Sony 2003 Annual Report Download - page 48

Sony Corporation Annual Report 200346
R&D Expenditures
During the year under review, R&D expenditures in-
creased 9.9 billion yen, or 2.3% , to 443.1 billion yen
and the ratio of R&D expenditures to sales (excluding
Financial Services revenue) rose from 6.1% to 6.4% .
Major elements of the expenditures w ere 380.3 billion
yen in the Electronics segment (a 0.8% decrease year
on year) and 61.5 billion yen in the Game segment (a
27.4% increase year on year). Of the R&D expenditures
in the Electronics segment, approximately 66% were for
product prototype development while the remaining
34% were for new , mid- to long-term technologies in
the semiconductor, communications and display fields.
R&D expenditures in the Game segment increased
primarily in the semiconductor and hardware fields.
During the three-year period ending M arch 31,
2006, Sony plans to spend approximately 500 billion
yen for R&D (excluding R&D for product prototypes) in
fields such as key devices so as to enhance the com-
petitiveness of products.
R&D Organization
Individual business units are responsible for projects
requiring rapid commercialization while strategic
themes are the responsibility of laboratories under
headquarters’ control. From the fiscal year ending
March 31, 2004, Sony has added to this structure by
establishing a Platform Technology Center and formu-
lating a new system for comprehensive control of
activities extending from architecture to operating
systems and middleware to chipsets.
Sony has twelve research centers, each responsible
for a specific application, as well as the Institute for
Environmental Research, all of w hich are under head-
quarters’ control. Sony Computer Science Laboratories,
Inc. and Sony-Kihara Research Center, Inc. operate as
independent legal entities.
Headquarters Research Laboratories
■Content & Applications Laboratory (content related
application technology)
■Broadband Applications Laboratories (networking
related application technology)
■Networked CE Development Laboratories (consumer
application technology)
■Ubiquitous Technology Laboratories (communications
and security technology)
■Storage Technology Laboratories (storage technology)
■Display Technology Laboratories (display technology)
■Materials Laboratory (material and device technology)
■Sony Corporate Laboratories Europe (various fields)
■A3 Research Center (signal processing technology)
■Intelligent Dynamics Laboratory (robotics)
■Fusion Domain Laboratory (advanced convergence
technology)
■Material Science Laboratory (fundamental material
and device technology)
■Institute for Environmental Research
Independent Research Laboratories
■Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.
■Sony-Kihara Research Center, Inc.