mbps between a CMOS camera (with up to WVGA resolution) and the MCU's on-chip SRAM for implementing a lane departure warning system. A 1-channel I(2)C function handles the camera settings. The 512Kbyte SRAM capacity of the SH74504 and SH74513 is sufficient for storing the data for an entire photo, so designs can be smaller and cost less.

-- Functions for vehicle millimeter wave (milliwave) systems -- A parallel DAC controller (PDAC) circuit controls the D/A converter required by driver-assist systems that employ milliwave radar. The SH74504 and SH74513 MCUs also provide a parallel selector (PSEL) circuit for channel control of a high-speed A/D converter (ADC) and a DRI circuit for capturing data from a high-speed external A/D converter. They also have a timer output unification (TOU) timer for controlling the brushless DC (BLDC) motor that mechanically sweeps the radar antenna, and a 65-channel ATU-IIIS (ATU-III: Advanced Timer Unit III) multifunction timer unit for timing control. This combination of on-chip peripheral functions makes it easier to build more compact systems at reduced cost.

-- Functions for port-to-port communications -- The SH74504 and SH74513 MCUs incorporate four functions useful for multi-CPU in-vehicle system configurations. A DRI and a direct RAM output interface (DRO) minimize the CPU performance degradation caused by CPU-to-CPU communication overhead. A PSEL bus controller can set the optimal data bus width (8, 16 or 32 bits) when an external bus is utilized. An 8-channel serial communication interface (SCIF) with FIFO can be used for message exchanges. Lastly, an on-chip direct memory access controller (DMAC) supports data transfers to external bus areas, thereby enabling the efficient management of communication functions. These built-in functions make it possible to utilize the maximum computing and control capabilities of the SH-4A CPU for achieving the best overall system performance.

Comprehensive system development tools are available

To accelerate system development with the SH74504 and SH74513 MCUs, Renesas offers a comprehensive set of hardware and software tools, including compilers, the High-performance Embedded Workshop (HEW) integrated development environment, the E10A-USB on-chip debugging emulator, flash development tools, and starter kits. A global support community of third-party vendors offers a variety of other hardware/software development products and services.

Price and Availability

Product Name    Product        Differences       Package           Sample Price/
                Number                           (Size)            Availability
SH74504         R5F74504KBG    2Mbytes flash,    292-pin BGA       $152/
                               2ch FlexRay       (17mm Ã? 17mm)    February 2009
SH74513         R5F74513KBG    1Mbyte flash      292-pin BGA       $142/
                                                 (17mm Ã? 17mm)    February 2009

About Renesas Technology Corp.

Renesas Technology Corp. is one of the world's leading semiconductor system solutions providers for mobile, automotive and PC/AV (Audio Visual) markets and the world's No.1 supplier of microcontrollers. It is also a leading provider of LCD Driver ICs, Smart Card microcontrollers, RF-ICs, High Power Amplifiers, Mixed Signal ICs, System-on-Chip (SoC) devices, System-in-Package (SiP) products and more. Established in 2003 as a joint venture between Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE:6501)(NYSE:HIT) and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (TSE:6503), Renesas Technology achieved consolidated revenue of 951 billion JPY in FY2007 (end of March 2008). Renesas Technology is based in Tokyo, Japan and has a global network of manufacturing, design and sales operations in around 20 countries with about 26,800 employees worldwide. For further information, please visit http://www.renesas.com

Notes:

1. Source: Renesas Technology estimate based on statistics from
Strategic Analytics Inc.
SuperH(TM) is a trademark of Renesas Technology Corp. CAN
(Controller Area Network): An automotive network specification
promoted by Robert Bosch GmbH of Germany. FlexRay(TM): A
communication protocol for next-generation vehicle control
applications that is promoted by the FlexRay Consortium. FlexRay is
a registered trademark of Daimler AG.
Other product names, company names, and brands mentioned are the
property of their respective owners.

