Tokuyama bolsters photoresist developer manufacturing facilities

Tokuyama announced to bolster facilities for the manufacture of tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH), a photoresist developer.

The plan is in place to construct manufacturing facilities for TMAH within the site of Tokuyama Factory's plant with the start of commercial operations scheduled for April 2020. In this instance, Tokuyama will lift its production capacity for TMAH by 50%.

AGC acquires electronics business of US-based Park Electrochemical

AGC announced that the AGC entered into a share purchase agreement with US-based Park Electrochemical Corp. (Park) to acquire the electronics business of Park for a consideration of about 16 billion yen (the Transaction).

Park, established in 1954, develops and manufactures CCL (Copper Clad Laminate) which is a type of printed circuit board in one of its two main businesses, electronics segment. Park has supplied these materials principally to the telecommunications, network infrastructure and automotive industries worldwide from its manufacturing facilities in the US, Singapore and France.

Through the Transaction to combine the fluorine and glass materials products of AGC with the products, technologies and know-how of Park, AGC believes it can satisfy the needs of customers more effectively in the high-end CCL market, where demand is expected to grow rapidly and technological innovations are required in line with the advent of the IoT/AI age and the spread of 5G and automated driving.

Sony Releases the World's Smallest Full HD Reflective TFT-LCD Device, and a Dedicated Signal Processing Drive LSI

Sony announced the upcoming release of the SXRD (Silicon X-Tal (crystal) Reflective Display) SXRD241A, the world's smallest reflective display device in full HD resolution designed for portable projectors, and the CXD3554GG, a dedicated drive LSI equipped with a high-definition signal processing function. Sample price
is 12,000 yen. Sony will mass-produce these products at August, 2018.

The SXRD241A utilizes Sony's original fine pixel pitch technology to reduce the pixel pitch, resulting in full HD resolution on a 0.37-type chip. Generally, when narrowing the pixel pitch, image quality deteriorates due to light leakage into the semiconductor element under the pixel electrode, but Sony added light shielding layers and optimized the pixel structure to achieve significantly improved light shielding function. Sony also employed a new Field-sequential color technique that sequentially switches the RGB light sources at high speed and drives SXRD241A at the appropriate time to deliver full color display on a single panel.

Sumikin Chemical and Nippon Steel & Sumikin Materials change the trade name of new company

Sumikin Chemical and Nippon Steel & Sumikin Materials announced that the trade name of new company are changed to NIPPON STEEL Chemical & Material, regarding the business merger of the both companies on October 1st, 2018.