Konica Minolta and Pioneer Establish a Joint Venture for OLED Lighting

Konica Minolta and Pioneer announced that the companies entered into an agreement to establish a joint venture for Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) lighting business to accelerate launching business for OLED lighting through integration of their strengths.

The joint venture (Konica Minolta Pioneer OLED, Inc.) will be established in May, 2017 by equal investment. Its capital is 490 million yen.

Mitsubishi Chemical and Pioneer dissolve business alliance of OLED lighting

Mitsubishi Chemical and Pioneer announced to dissolve business alliance of OLED lighting business. With respect to this matter, Pioneer announced to do business with Konica Minolta in OLED lighting business.

Hitachi Chemical raises a price of copper clad laminates, prepreg, and shield plate

Hitachi Chemical announced to raise a price of copper clad laminates, prepreg, and shield plate from February 1st by 15 ％, 5 ％, 8 ％ respectively.

TI releases 0.33-inch full-HD DLP Pico chipset for 1080p display

Texas Instruments (TI) announced its DLP Pico 0.33-inch full-HD chipset. With the 0.33-inch chipset, developers can create a myriad of compact, portable display applications, such as mobile smart TVs, battery-operated pico projectors, smart home projection displays, signage and industrial solutions.

Japan Display developed flexible 5.5-inch full-HD TFT-LCD by adopting plastic substrate

Japan Display (JDI) announced the development of FULL ACTIVETM FLEX, which uses a plastic substrate for both sides of the liquid crystal layer, and its introduction into a 5.5-inch Full-HD LCD display for smartphone devices. JDI is planning to start mass production of this display in 2018.

With FULL ACTIVETM FLEX it is easily possible to form curved shapes by utilizing its flexibility, and thus it will greatly help to expand the degrees of freedom in smartphone design. Furthermore, by incorporating low-frequency driving technology, which JDI has developed in the past, this FULL ACTIVETM FLEX supports not only a normal 60Hz driving scheme but also supports a driving scheme as low as 15Hz. This contributes to a significant decrease of power consumption for mobile devices.

Japan Display starts to mass-produce an advanced 5-inch LTPS-TFT-LCD with wide quad-HD

Japan Display (JDI) announced the mass production start of an advanced 5-inch class low temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) LCD module with wide quad-HD resolution format (WQHD, 1440×2560 pixels).

In this newly-advanced LTPS module, JDI has reduced LCD panel power consumption in this high resolution WQHD format. In conventional LCD modules, display flicker at low refresh frequency (30Hz) has been a problem. JDI has solved this problem in this new module by adopting new materials. With these improved materials, LCD driving frequency can be changed from 60Hz to 30Hz depending on the display image signal without affecting the image quality, and correspondingly the panel power consumption may be reduced, too.

In addition, this LCD module is JDI's proprietary 2nd-generation Pixel Eyes which has thinner borders, a deeper black level, and can even operate with wet fingers.

Shirai Electronics Industrial builds a new factory of PCB in Yasu City

Shirai Electronics Industrial announced to build a new factory of PCB on Mikami factory property (Yasu City, Shiga Prefecture).

Total floor area of the new factory is approximately 3500 m². In the factory, PCB for car electronics will be mass-produced. Investment amount is 1.57 billion yen. The factory will be completed in January, 2018.

Idemitsu Kosan establishes an OLED materials development company in Switzerland

Idemitsu Kosan has announced plans to establish, in January 2017, an OLED materials development company “Idemitsu OLED Materials Europe AG” in Switzerland.

Idemitsu and BASF Schweiz AG have been sharing OLED technology for some time. Idemitsu has decided to establish the new company in Basel-Stadt by hiring the OLED researchers from BASF.

By the way, Idemitsu already has an Electronic Materials Development Center located in the city of Sodegaura, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. The new company’s facility in Basel-Stadt will be Idemitsu's second R&D facility in the OLED field. Capital of the new company is 2 million Swiss francs (approximately 230 million yen).

Japan Display commences mass production of LTPS-TFT-LCD at Hakusan Plant

Japan Display announced the commencement of mass production at its newly-constructed low temperature poly-silicon LCD line in its Hakusan Plant, located in Hakusan City, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan.

The line, with leading-edge production equipment, uses 6th generation (Gen 6) glass substrates (1500 x 1850mm) and will produce high-performance and high-quality displays for high-end mobile device models. Capacity is 25,000 sheets per month. As a result, total panel production capacity is increased by approximately 20%.

NBC Meshtec develops a mesh-cloth for fine screen-printing using Toray's original yarn

NBC Meshtec announced to develop a mesh-cloth “V-SCREEN NEXT“ for fine screen-printing using Toray's high function original yarn.

In V-SCREEN NEXT, diameter of original yarn is miniaturized to 20 μm. It's possible to print at high accuracy, high durability, and fine resolution by making use of properties of liquid polymer and fine resolution of mesh-cloth.

Tosoh develops a new conductive polymer material

Tosoh announced to develop a new conductive polymer material “TS-CP90 (code-name)”.

It's a self-doping type conductive polymer. It has highest conductivity same as 200 S/cm. The company supplies this aqueous solution because of superior workability and durability.