Even though Sony Corp has shut down six plants in northeastern Japan after Friday’s earthquake and tsunami, supplies of digital camera and image sensor components will remain stable, the Taiwan unit of the Tokyo-based company said yesterday.
The six suspended plants in Miyagi Prefecture and Fukushima Prefecture do not produce components for digital cameras, nor do they make charge-coupled devices, a high-speed semiconductor used chiefly in image detection, said Sophie Tsai (蔡宜凌), a spokeswoman for Sony Taiwan.
Taiwan can rest assured that supplies of digital camera and image sensor parts will remain stable, Tsai said.
Among the six quake-hit factories, the four located in Miyagi Prefecture produce mainly IC cards, Blu-ray discs and magnetic tape, while two other factories in Fukushima Prefecture make lithium-ion rechargeable batteries.
The Blu-ray disc and magnetic tape factory in Tagajo City, Miyagi Prefecture, suffered the worst damage. The ground floor of the entire building is still flooded and Sony officials do not foresee the factory becoming operational in the short term.
Meanwhile, production lines at the Japanese optical disk maker Taiyo Yuden Co Ltd in Fukushima Prefecture have also been shut down because of the earthquake, the Japan Recording--Media Industries Association said earlier yesterday.
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