Category Archives: Touch Technologies

December 29, 2011 — While mobile phone applications are the main driver for capacitive touch display adoption, the 2012 release of touch-optimized Windows 8 will bring PC growth as well. A new manufacturing process, sensor-on-cover, should see rapid growth, shows NPD DisplaySearch, and other new techniques are lowering fab costs.

Also read: Diverse touchscreen technologies drive industry transition

Mobile phone adoption is bringing projected capacitive touch displays into the mainstream, according to NPD DisplaySearch’s Touch Panel Market Analysis December update. In 2011, 566 million projected capacitive touch screens will ship for mobile phone applications.  

Sensor-on-cover, also called one-glass solution or touch on lens, is fabricated with on-cover lens finishing and a new indium tin oxide (ITO) patterning process. Wintek, Cando, and others have adopted sensor-on-cover touch screens, noted Jennifer Colegrove, PhD, VP of emerging display technologies for NPD DisplaySearch. Sensor-on-cover displays boast a thinner structure and lighter weight than traditional touchsceens. The approach is expected to "grow rapidly in 2012," Colegrove said. In-cell and on-cell touch from display panel makers will challenge sensor-on-cover from touch module makers starting in 2012, so touch makers have to quickly improve their yield rates.

An additional touchscreen boost in 2012 could come from the PCs sector, including tablets, notebooks, and all-in-ones, with the release of touch-optimized Windows 8.

Touch technology opens opportunities for optical imaging and infrared touch-on-screen sizes greater than 30", serving educational markets, NPD DisplaySearch predicts. Turkey and China are plan to build multi-media teaching systems using touch technology, for example.
 
Although resistive touch has lost share to capacitive, it has found a new commercial application in automotive monitors. Because automotive design cycles are long, they limit the near-term impact of this adoption area.

Some film-based touch module makers use low-temperature (~140

December 27, 2011 – BUSINESS WIRE — Kyocera Corporation (NYSE:KYO, TOKYO:6971) completed a share transfer agreement with three investment funds operated by Japan Industrial Partners, Inc. to acquire all shares of Optrex Corporation, a specialized liquid crystal display (LCDs) manufacturer, to further strengthen and expand its LCD and touchscreen panel businesses.

Effective February 1, 2012, Optrex will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kyocera Corporation.

Kyocera’s Corporate Thin Film Components Group develops, manufactures and markets small- and medium-sized LCDs for industrial applications worldwide. The company’s business structure is designed to handle custom orders and respond to customer needs, manufacturing a wide range of products in small volumes, as well as larger ones.

OPTREX Corporation was founded in 1976 and is based at Arakawa-ku, Tokyo, Japan. The company president is Shinichi Inagaki. Optrex reports a capital of JPY4,075 million and employs 6,476 people in its manufacturing plants (Japan, China, and Thailand) and sales offices (Japan, China, Singapore, US, Germany).

Optrex manufactures LCDs for automotive application, with a customer base in Japan and internationally. Demand for LCDs used in industrial equipment and automotive applications is expected to steadily increase, Kyocera notes.

Kyocera expects that the acquisition will allow the company to further enhance the product lines of both its conventional industrial equipment applications and newly acquired automotive applications.

Since 2010, Kyocera has been expanding its capacitive touchscreen panel business, targeting thinness, strength and waterproof functionality for use in smartphones. Capacitive touchscreen panels are increasingly used in high-value-added products such as smartphones and tablet computers, forecast for high growth in the coming years. Optrex also possesses excellent production technology for touchscreen panels, thus by effectively combining both companies’ product technologies and operating resources including customer bases, Kyocera also expects to further enhance and expand its touchscreen panel business.
     
Kyocera Corporation (NYSE:KYO, TOKYO:6971), the parent and global headquarters of the Kyocera Group, was founded in 1959 as a producer of fine ceramics. By combining these engineered materials with metals and plastics, and integrating them with other technologies, Kyocera has become a leading supplier of electronic components, telecommunications equipment, printers, copiers, solar power generating systems, semiconductor packages, cutting tools and industrial ceramics. For more information about Kyocera LCDs & Touchscreen Panels: http://global.kyocera.com/prdct/ios/lcd/index.html.

