Japan in 2010 accounted for 35 percent–or $11 billion worth–of the $31.5 billion global market for automotive infotainment electronics, iSuppli says. On top of that, Japan is responsible for about one-third–$7.3 billion–of the $23 billion market for chips used in cars overall. Aside from chips, Japanese companies produce LCD panels and optical sensors used to make in-car systems.

ISuppli says Renesas Electronics, Texas Instruments, Freescale Semiconductor and Fujitsu, all of which supply components to the auto industry, have all been affected by shipping problems and difficulty in obtaining raw materials. The problems could last weeks or months.

Problems like this aren’t just hitting infotainment systems. As The Wall Street Journal reported today, shortages of a single electronic part made by Hitachi Automotive that measures airflow in car engines have forced companies like General Motors, Toyota and PSA Peugeot-Citroën to cut their output at auto plants in the U.S. and Europe. The plant that makes the component is located to the north of Tokyo and has been shut down. Hitachi makes about 60 percent of the world’s supply for this type of part. The Journal said Toyota on Wednesday warned employees to expect a production halt at some plants in the U.S. and Canada.

Meanwhile, Japanese automakers have stopped production at several plants in order to conserve electricity following the loss of generating power from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. There has been a 10 percent reduction in electrical capacity, iSuppli says. Additionally, companies like BMW, Volkswagen, Continental and Bosch have removed their expatriate employees from Japan.

Separately, Dow Jones reported yesterday that ZTE Corp., a Chinese maker of networking gear, is suffering quake-related supply problems. A company exec said it expects the problems to last as long as six months.

Take for example the attention today on lithium ion batteries used in notebook PCs. Demand right now is not terribly high–it’s a time of the year when consumers are buying fewer PCs–but consider what happens if the crisis persists. As Taiwan’s Digitimes observes, a good bit of the world’s production ecosystem for lithium ion batteries used in notebooks are not only located in Japan, but many are in areas affected by the quake or within the evacuation radius of the troubled nuclear power plant there.

Sony, which makes notebook batteries, and Hitachi, which makes a key battery part called an anode, both operate plants in the disaster area, and both have been shut down for the time being, according to a research report from Pranab Kumar Sarmah at Daiwa Securities in Hong Kong. Numerous other companies that make battery parts also operate in the disaster area, and most of them are affected.

What about the iPad? I just heard from Wayne Lam, an analyst at iSuppli, the research firm that tore down the iPad 2 the other day. He tells me markings on the iPad 2′s three-cell battery pack include a label that reads “assembled in China.” However, he says that applies only to the finished battery pack. A closer look at the markings reveal a reference to “Apple Japan.” He thinks that’s sufficient proof the battery cells came from Japan. “Typically, battery cells are made at the site of assembly but since this Li-Ion Polymer battery is unusually thin, it may be the case that it requires battery cell manufacturing technologies that Japan has.”

Then there’s the LCD display market. LCD manufacturing is an extremely precise process, one that doesn’t take kindly to the power shortages and rolling blackouts caused by the loss of generating capacity at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Typically, Japan derives about a third of its power capacity from nuclear power, and this plant constituted a big portion of that. Again, it’s Sony and Hitachi plants located in areas affected by the disaster. Between them, the two companies produce 90 percent of the world’s supply of Anisotropic Conductive Film, an interconnect material that’s widely used in LCD panels.

Another key part in LCD displays–a color polarizer–is made by Fuji Film. Dale Ford, another iSuppli analyst, said earlier this week there have been indications that supplies of these have been impacted, which will drive prices up, which will in turn be reflected in the final price consumers pay for their TVs and monitors. Something tells me the lingering effects of this disaster are going to trouble the tech economy for some time to come, especially if the state of Japan’s power grid remains uncertain.

Rambus, whose nominal specialty is designing ways for chips to pass data back and forth but which is better known for more than a decade of bitter legal battles, earlier this month filed a complaint with the ITC, saying that products from several companies contained chips that infringe on its patents.

As anyone who’s been paying attention to the numerous patent battles around smartphones knows, the ITC is generally seen as a fast track to a settlement of a patent dispute. Since federal courts are slow and litigation is expensive, companies often go to the ITC ostensibly to block the import of products found to infringe on patents. Since practically every technology product is built outside the U.S., sales of an infringing product can be subject to an exclusion order, the usual outcome when a violation is found.

What’s interesting is the wide range of companies that Rambus has named in its complaint: Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, Nvidia, Broadcom, Seagate, Motorola, Garmin, Asus and Hitachi are among the better known ones. The full list contains 34 companies, including some subsidiaries.

Some of the patents involved in this complaint were the subject of a prior case that Rambus took to the ITC against Nvidia. The commission ruled the patents–known as the Barth family of patents–were valid and issued an exclusion order, prompting Nvidia to come to the table and sign a licensing agreement in August. Rambus is obviously looking for a similar outcome from Broadcom and Freescale, which it says are among those now infringing on the Barth patents.

Additionally there’s another set of patents known as the Dally family, which Rambus didn’t invent but to which it holds a license. The patents are owned by MIT and are based on the work of Bill Dally, a former MIT professor of electrical engineering who’s now at Stanford University. The patents had been licensed exclusively to a small private firm called Velio Communications, where Dally had been CTO and which was acquired by the chip maker LSI Logic in March of 2004.

In a twist that could happen only in the strange world that is patent law, Rambus acquired the exclusive license to Velio’s serial interface patents–the Dally family–in a separate deal in the waning months of 2003. The irony is that LSI is among those being sued for infringing on the Dally patents. Some M&A lawyers at LSI must be kicking themselves today.

By combining Hitachi’s technological expertise in lithium-ion batteries with Johnson Control’s strong auto maker client-base and mass production infrastructure, the partnership will benefit both firms, a Hitachi spokeswoman said.
Tokyo-based Hitachi makes everything from consumer electronics to nuclear power plants and railway systems. Johnson Controls, based in Milwaukee, is a leading supplier of conventional lead-acid car batteries.

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I haven’t seen much information from journalists or the major PC manufacturers about the new USB 3 option. I know just a few manufacturers have it as an option with their PC. When will it be mainstream?

A:

USB 3.0 is a new, much faster version of USB that promises to transfer data up to 10 times as rapidly as the current USB ports (called USB 2.0) and to provide more electrical power to run connected devices. It’s also backwards-compatible with USB 2.0, so you don’t have to throw out your current USB peripherals. The new system should be especially helpful in cases where you are transferring large amounts of data, such as backing up computers to USB-connected hard disks.

Many computer and peripheral makers are planning to build USB 3.0 into their products, and a few have already done so, sometimes including only one USB 3.0 port while retaining a couple of the older-type ports. I expect to see even more computers and peripherals with USB 3.0 by the holiday shopping season. But it may not be “mainstream”—common on most new devices—until sometime next year.

Q:

I’m unsure how syncing works. Is there a danger, when two devices are synced, that an older version of a file might overwrite a later version?

A:

It depends on the sync software you’re using. Some syncing or backup programs do overwrite an older copy of a file with a newer one. Others, like the Hitachi system I reviewed last week, keep multiple copies, or versions, of a file that changes, so you can retrieve an older version, even after it’s been altered. If you’re concerned about this issue, make sure the sync or backup service or software you choose supports retaining enough multiple versions of a file to meet your needs.

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Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com