MI Sensor Innovation

In 2020, a movement began in Japan to revise the Basic Act on Science and Technology (enacted in 1995) to create the Basic Act on Science, Technology and Innovation with the aim of establishing a policy for achieving sustainable development of a super-aging society through science, technology, and innovation. The 1960s through to the 2000s was a boom time for Japan, with rapid economic growth putting it on par with developed countries in the West. With the enactment of the Basic Act on Science and Technology in 1995, Japan launched its first five-year Science and Technology Basic Plan in 2001 for the purpose of promoting science and technology under the slogans of “a nation built on the platform of scientific and technological creativity” and “a nation built on the platform of intellectual property.” The Sixth Science and Technology Innovation Basic Plan (2021–2025) is currently in preparation.

Innovation is a theory/principle of industrial development originating in the United States, the “land of innovation.” While innovation might be a unique theory and driving energy in the U.S., with its culture of venture companies and venture entrepreneurs, Japan is working to create its own version of innovation through such channels as collaborations between industry, academia and government, and internal corporate ventures. However, innovation is not easy to accomplish because maintaining and driving collaborations between industry, academia and government is not possible with a top-down approach, and driving projects alone requires an extraordinary amount of internal energy. Reading the works of eminent economists like Toynbee, Schumpeter or Drucker is a common way to absorb the knowledge of innovation. Arnold Toynbee, an English historian, defined the period of social change due to industrial science and technology, in mainly 19th to 20th century England, as the Industrial Revolution. Joseph Schumpeter, an Austrian advocate of the theory of economic development, was also an advocate of innovation. And Peter Drucker, an Austrian who lived from 1909 to 2005, advocated the theory of management as a means of promoting innovation. In addition to industrial reform based on science and technology, this “innovation” is a broad principle that also covers things like development of new raw materials and innovative sales techniques. Japan has narrowed the scope to the areas of science and technology as it works to achieve science and technology innovation.

Science and technology innovation itself is a principle of industrial development and the social system of collaborations between industry, academia and government that begin and continue over the long term, and generate ongoing industrial reform, through groundbreaking discovery and invention to meet potential needs of society. The expression “long term” here refers to periods of 20 to 30 years. In other words, participants in science and technology innovation are only able to understand the full picture, and make announcements, after 20 to 30 years. Japan’s boom time was really a series of short-term battles, with a general feeling of disposability and prioritization of active researchers. Going forward, Japan is entering the era of innovation, a period of 20 to 30 years. For human resources, this means an era of analysis by innovative researchers who have extensive experience, and consequently opportunities for older researchers to shine.

Although its origins are unclear, there is a theory of practical self-assessment in production sites that is called the three barriers of the innovation process. Called the “Devil River,” the “Valley of Death,” and the “Darwinian Sea,” these barriers are apparently terms used in places where innovation occurs in the U.S., the “land of innovation.” In fact, the Mississippi River was apparently also known as the Devil River when developing the Wild West there. In which case, the Colorado Canyon would be the Valley of Death, and the Pacific Ocean and its Galapagos Islands would be the Darwinian Sea, but that is just a guess. The Devil River is the barrier between inventions by universities and development by companies. The Valley of Death is the barrier between the development of new technologies and their commercialization by industry. And the Darwinian Sea is the barrier between commercialization with an outstanding level of technology and movement to exclusive commercialization of that technology. This three-barrier theory appears to support the idea that innovation is a long-term industrial reform over 20 to 30 years.

This new MPS was developed by Aichi Steel in 2016 and is backed by a high level of vehicle positioning accuracy in verification trials conducted from 2017 to 2019 by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. A total of five trials were conducted at three locations around Japan, including Michi-no-Eki (roadside rest areas), to verify autonomous driving services. According to the company, this new system can pinpoint the position of a vehicle body to a high degree of precision (±5 mm) through an on-board MI sensor array that very accurately detects the weak magnetic fields generated by low-cost, robust micro-magnets (ferrite) embedded in roads at intervals of 2 m. This provides stable operation regardless of the driving conditions, including snow-covered roads where the white dividing lines cannot be seen, in tunnels, indoor structures, and mountainous area where GPS signals are difficult to receive, in suddenly deteriorating weather, and whether during the day or night. The system can also function at speeds of up to 200 km/h. With the cost of laying the magnetic markers about the same as the cost of painting white lines on the roads, the system has high practicality. Magnetic sensors other than MI sensors do not display the same level of performance, which means this innovation has reached the Darwinian Sea in the above three barriers. In other words, it is appropriate to use the expression “MI sensor innovation.” Commercialization of the new MPS would have a significant impact on society. More specifically, amongst a range of information and communications technology-based autonomous driving technologies that still leave slight feelings of anxiety, MPS demonstrates performance that makes it an absolutely reliable autonomous driving technology. This means that it has demonstrated the social credibility of autonomous driving technologies, which is a basis for social change, and it is giving momentum to science and technology overall and autonomous driving technologies in particular.