Visit our new Displays Manufacturing Channel on ElectroIQ.com!

December 20, 2011 — Displays for pure-play e-book readers will see 108% increase in shipments in 2011 (27.1 million units), a strong year leading into slower growth ahead, with 37% growth forecast for 2012, and declining shipments forecast in 2015. E-reader suppliers will consider new ways to attract consumers in the near future, according to an IHS iSuppli Small & Medium Displays Market Tracker report.

Figure. Global e-book reader display market forecast.
SOURCE: IHS iSuppli, December 2011.

The vast majority of e-reader displays are monochrome. These products compete with color-display tablets, like Apple Inc.’s iPad, and the slower growth in e-readers from 2012 on will prompt many device makers to adopt color displays, says Vinita Jakhanwal, senior manager for small and medium displays at IHS, and to focus on vertical markets, such as education.

Alternatives to the e-book reader display standard — electrophoretic displays (EPD) — include a color display technology based on micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS). The mainstream example is known as Mirasol, from Qualcomm Inc.

Also read: Qualcomm MEMS display launched in Korean e-readers

Mirasol competes with EPD on common characteristics — wide viewing angle, readability in sunlight, low power consumption — and beats EPD with full color displays and fast response speeds. Kyobo ebook readers can hold a power charge for weeks, based on 30 minutes of reading per day on the device, according to the launch announcement.

Color e-reader displays fall behind monochromatic devices in cost. The Mirasol-based Kyobo costs 349,000 Korean won, (USD319), exceeding the price tags of many tablet devices, and nearly quadrupling the monochromatic Amazon Kindle ebook reader (USD79). Large volumes for color e-readers, as well as an aggressive consumer-focused strategy, could bring costs down, IHS predicts. However, given today’s limited manufacturing capacity and associated higher costs for producing the color display, this is a large challenge for alternatives to monochromatic displays.

e-readers could differentiate from media tablets with growth in vertical markets, where a single use case is preferable to the diverse functionality and features of a media tablet, IHS reports. Current e-reader features, like light weight and a battery life lasting weeks on a single charge, are attractive in these use cases, thought IHS notes that no companies have yet pursued this strategy.

Access IHS iSuppli’s report, Tablet PCs and Smartphones Buoy Demand in the Small/Medium Displays Market, at http://www.isuppli.com/Display-Materials-and-Systems/Pages/Tablet-PCs-and-Smartphones-Buoy-Demand-In-the-Small-Medium-Displays-Market.aspx

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December 9, 2011 — Printed electronics materials and equipment suppliers, as well as academics and industry, were honored with annual awards at the IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA 2011 in Santa Clara, CA.

Also read: Printed Electronics 2011: Chips, inks, tissue boxes, and apps in between

Judging panel: Professor Malcolm Keif, California Polytechnic State University Prof Yang Yang, UCLA – University of California, Los Angeles Joshua Windmiller, University of California, San Diego

Best Technical Development Manufacturing Award – Coatema
Coatema’s Smartcoater is a roll-to-roll (R2R) lab unit with a working width starting at 100mm and a wide range of coating applications and production speed. Complex products can be produced with a minimum use of substrate and chemistry. The base unit offers a 5-in-1 coating module including slot die, knife, dipping, micro-roller and engraved roller application functions. There is no need to purchase individual modules for each of these applications. In addition other modules are being added rapidly including: screen printing; flexo printing; UV spraying and others necessary for producing all layers of a product.

Best Technical Development Materials Award – Opalux Inc.
Opalux develops active photonic crystal materials addressed by stimuli such as pressure, heat, shear and chemical activation to effect a color change. Photonic Ink (P-Ink) — the award-winning material — is electrically tuned to reflect any desired spectral color and can also be tuned to provide UV and IR reflection. Activation at voltages of less than 1.5V and microampere currents gives bright, highly saturated and bistable color states that can be switched at high speeds. The power and current requirements are compatible with standard consumer electronics devices.

