SDK Establishes a Subsidiary to Sell High-purity Gases for Electronics in USA

Showa Denko (SDK) announced to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary, “Showa Chemicals of America.”(SCA), in Austin, Texas, aiming to strengthen its sale of high-purity gases for electronics in the U.S.

Until now, SDK has been marketing high-purity gases through Showa Denko America, which is SDK’s wholly-owned subsidiary headquartered in New York. This time, SDK established SCA in order to further expand its high-purity gas business in the U.S., strengthen relationship between SDK and major semiconductor manufacturers in the U.S., and gather information about state-of-the-art semiconductor-processing technologies. SCA is scheduled to start its operation in October 2017.

Mitsui Mining & Smelting Increase in Production Capacity of Electro-deposited Copper Foil for High-Frequency Circuit Boards

Mitsui Mining & Smelting announced to increase monthly production of its VSP copper foil for high-frequency circuit boards to 275 tons.

The company will partially upgrade the existing production line and expand electro-deposited cells at its Taiwan plant to increase the monthly production capacity from 175 to 275 tons. These facilities will sequentially come online from April 2018.

Mitsui Mining & Smelting Boosting Production Capacity for Electro-deposited Copper Foil for FPCs

Mitsui Mining & Smelting announced that it has decided to increase production capacity of electro-deposited copper foil for flexible printed circuits (FPC) by 20％ on a year-on-year basis.

The company will revamp two idle surface treatment production lines at the Malaysian plant (Mitsui Copper Foil (Malaysia)), to commence operation sequentially from August 2017.

Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Construction of Two New Plants for Super-pure Hydrogen Peroxide in North America

Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company announced to build two new plants for MGC Pure Chemicals America (MPCA), a consolidated subsidiary producing and distributing super-pure hydrogen peroxide. In the future, the new production sites for this chemical compound used in semiconductor manufacturing processes will also operate in the U.S.States of Oregon and Texas.

Total investment is more than $US 60 million. Production capacity of both plants is 35,000 t/year. Both plants will be operated in 2019.

Asahi Glass Launches Mass Production of Glass Substrate for LGPs

Asahi (AGC) Glass announced that will launch mass production of XCV, a glass substrate for television LGPs (Light guide plate) with the world's top light transmittance performance. AGC will supply customers such as LG Display, which is the world's largest manufacturer of liquid crystal panels.

Idemitsu and LG Chem Signed Collaborative Relationship in OLED Material Business

Idemitsu Kosan and LG Chem concluded a collaboration agreement that allows each party to use the other party's OLED material-related patents in certain areas.

Through this cooperative arrangement, both companies will strongly support the OLED business of LG Display. Also, both companies will offer the outcome of this collaboration to other display companies.