TOSHIBA-MATERIALS
20.7.2022 06:07:10 CEST | Business Wire | Press release
Toshiba Materials Co., Ltd. (President: Katsuaki Aoki) today announced a major investment in a new manufacturing facility for silicon nitride balls on the same site as its headquarters in Yokohama, Japan. The project has a budget of over 5-billion yen (approx. US$38 million) and is expected to see production start in November 2023. It will increase capacity by 50% against fiscal year 2021.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220719006169/en/
Continued advances in automobile electrification requires solutions that go beyond higher voltage batteries and shorter charging times. One measure to reduce costs and improve performance is the integration of motors and inverters. Although this increases risk of electrolytic corrosion[1] in motor bearings[2] , the problem can be overcome with hybrid bearings, which replace standard steel balls with ceramic balls with steel inner and outer races. Advantages of high reliability, excellent strength and superior wear resistance are increasingly positioning ceramic balls as the solution of choice.
Toshiba Group has long recognized the potential of fine ceramic products, and won basic patents for silicon nitride compounds as early as 1974. Today, Toshiba Materials, spun off from Toshiba in October 2003, continues to advance R&D and manufacturing of silicon nitride balls, recognized for their reliability and for delivering the highest mechanical performance of any silicon balls. Its experience and record of success in bearing balls that meet demands for high speed rotation and anti-electrolytic corrosion, including machine tools, wind power generators and rolling stock, have won the company about 50% of the world market[3] . With significant increases in demand for bearings for electric vehicles on the horizon, Toshiba Materials has now decided to make this significant investment in increasing capacity.
The new production facility will be built on the company’s headquarters site, where an old building, no longer in use, will be demolished to make way for it. The new facility should be seen as the first phase of expansion, and Toshiba Materials is already considering further expansions to meet future demand growth.
Toshiba Materials will continue stable supply of high quality products, and will contribute to increased use of environmentally friendly electric vehicles.
Features of silicon nitride balls
- Low density: less than half the weight of a steel ball of the same size
- High heat resistance
- Resistant to electrolytic corrosion, as it is an insulator
- Resistant to corrosion and rust caused by acids and alkalis
- A non-magnetic material, not easily affected by a strong magnetic field
1 Electrolytic corrosion: damage to a bearing caused by a current flowing through it.
2 Bearing: A part that allows a shaft to rotate smoothly in a machine. Formed with an inner race, balls, and outer race.
3 Toshiba Materials’ investigation, July 2022
Toshiba Materials Co., Ltd. (http://www.toshiba-tmat.co.jp/en/ ) was spun off from Toshiba Corporation in 2003. With material designing technology as its core capacity, Toshiba Materials supplies materials and components essential for society’s development. Main products include metallic materials, components, fine ceramics parts and chemical materials. In the year ended March 31, 2021, net sales totaled 24.3 billion yen (approx. USD 210 million).