Specifications: Renesas Technology SH74504 and SH74513
SuperH-series Microcontrollers for Automotive "Preventative
Safety" Systems
Product name                       SH74504                           SH74513
Product No.                        R5F74504KBG                       R5F74513KBG
Power supply voltage               1.5V (internal)/3.3V/5V, 1.5V (internal)/3.3V, 1.5V (internal)/5V
Max. operating frequency           240MHz
Processing performance             432 MIPS, 1.68 GFLOPS (operating at 240MHz)
CPU core                           SH-4A, 32-bit superscalar, RISC type with FPU, cache and RAM
Operating temperature range        -40 to +125 °C
On-chip ROM (flash memory)         2Mbytes                           1.5Mbytes
On-chip RAM                        High-speed RAM: 8Kbytes + 16Kbytes, medium-speed RAM: 512Kbytes
Cache memory                       64Kbytes: 32Kbytes for instructions and 32Kbytes for data,
                                   4-way
                                   set associative
External bus interface             Local bus state controller:
                                   Supports connection to SRAM or ROM.
                                   Bus width selectable
                                   among 8, 16, and 32 bits.
                                   Max. operating frequency: 40MHz
                                   External memory area:
                                   64Mbytes Ã? 2, 32Mbytes Ã?
                                   1 (max.)
FlexRay                            2 channels                        --
Main on-chip peripheral functions  Controller area network (CAN): 64 mailboxes Ã?
                                   5 channels
Serial communication interface (SCIF/I(2)C,
etc.): 8 channels
Timer ATU-IIIS: 65 channels ( including TOU timer: 40 channels)
Watchdog timer (WDT)
12-bit A/D converter: 2 modules (16 channels/module, 8
channels/module)
Direct memory access controller (DMAC): 12 channels
Direct RAM input interface (DRI): 3 channels
Direct RAM output interface (DRO): 1 channel
Parallel DAC control interface (PDAC): 1 channel
Parallel selector (PSEL) bus controller: 1 channel
Clock oscillator with built-in multiplier PLL
RAM monitor function
On-chip debug (OCD) function
Package                            292-pin BGA (17mm Ã? 17mm, 0.8mm pin pitch)

SOURCE: Renesas Technology America, Inc.

Renesas Technology America, Inc. 
Akiko Ishiyama, 408-382-7407 
akiko.ishiyama@renesas.com

To meet rapidly rising global demand for solar energy products, Kyocera will continue its strategy as a fully integrated manufacturer of solar modules, managing the entire production process from procuring and casting raw silicon to producing solar cells and assembling ready-to-install solar modules. "Kyocera's 33 years of experience in developing solar energy technologies has allowed us to create high-quality products with industry-leading efficiency and reliability," stated Tatsumi Maeda, senior managing executive officer of Kyocera Corporation and general manager of its Corporate Solar Energy Group. "Kyocera will build on these strengths to further expand its solar business."

Kyocera has established local production and supply networks for solar modules in Japan, Europe, North America and China -- the world's four largest markets -- in response to fast-growing demand. The company will enhance its manufacturing capabilities as production levels increase.

Kyocera Mexicana, S.A. de C.V. produces solar modules for the U.S. market, where demand is increasing with the introduction of federal government incentives. Corresponding to the market's needs, Kyocera Mexicana produces high-quality products, such as aesthetically enhanced "black-back-sheet" monochrome modules, and high output modules using 156mm x 156mm cells.

"The U.S. is experiencing rapid growth in demand for solar energy," said Steve Hill, president of Kyocera Solar, Inc., the operating headquarters of Kyocera's solar energy business in the Americas and Australia. "More and more people are gaining energy independence and contributing to environmental preservation through the use of solar energy."

For more details about KYOCERA Solar Energy http://global.kyocera.com/prdct/solar/

About KYOCERA

Kyocera Corporation(NYSE:KYO) (TOKYO:6971) (http://global.kyocera.com/), the parent and global headquarters of the Kyocera Group, was founded in 1959 as a producer of fine ceramics (also known as "advanced ceramics"). By combining these engineered materials with metals and plastics, and integrating them with other technologies, Kyocera has become a leading supplier of solar power generating systems, telecommunications equipment, laser printers, copiers, electronic components, semiconductor packages, cutting tools, and industrial ceramics. During the year ended March 31, 2008, the company's net sales totaled 1.29 trillion yen (approximately USD12.9 billion).

SOURCE: Kyocera Corporation

Kyocera Corporation (Japan) 
Akiko CHUJO, +81-(0)75-604-3416 
Corporate Communications 
webmaster.pressgl@kyocera.jp 
Fax: +81-(0)75-604-3516