Academic R&D Award – Stevens Institute of Technology and US Army ARDEC
A team of researchers from Stevens Institute of Technology and US Army ARDEC have been exploring the evaporative assembly of graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets during inkjet printing, as a transformative means of producing 2D and 3D graphene micropatterns for a variety of flexible electronics applications. The ability of producing graphene oxide supercapacitor electrodes by inkjet printing and subsequent thermal reduction was demonstrated by the researchers. This approach provides a scalable manufacturing platform to fabricate economically viable supercapacitor electrodes particularly for miniaturized flexible supercapacitor applications.   

Best Product Development Award – Vorbeck and MWV
Vorbeck and MeadWestvaco (MWV) won this award for the new anti-theft retail package product. Vorbeck’s Vor-ink has provided the enabling technology for the development of the MWV package product. This new printed graphene ink technology, called Siren, is part of MWV’s Natralock product line, and will be on store shelves at major retailers including Home Depot in early 2012.

Best Commercialization Award – Peratech
Peratech is the inventor of Quantum Tunnelling Composite (QTC) technology. QTC’s are electro-active polymeric materials made from metallic or non-metallic filler particles combined in an elastomeric binder. These enable the action of ‘touch’ to be translated into an electrical reaction, enabling a vast array of devices to incorporate very thin and highly robust ‘sensing’ of touch and pressure.  QTC’s unique properties enable it to be made into force sensitive switches of any shape or size.  QTC switches and switch matrices can be screen printed allowing for development and integration of switches that are as thin as 75um. Peratech uses IP licensing to commercialize the technology, researching and tailoring it for a customer, then licensing the solution along with supplying the required form of QTC. The first major successes are two license deals worth several million dollars.

Exhibitor awards also went to Novacentrix and PST Sensors (voted by attendees). Printed Electronics USA attendees also named the best poster, created by Stéphanie Dupont, PhD Candidate Materials Sc&Eng., Stanford University.

The next IDTechEx Printed Electronics awards will be held at the European event, in Berlin, Germany on 3-4 April 2012. For more details see www.IDTechEx.com/peEUROPE.

November 22, 2011 – PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall — ChipMOS TECHNOLOGIES (Bermuda) LTD. (Nasdaq:IMOS) subsidiary ThaiLin Semiconductor Corp. will take on dedicated semiconductor testing capacity for a new long-term service agreement with its client Asahi Kasei Microdevices Corporation (AKM).

Under the new agreement, AKM will consign to ThaiLin certain sets of mixed-signal tester equipment, which ThaiLin will use as dedicated capacity to test AKM devices. This will allow ThaiLin to provide a critical testing facility without capex investment, noted S.J. Cheng, Chairman and CEO of ChipMOS.

The companies have worked together since 1999.

Hideki Kobori, president of Asahi Kasei Microdevices Corporation, commented that the new agreement follows AKM’s geographic diversification strategy following Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami off Sendai. AKM is fortifying its supply chain with a long-term partner, ensuring quality control, Kobori said.

The new business will give ChipMOS access to wafer level chip scale packaging (WLCSP) technology, which helps it penetrate the smartphone/tablet device manufacturing market, said Cheng. ChipMOS also is building its LCD driver business for this end-use sector.

Asahi Kasei Microdevices Corporation (AKM) is the core operating company for all electronics devices operations of the Asahi Kasei Group. AKM provides mixed-signal ICs for consumer, automotive, and communication applications as well as magnetic sensors. Learn more at www.asahi-kasei.co.jp/akm/en/.

ChipMOS is an independent provider of semiconductor testing and assembly services to customers in Taiwan, Japan, and the U.S. Learn more at www.chipmos.com.

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November 21, 2011 — In an IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis, IHS found that Amazon is using previously unknown Jorjin and Ilitek for its WLAN module and touchscreen controller IC, respectively, in the new Kindle Fire media tablet. Other teardown findings? TI is all over the new product, and a Kindle Fire costs more than its price.

Amazon

October 28, 2011 — UniPixel Inc. (NASDAQ:UNXL) expanded its design and sampling program for UniBoss transparent conductive film technology and products. OEMs and display and touch panel manufacturers can now evaluate the films, which UNXL calls high-performance, low-cost alternatives to ITO transparent conductors.