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220719006169/en/
Link:
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Philip Morris International’s Moira Gilchrist Positions Human Judgment as a Critical Leadership Advantage Amid Rapid AI Adoption at Wall Street Journal Forum8.5.2026 10:00:00 CEST | Press release
PMI’s Chief Global Communications Officer says companies that safeguard human judgment will gain a competitive edge as AI automates routine knowledge work Philip Morris International’s (PMI) (NYSE:PM) Chief Global Communications Officer, Moira Gilchrist, joined global thought leaders at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything conference in New York to examine why human cognition—judgment, context, creativity, and ethical reasoning—is becoming the most valuable asset in an age of artificial intelligence. “The AI boom is putting a premium on distinctly human capabilities,” said Gilchrist, who took part in the session “Cognition: The New Currency – Why Human Judgment Matters More Than Ever.” Speaking to attendees, she emphasized that, “As knowledge is getting democratized, human judgment, intuition, and creativity become the true differentiators that leaders need to nurture across all levels of their organizations.” Philip Morris International is today a different company, built wi
Fortegra Appoints Iwan Röpcke as Chief Executive Officer, Belgium8.5.2026 09:30:00 CEST | Press release
The Fortegra Group, Inc., a global specialty insurer, today announced the appointment of Iwan Röpcke as Chief Executive Officer, Belgium. Mr. Röpcke brings more than 25 years of insurance industry experience to the role, spanning broking, commercial leadership, and executive management across the Benelux and broader European markets. He joins Fortegra from Lloyd’s Insurance Company S.A., where he served as Country Manager for Belgium and the Netherlands, building out the operation from its early stages and overseeing both business strategy and development. Prior to Lloyd's, Mr. Röpcke held senior leadership positions at Willis Towers Watson (via Gras Savoye), where he served as Head of Sales and Head of the Competence Center. His career also includes roles at Inter Partner Assistance (AXA Assistance) as Commercial Director Benelux, Winterthur Europe Assurances, AIG Europe, Aon Belgium, and Marsh. Mr. Röpcke’s industry expertise spans a range of specialty risk areas, with deep relations
KAYTUS Launches All-QLC Flash Storage at AI EXPO 2026 for 10,000-GPU Clusters8.5.2026 09:02:00 CEST | Press release
KAYTUS’s next-generation all-QLC flash solution delivers fully linear performance scaling for massive GPU clusters, while reducing TCO by 70%, enabling ultra-large-scale computing for the era of agentic AI. At AI EXPO KOREA 2026, KAYTUS officially launched its All-QLC Flash Storage Solution, engineered to deliver high performance, massive scalability, and cost efficiency for 10,000-GPU clusters. The solution addresses data-delivery bottlenecks in ultra-large-scale AI training, helping maximize GPU resource utilization. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260508313130/en/ Based on the KR2280 and KR1180 server platforms, the solution is deeply integrated with industry-leading AI-native parallel file systems to eliminate data silos inherent in traditional tiered storage. Purpose-built for read-intensive AI workloads, it overcomes the horizontal scaling limitations of massive clusters. Verified test-data shows that, a
Beneq Appoints Dr. Jason Harrison as Chief Executive Officer8.5.2026 09:00:00 CEST | Press release
Semiconductor industry leader takes the helm to accelerate Beneq’s next phase of growth in atomic layer deposition Beneq Oy, the home of atomic layer deposition (ALD), today announced the appointment of Dr. Jason Harrison as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Harrison succeeds Dr. Tommi Vainio and will lead Beneq into its next phase of growth across semiconductor, optical, and emerging technology markets. A Strategic Leadership Transition Beneq enters its next phase of growth from a position of strong commercial momentum. Recent milestones include the qualification of the Beneq Transform® cluster tool for volume production of GaN power and RF filter devices; the introduction of Beneq Transmute™ and Beneq Transform® XP, both engineered for high-volume manufacturing (HVM) of specialty semiconductors; growing adoption of the P-Series for coating critical chamber parts in advanced node devices; and selection of the C2R™ for AR waveguide production in next-generation XR optics. Against this backd
World Employment Confederation’s 59th Annual Conference to Address Critical Global Labour Market Concerns8.5.2026 07:12:00 CEST | Press release
Senior leaders from policy, business and international institutions are set to discuss critical labour market concerns at the World Employment Confederation’s Annual Conference, during an era of global transformation and disruption never-before-seen. Taking place on 12-13 May in Toronto and entitled ‘Grow With Talent’, this year’s World Employment Conference – co-organised with ACSESS – arrives at a time of profound economic uncertainty. This gathering of leaders and experts will help define the path forward for the global labour market and set the stage for discussions at the 114th Session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) in June. Bettina Schaller, President of World Employment Confederation (WEC) says: “The question at the heart of this year’s World Employment Conference is: how will we mobilise the world’s talent to drive growth in an era of disruption?At a time of accelerating AI adoption, rapid demographic change and an uncertain global economic outlook, pressure on la
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom