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Hitachi Introduces Copyright Protection Technology MagicGateTM

of Memory StickTM

Tokyo, June 3, 2002---Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE:6501)today announced that Hitachi has been licensed MagicGate, a copyright protection technology of Memory Stick from Sony Corporation (TSE:6758). As a result of this agreement, Hitachi will be able to manufacture system LSIs for MagicGate compliant application products. As the first product, the SH-Mobile (SuperH Mobile Application Processor) will be developed. Volume production will begin from March 2003. As growing digital technology, small memory cards have spread as a network media among digital application products. That makes it possible to handle digital contents easily. With spreading network-delivered digital music services, copyright protection becomes a significant issue. Therefor the market of the small memory cards which are compliant with copyright protection has been expanding. Mobile phone systems of recent years go beyond simply talk function, and have multifunction with e-mail and Internet browser functions installed. In order to run those systems, system LSI has to provide high performance. System development would become complex and development time would increase causing difficulty in timely introduction of products in the market. To counter this problem, Hitachi has developed SH-Mobile, 32 bit RISC microcomputer, that allows high speed processing of multimedia applications. By licensing MagicGate technology IP, Hitachi provides wide solutions such as SuperH family, H8S series for MagicGate compliant application products, in addition to SH-Mobile to be manufactured from March 2003. Memory Stick : Unlike other flash memory cards, Memory Stick was designed to record, transfer and share various types of digital content, such as still and moving images, music, voice, and computer data and applications. With the wide range of compatible products available today, Memory Stick makes it easy to create your own personal network to connect products, content and people. SH-Mobile : This is a processor that processes the multimedia applications such as audio and moving pictures for 2.5G/3G mobile phones. For the CPU core, it has SH3-DSP ,with a DSP function for multimedia portable devices, of the 32 bit RISC microcomputer SuperH family. In addition, peripheral functions and interfaces are provided that are necessary to the various multimedia applications.   MagicGate and Memory Stick are trademarks of Sony Corporation.   SuperH is a trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. About Hitachi Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company, with approximately 320,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2001(ended March 31, 2002) consolidated sales totaled 7,994 billion yen ($60.1 billion).The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors, including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's Web site at http://global.hitachi.com.

WRITTEN BY Corporate Communications Division