Hitachi Ltd

The U.S. Customs Service said Thursday that it has levied a $60-million fine against Hitachi America Ltd., its Japanese parent corporation and three employees for filing false documents during their importing of subway cars. A Hitachi spokesman confirmed the fine and said the company was still considering whether to file an appeal. "We are surprised by this inappropriate action," the spokesman said.

National Semiconductor Corp., the Santa Clara computer chip maker, said Monday that it has reached a tentative agreement to sell its mainframe computer business to Hitachi Ltd. and a unit of General Motors Corp. for $398 million. Several analysts said the deal was a great financial coup for National Semiconductor, while others noted that it gives Hitachi, Japan's fourth-largest computer maker, an even stronger foothold in the U.S. electronics industry.

A hard-hitting court battle over patent rights between rival semiconductor makers Hitachi Ltd. and Motorola ended Thursday with a federal judge ruling against both sides. However, in a strange twist, the biggest loser in the case could be Apple Computer, whose Macintosh product line depends heavily on one of the chips affected by the legal proceedings. In his decision, U.S. District Judge Lucius Bunton ruled in Austin, Tex.

Ending an acrimonious legal battle that sent shock waves through the semiconductor and personal computer industries, Motorola Inc. and Hitachi Ltd. said Monday that they have reached a final settlement in their patent infringement dispute. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Five researchers at a Hitachi Ltd. laboratory just outside Tokyo have discovered a new class of superconductor materials that could help bring the revolutionary technology closer to commercial production, the company announced Wednesday. The new material, a ceramic that includes vanadium and strontium, would probably be cheaper to produce and use than copper-based materials being researched, said Shinpei Matsuda, head of Hitachi's superconductor research effort.

Hitachi Ltd. opened the first Japanese research laboratory at the heart of a U.S. university with great fanfare Monday at UC Irvine as company officials downplayed concerns that the firm may try to walk off with research secrets. "It's my long-term principle that any facility should contribute to the local community," said Dr. Ryoji Yokoyama, president of Tokyo-based Hitachi Chemical Co. Ltd.

Factories that once hummed night and day are ticking over with too few orders. Big companies are shifting manufacturing of some products to low-wage developing countries and planning to produce advanced products overseas as well. Meanwhile, big company presidents, in their annual reports to shareholders, talk of "restructuring the company." Beleaguered American industry? No, Japanese.

Western Digital Corp., a familiar name in the computer industry, is poised to get a bit more familiar with the $4.3-billion acquisition of Hitachi Ltd.'s data storage business. Computer hard drives made by the Irvine company would make up more than half of the global market share, easily outpacing Seagate Technology, its longtime rival for the market leader position. Analysts said the deal is an effort by Western Digital to solidify its position at a time when sales of tablet computers and flash memory drives are surging while hard drives are sliding.

When it opens its new plum-colored biotechnology laboratory at UC Irvine today, Hitachi Ltd. will become the first Japanese corporation to locate a research facility at the heart of a U.S. university. The laboratory, called Plumwood House, marks a new approach for Japanese companies trying to tap into the latest technology spawned at American universities. Until now, the Japanese have taken a subtle approach, building research laboratories on the fringes of major U.S.

Canon has built brainstorming rooms. Fujitsu has put up office partitions for privacy. Hitachi has cut cumbersome middle management. And Toshiba is turning to women. The ingredients differ, but each company is trying to concoct a recipe for the same thing: more creativity among researchers. Although Japan's private sector has doubled research spending in the past decade, executives say money isn't enough.