| PREFACE | ||
Direction of Coming Insulation Technology In the last few years, I have had opportunities to visit Korea to exchange not only scientific knowledge at academic sides but also technological issues at an electronic industry. Main visiting places are Seoul, Chonan, Suwon, etc. There, I feel vital power by the fact that a lot of bridges, buildings, rail roads, underground tunnels for water, cables, and so on, are always under construction, which are not seen in Japan any more. My first visit to Korea was 1996. Comparing to that time, I noticed the significant change. Outside Korea as well, I experienced a big event festival sponsored by a Korea electronic company in St.Petersburg, Russia, when I visited there in this summer. Concerning the research field as well, I recognized considerable change at the Summer Annual Conference on Electrical and Electronic Material Engineering, KIEEME, held at the Chung-Pyoung Resort. Here, the 242 papers were presented. More than 2/3 of them were the topics related to the material for micro-electronic technologies instead of the insulation material for the power technology which was the main subject at a couple of decades ago. This kind new trend of research direction to the micro-electronic material may assist the development of the following mobile technology. A mobile telephone having Internet function recently has appeared, which is called i-mode phone (Digital MOVA) in Japan. This system surprises us, in general, by diversifying functions for communication, Internet, e-mail, memorandum book, calculators, clock, etc., but I am also astonished at its hardware which is highly integrated functionally and structurally. In addition, the battery lasts 3~4 days. This telephone is really a condensation of the various kind of electronic material technologies. Now, I never miss carrying it with me. It seems to me that these kind of highly integrated devises are like the Asian people’s lifestyle, since we have been gathering around high population regions. This tendency has made active and fascinating cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, etc. In such a socialistic point of view, I hope that Asian countries become the leading one in this field using the insulation technology developed so far. Dr. Yosuke Sakai |