On 27 April, NEC TOKIN Corporation (president: Takehiko Nakata; head office: Sendai, Miyagi) and Nippon Chemi-Con Corporation (president & CEO: Ikuo Uchiyama; head office: Osaki, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo) have formed a business partnership for the new NEC TOKIN Proadlizer decoupling device. Details follow. About the business partnership 　NEC TOKIN will disclose its Proadlizer technology to Nippon Chemi-Con, and the two companies will work to establish a joint-supply readiness and improve usability for customers. Goals and expected benefits of the partnership 　NEC TOKIN launched sales of the Proadlizer in February 2003. The Proadlizer is a ground-breaking decoupling device that delivers low equivalent series resistance (ESR) and low equivalent series inductance (ESL) in the ultra-high GHz frequency range. The two companies, which are world leaders in the fields of tantalum and aluminum electrolytic capacitors, will work together to penetrate and expand markets for this revolutionary multi-functional component. They will establish a complementary readiness, promoting the Proadlizer to the world electronic component market as the new global standard model. The two companies' cooperative readiness is expected to improve usability for customers, while at the same time promoting development through complementation of the two companies' technologies, as well as expanding markets by supplementing each other's strong markets. 　In particular, each company has its own markets in which it is strong, and the partnership is expected to supplement each company's technical and development capabilities. 　In addition to the Proadlizer business, the two companies will fuse their polymer and device design technologies with NEC TOKIN's technologies for compact, high-capacity devices and device evaluation simulation and Nippon Chemi-Con's aluminum surface treatment technologies and equipment development capabilities to supply the market with new devices with next-generation functionality, meeting new customer demands. 　The partnership is expected to speed the development of devices with new functionality to meet new customer needs, enabling both companies to cultivate new markets and leverage their management resources more efficiently. Proadlizer features   Equipped its own transmission-line structure, the Proadlizer is the world's first multifunctional integrated device combining low impedance and low ESL from frequency ranges of several kHz all the way up to the GHz range. Different types of capacitors each have their own frequency ranges at which they are most effective. As a result, up until now circuit designers have had to design circuits combining several different capacitors. Now, however, it will be possible to design circuits using just the Proadlizer. 　One example is CPU decoupling circuits, which are the main target of the Proadlizer. The Proadlizer eliminates the need for a design combining several conventional ceramic capacitors and other "single-function" devices; it is now possible to create a design using several Proadlizers alone. The two companies enter a business partnership. On the left is Nippon Chemi-Con president Ikuo Uchiyama; on the right is NEC TOKIN president Takehiko Nakata. Background to development of the Proadlizer 　In recent years, the market has seen a rapid move toward larger-scale integration, customization, and higher speeds. We have enter the era of the "system on a chip" – when the entire system is contained on a single chip. Meanwhile, in the market for passive components, it was becoming impossible to meet customer needs competing on compactness, capacity, and technologies to lower ESR with single-function devices. 　The world's first passive component to incorporate a transmission-line structure into a single chip, the Proadlizer is a revolutionary component that meets this customer need. This has brought competition to a new stage: from a time when single-function component groups would compete, to one in which multi-functional components compete with single-function component groups.