page_title: NEC
section_title: 1980 to 2000
hierarchical_section_title: NEC / History / 1980 to 2000
caption_attribution_description: English: A NEC Versa 6O1OH notebook computer.
context_page_description: NEC Corporation is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics company, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, AI, IoT platform, and 5G network, to business enterprises, communications services providers and to government agencies, and has also been the biggest PC vendor in Japan since the 1980s, when it launched the PC-8000 series.
  NEC was the world's fourth largest PC manufacturer by 1990. Its semiconductors business unit was the world's largest semiconductor company by annual revenue from 1985 to 1992, the second largest in 1995, one of the top three in 2000, and one of the top 10 in 2006. NEC spun off its semiconductor business to Renesas Electronics and Elpida Memory. Once a Japan's major electronics company, NEC has largely withdrawn from manufacturing since the beginning of the 21st century.
  NEC was #463 on the 2017 Fortune 500 list. NEC is a member of the Sumitomo Group.
context_section_description: In 1980, NEC created the first digital signal processor, the NEC µPD7710. NEC Semiconductors (UK) Ltd. was established in 1981, producing VLSIs and LSIs. NEC introduced the 8-bit PC-8800 series personal computer in 1981, followed by the 16-bit PC-9800 series in 1982. In 1983 NEC stock was listed on the Basel, Geneva, and Zurich, Switzerland exchanges. NEC quickly became the dominant leader of the Japanese PC industry, holding 80% market share. NEC changed its English company name to NEC Corporation the same year. NEC Information Systems, Inc. started manufacturing computers and related products in the United States in 1984. NEC also released the V-series processor the same year. In 1986, NEC delivered its SX-2 supercomputer to the Houston Advanced Research Center, The Woodlands, Texas. In the same year, the NEAX61 digital switching system went into service. In 1987, NEC Technologies (UK) Ltd. was established in the United Kingdom to manufacture VCRs, printers, and computer monitors and mobile telephones for Europe. Also that year, NEC licensed technology from Hudson Soft, a video game manufacturer, to create a video game console called the PC-Engine (later released in 1989 as the TurboGrafx-16 in the North American market). Its successor, the PC-FX, was released in Japan in 1994. While the PC-Engine achieved a considerable following, it has been said that NEC held a much stronger influence on the video game industry through its role as a leading semiconductor manufacturer than through any of its direct video game products. NEC USA, Inc. was established in 1989 as a holding company for North American operations.
  In 1983, NEC Brasil (pt), the Brazilian subsidiary of NEC, was forced to nationalize its corporate stock under orders of the Brazilian military government, whereby shareholder control of NEC Brasil was ceded to the private equity group Brasilinvest of Brazilian investment banker Mário Garnero. Since NEC Brasil's foundation in 1968, it had become the major supplier of telecommunications equipment to the Brazilian government. In 1986, the then Minister of Communications Antônio Carlos Magalhães put NEC Brasil in financial difficulties by suspending all government contract payments to the company, whose main client was the federal government. With the subsidiary in crisis, the NEC Corporation in Japan sold NEC Brasil to Organizações Globo for only one million US dollars (US$1,000,000). Shortly thereafter, Magalhães resumed the government contracts and corresponding payments, and NEC Brazil became valued at over 350 million US dollars (US$350,000,000). Suspicions regarding the NEC-Globo deal, which included among other things the unilateral breach of contract by Globo founder Roberto Marinho regarding the management of a regional television station in the Brazilian state of Bahia, took to the national stage only in 1992 during the first corruption charges against the impeached Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello. Organizações Globo subsequently sold their shares in NEC Brazil, which hit their all-time high during the state monopoly years, back to NEC Corporation in 1999 following the break-up and privatization of the Brazilian state-owned telephone monopoly Telebrás.
  In 1990, the new head office building, known as the "Super Tower", was completed in Shiba, Tokyo. Additionally, joint-venture agreements were established to manufacture and market digital electronic switching systems and LSIs in China. In 1993 NEC's asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching system, the NEAX61 (Nippon Electronic Automatic Exchange) ATM Service Node, went into service in the United States. NEC Europe, Ltd. was established as a holding company for European operations the same year. The NEC C&C Research Laboratories, NEC Europe, Ltd. were opened in Germany in 1994. NEC (China) Co, Ltd. was established as a holding company for Chinese operations in 1996. In 1997 NEC developed 4Gbit DRAM, and their semiconductor group was honored with one of the first Japan Quality Awards. In 1998, NEC opened the world's most advanced semiconductor R&
caption: A NEC Versa 6O1OH from ~1995-1996.
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