UniPixel introduced UniBoss at the SID conference in May 2010 then improved the technology further, engaging in evaluations with several major electronics makers. UniBoss roll-to-roll process prints conductive copper traces on thin film with trace widths down to ~5um. The product acheives conductivity levels of .012ohm/sq. compared to 100-400ohm/sq. of ITO and competing alternatives. It also offers better environmental stability, flexibility, and reliability, according to UniPixel.

Companies can submit their touch-sensor designs to the UniPixel Engineering Team, working together to evaluate UniBoss against ITOs and other ITO replacement alternatives. UniPixel has signed a non-disclosure and material transfer agreement with 10 companies that have submitted requests for design and sampling of UniBoss enabled touch sensor solutions. "We have sampled four of the companies thus far," said Killion. "We are working with Japanese, Korean, Taiwan and U.S.-based OEM, Display Panel and Touch Panel module electronic manufacturers. Some of these companies are also sampling our Diamond Guard protective cover glass replacement solution."

UniPixel delivers Performance Engineered Films to the Lighting, Display and Flexible Electronics markets. UniPixel’s high-volume roll-to-roll or continuous flow manufacturing process offers high-fidelity replication of advanced micro-optic structures and surface characteristics over large areas. A key focus for UniPixel is developing electronic conductive films for use in electronic sensors for consumer and industrial applications. For further information, visit www.unipixel.com.

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October 7, 2011 – Marketwire — IBM Research has emerged as the winner in the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) sponsored Global Nano Innovation Contest. IBM Research presented its graphene nanoelectronics: wafer-scale single atomic layer carbon RF devices and circuits.

IBM applied the nano material graphene to the RF amplifier, targeting the high-frequency telecommunication electronic products market. IBM also received honorable mention for its graphene and carbon nanotube (CNT) transparent touch panel electrodes.

Also read: IBM builds IC with graphene transistor

The University of Waterloo won the second prize with its nanosensors for X-ray radiation dosimetry in a wireless network and NASA won the third prize with a nano chemical sensor in a cell phone. Bangor University also won Honorable Mention with 3D nano-structures for organic solar cells, and National Tsing Hua University won Honorable Mention with an intelligent poisonous-gas purifier.

ITRI hopes to inspire the researchers across the world and the advanced industries to pay attention to innovative applications and development of nanotechnology through sponsoring the Global Nano Innovation Contest, an international competition for realizing nanotechnology prototype product applications.

Finalists in the contest must bring their research ideas into quasi-commodity products protected by patent in the shortest period of 8 months. For more information, go to POP NANO 2011 http://www.popnano.itri.org.tw/eng/index.aspx

Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is a nonprofit R&D organization engaging in applied research and technical services. Visit www.itri.org.tw/eng.

September 29, 2011 — Berliner Glas and system elektronik will share their glass processing, bonding, display, and touchscreen technologies to develop OEM human machine interface (HMI) assemblies. The team will investigate new methods for optical bonding of viewing panes and touchscreens.

Recent optical bonding advances in touchscreen HMIs include new screens from the consumer space that enable better visualization and operating technology on capital equipment and instrumentation. This includes multi-touch and gesture recognition as well as exceptional visibility under bright light conditions. Front panels made entirely of glass allow hygienic surfaces for medical and clinical applications. Advanced technologies and manufacturing methods improve touchscreen robustness and readability without increasing energy usage. These improvements make touchscreen use possible in harsh industrial environments.

system elektronik and Berliner Glas will develop these products by sharing technical knowledge, supplier networks, manufacturing conditions including a clean room environment. The initial projects will start a collaboration that will "go far beyond the current decade," according to the companies.

In the first stage diagonals from 4.3" to a maximum of 32" are to be offered for industrial automation, medical technology, automotive, and POS/POI HMI display applications. Berliner Glas believes there are opportunities to achieve decisive competitive advantages for the optical bonding of premium flat screen displays in the television market sets as well.

The Berliner Glas Group provides refined technical glass and optical components, assemblies, and systems. Berliner Glas develops, manufactures, and integrates optics, mechanics, and electronics into innovative systems for the semiconductor industry, medical technology, metrology, laser and space technology, analytics, defense, or the display industry. Learn more at www.berlinerglas.de

system elektronik GmbH creates HMI assemblies and automotive industry products. Learn more at www.systemelektronik.de.

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