History
The history of MERL is a story of separate labs with separate histories coming together into an organization that has become much more than the sum of its parts.
In 1984 Mitsubishi Electric's computer business unit founded a laboratory in Waltham, MA, called Horizon Research Inc. (HRI). HRI was created to design IBM compatible computers, which Mitsubishi Electric then produced and sold. However, in the late 80's Mitsubishi Electric decided to withdraw from this business. In the ensuing years, Horizon transformed itself into a software-oriented laboratory working with multiple parts of Mitsubishi Electric. In consonance with this, HRI left the computer business unit and became part of Mitsubishi Electric's Corporate R&D unit (CR&D) in the early 90s.
In 1991 Mitsubishi Electric's Corporate R&D organization founded a research laboratory in Cambridge, MA, called Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL). The charter of this lab was to do fundamental research in computer science with the goal of leading Mitsubishi Electric into the future with innovative new technologies.
In 1993 Mitsubishi Electric's audio/visual business unit founded a laboratory in Princeton, NJ, called the Advanced Television Laboratory (ATL). ATL was created to develop a chip set capable of decoding US HDTV signals. ATL worked on this in close collaboration with Bell Labs and Mitsubishi Electric's semiconductor business unit. After a couple of years, ATL moved to Murray Hill, NJ, to be closer to Bell Labs. In the mid-90s as the chip set was being completed, ATL began to branch out into other digital video technologies and digital communications in general. In addition, ATL created a satellite operation in Sunnyvale, CA, focusing on digital broadcasting and home networking. As these changes were going on, ATL was transferred from its original parent business unit to CR&D.
In 1995 CR&D created a new US entity called Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America (MEITCA or more simply ITA) in order to gather CR&D's various labs in the US together into a single entity. HRI was incorporated into ITA becoming the Horizon Systems Lab (ITA/HSL). ATL was incorporated into ITA becoming ITA/ATL. The following year MERL was incorporated into ITA as well, becoming ITA/MERL.
The ITA that resulted in 1996 had a great deal of promise. By combining advanced development and basic research into a single organization, ITA made it easier for technological advances to be perfected and transferred into Mitsubishi Electric business. Further, by combining expertise from a wide range of areas and experience with a wide range of Mitsubishi Electric business units into a single organization, ITA was in a good position to understand a wide range of technical trends, market needs and Mitsubishi Electric business opportunities.
However, like any organization created by the combination of pre-existing parts, ITA faced many obstacles blocking the realization of its full potential. In particular, the natural momentum was for ITA/HSL, ITA/ATL and ITA/MERL to continue operating separately following their own goals and agendas with collaboration being the exception rather than the rule. This fundamental problem was significantly aggravated by the geographic separation of the labs.
The first inter-lab collaborations within ITA were between HSL and MERL. These led to the creation of a new engineering group in ITA, the Volume graphics Organization (ITA/VGO), with the charter of designing a real time volume graphics-rendering chip that could be hosted on a PC plug-in board. VGO was based on research carried out at ITA/MERL and began as a project within ITA/HSL before growing so large that it was made a separate laboratory within ITA in 1998. From its inception through 1998 ITA/VGO shared space with ITA/MERL and interacted closely with ITA/MERL researchers. However in 1999 ITA/VGO moved to separate quarters in Concord, MA, as sales of its first product were beginning.
The technical success of VGO notwithstanding, ITA in 1999 was a fragmented organization with some 115 people divided between 5 locations: VGO in Concord, MA, HSL in Waltham, MA, MERL in Cambridge MA, ATL in Murray Hill, NJ, and an ATL branch in Sunnyvale, CA, - making intra-ITA collaboration difficult. The overwhelming impression was of an organization with many small parts that was at best only slightly more effective than the sum of those parts. However in late 1999 the tide began to turn toward the unified and invigorated US research operation that exists today.
The first wave of change involved three steps. The ATL branch facility in Sunnyvale was closed and the people moved to NJ. The HSL building in Waltham was closed and the people moved to the Cambridge building. Finally, to provide a symbol of greater unification, ITA was renamed Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) - Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America never having been a very satisfactory name. The individual labs were given geographic names replacing the names they had previously operated under: ATL became the MERL Murray Hill Lab (MERL/MHL), HSL became the MERL Cambridge Systems Lab (MERL/CSL), the lab originally in cambrige became the MERL Cambridge research Lab (MERL/CRL) and VGO became MERL/Concord. In 2001, MERL/Concord left MERL and was sold to an outside company called TerraRecon. This left a more streamlined MERL with people in Just two locations: Cambridge and Murray Hill.
Having CSL and CRL in the same building led to greatly increased collaboration between the two labs and was a great success. In 2003 it was decided to take the final logical step of geographic consolidation by closing the building in NJ and moving these people to the Cambridge building as well. In the interest of greater collaboration and greater management efficiency, the two advanced development labs MHL and CSL were merged into a single new lab called the MERL Technology Lab (MERL/MTL). In analogy with this name CRL was renamed the MERL Research Lab (MRL).
As expected, the co-location of everyone in Cambridge lead to greater and greater collaboration between MERL researchers. The goal was for fundamental long term research to work together seamlessly with advanced development to support the rapid discovery of new ideas and their incorporation into Mitsubishi Electric products. By 2007, great progress had been made toward that goal and it was judged that one of the few remaining barriers to its full achievement was the artificial division of MERL into two labs. As a result, MERL was reorganized as a single lab (MERL) with five main groups organized along technology lines.
Like all real histories, the story above is convoluted with many twists and turns coming almost full circle---with what was once one lab in Cambridge again becoming one lab in Cambridge. However, through all this runs a steady thread of Mitsubishi Electric's strong commitment to research and advanced development in the US. Now that everybody is in one place in one lab where they can work together to the greatest advantage, the stage is set for maximum research progress to be made and for Mitsubishi Electric to reap maximum advantage from this progress.