Next, MI sensor innovation will be used as an experimental innovation model to summarize lessons for taking on the challenge of the cloud-like colossus of science and technology innovation.

MI sensor innovation had its inception in 1993 in the discovery of the magnetic impedance phenomena of amorphous wire in this author’s research lab at Nagoya University. Immediately after discovering these new phenomena, the author filed a patent application through the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). This is the method used by Professor Isamu Akasaki, a fellow professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, who was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of blue LEDs. The patent rights obtained there became the basic industrial property rights for MI sensor innovation. After theorization of the new phenomena discovery, it was decided to publish the findings via a global conference, which is customary among university researchers. Hence, the author presented magnetic impedance phenomena at RQ8 in Sendai in 1993, where it caught the attention of people like Professor F. B. Humphrey, an IEEE Magnetics Society Fellow. Research into magnetic impedance phenomena then spread globally after the author presented a Special Session on Magneto-Impedance at INTERMAG ’94, an IEEE international magnetics conference held in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the U.S. The author was awarded an IEEE Fellowship in 1995.

As the background to this, the world was undergoing deregulation of the telecommunications industry (1985 in Japan) and there was a rapid escalation in cellular phone use, which led to increasing expectations for science and technology to deliver electronic compasses as a part of new information services. As a result, there was demand from society for sensitive micromagnetic sensors for geomagnetic detection. The newly discovered magnetic impedance phenomena were able to directly respond to these social demands.

Ensuring originality of research is the most important point to note here. The greater the demands from society, the more intense the international competition becomes for the discoverer of new phenomena to meet that demand. The author was able to break through this competition thanks to the international patent application system and patent rights granting system at JST, and thanks to the hard work of the people in charge. Collaboration had already begun between academia and government in Japan, and that was due to the excellence of government bodies in Japan. Tohoku University’s Professor Tsuyoshi Masumoto, leader of amorphous wire development in 1981, was also in charge at RQ8. Perhaps due to the strong potential for a national policy project, a representative from JST met the author immediately after the RQ8 conference to confirm details of a Special Session on Magneto-Impedance at INTERMAG ’94 and to propose conditional research support. The condition was that, based on the magnetic impedance phenomena discovery, sensitive micromagnetic sensors (that are easy for companies to develop) be invented. As a professor of a national university, the author was badly conflicted. In other words, the discovery of the new phenomena was a considerable academic achievement, attracting many invitations to speak internationally and requests for papers from academic journals. After worrying about issues such as development for the purpose of commercialization being the job of companies, which is out of the scope of academic freedom and autonomy, the author realized that personal conflict was a small issue against what this had become. Therefore, work was begun on inventing sensitive micromagnetic sensors under the guidance of Professor Kousuke Harada (now Professor Emeritus of Kyushu University), a specialist in magnetic electronic circuits. As a result, the Amorphous Wire CMOS IC Magneto-Impedance Sensors, or MI sensors, were invented in 1997. Luckily, a graduate student who loved electronic circuits was also attached to the lab. In 1998, analog switches were used to improve temperature stability and a prototype of MI sensors capable of integrated circuit production was created.

In response, JST held a High Tech Consortium on New Technology Deployment Trial Systems at Nagoya University in 1998 with participation by seven companies. One of those companies was Aichi Steel, which began development of amorphous wire magnetic impedance elements (MI elements) between 1999 and 2002 under JST’s Commissioned Development System, and received certification of successful development. As a result, the company was able to cross the Valley of Death with the commercialization of electronic compasses for cellular phones and for smartphones. With the addition of Rohm Co., Ltd. in 2014, the electronic compass business expanded to production at two companies. To date, a total of 140 million MI sensors have been sold. Further enhancements to the electronic compass production technologies have led to the development of the new MPS mentioned above.