Known as the “City of Trees” for its abundant greenery, Sendai is more than just one of the largest cities in Japan. Located just an hour from Tokyo by train in the northern Tōhoku region, and capital of the Miyagi Prefecture, Sendai is a city rich in history and culture, dating back over four centuries. The stone walls of 17th-century Aoba Castle remain, but today’s Sendai is a modern center of technology, education, commerce, and tourism. The area is known for excellence in materials science and physics, because nearby is Tōhoku University, which has produced world-class research results.
Sendai is the home of one of our six innovation centers, focusing on core materials, like magnet, dust, and metal, all of which are used in high quality electronic components, particularly magnetics, sensors, and actuators. The employees of Sendai are known for their craftsmanship. The facility is home to about 100 employees who work in Research & Development of Advanced Materials, and Equipment Technology. Additionally, there is a focus on the manufacture of electronic components which includes Material Product Engineering, Quality Assurance, and Facility Maintenance.
The innovations and technologies created in Sendai are central to applications such as fuel regulation, power regulation, IoT, and filtering. Sendai specializes in technologies in the industrial fuel regulation space, meaning their parts and processes control the fuel used to power industrial manufacturing. Every electronic device needs power to function, and the ability to transfer the right amount of power to the right place in your electronic device is called power regulation. Filtering refers to noise filtering, reducing noise interference to keep electronics running as smoothly as possible. Our engineers in Sendai work on making those processes more efficient and useful to electronic component designers. As devices become smaller and more powerful and connected to each other, the Internet of Things is an important market. Finally, the people of Sendai were integral to the development of our new METCOM inductor line.
In 2018, our Sendai facility celebrated their 80-year anniversary. The photo above shows employees posed for the 80th anniversary celebration. As KEMET celebrates its 100th year, we are impressed by the creativity, fortitude, and strength of our colleagues in Sendai.