Mannerisms

Ono, a former process engineer, made a great success of Fujitsu’s chip business by concentrating on developing 90nm, 65nm and 45nm processes which had unusually low leakage. This prompted companies like Lattice to put money up-front into new fabs at Fujitsu in return for wafers.

Then Ono went off to do corporate work and the running of Fujitsu’s chip business was handed to a guy with an EDA background, Kunihiko Wada.

The word on the Tokyo street was that there was a de-focussing on process technology, and that the company was generally seen as late in choosing materials and process options for next generation processes.

So getting customers to put up money for new fabs was no longer seen as a viable way to go.

Then it was decided to spin off Fujitsu’s semiconductor operation as a separate unit, and Ono was brought in to head up the chip division while this was done.

Now, it seems, Ono has resigned both as president of the semiconductor business and from Fujitsu altogether.

Unless he's had an unrefusable job offer from elsewhere, Ono's resignation suggests that he very fundamentally disagrees with something about the execution of the spin-off, but what it is, no one is saying. For the moment