news archive
Corning
Announces Gen 6 LCD Substrates
Corning, New
York, June 26 - Corning Incorporated today announced the
world's first and only commercially available
thin-film-transistor-grade Generation 6 glass substrates for
active-matrix liquid-crystal displays (AMLCDs). Initial
production will be from Corning's facility in Shizuoka,
Japan facility. The company says the Shizuoka Gen 6 plant is
the first of several planned investments in Gen 6 substrate
production.
The sheets of
Gen 6 glass measure approximately 1500x1800 mm, and are 0.7
mm thick, or less. They are offered in both of Corning's
proprietary fusion-formed glass compositions, Corning 1737
and EAGLE2000™.
Corning is
the leading supplier of Gen 5 glass substrates used in the
production of LCD monitors, notebook computers, and LCD
televisions. Gen 6 glass has 90 percent more display area
per substrate than Gen 5, which was introduced in 2002.
Together with Gen 5, this new generation of substrates
advances the industry toward lower-cost. Two of the world's
top LCD manufacturers have announced that they will open new
Gen 6 LCD fabricating facilities during the coming year.
Sharp Corporation in Japan will ramp up the industry's first
Gen 6 LCD fab starting in the second half of this year,
followed soon after by LG.Philips LCD in Korea. Several
other manufacturers have announced that they will open Gen 6
fabs in Asia by 2005.
To meet the
increasing demand for LCD glass, Corning is adding
manufacturing capacity in 2003 in Taiwan, Japan, and the
United States. Taiwan's LCD industry has more than doubled
in production volume over last year, making it one of the
fastest-growing markets for large LCD glass substrates
worldwide.
Corning is
already developing Gen 7 size - approximately six feet by
seven feet - glass substrates for its customers.
Information: www.corning.com.
Richard
Friend Knighted
Cambridge,
UK, June 16 - Richard Friend, Plastic Logic Limited founder
and Chief Scientist has been knighted for services to
physics. The award was announced in the Queen's Birthday
Honours list.
Friend has
been Cavendish Professor of Physics at the University of
Cambridge since 1995. He co-founded Plastic Logic in
December 2000 to commercialize science for printing
electronics that he had invented in the Cavendish Laboratory
with colleagues Henning Sirringhaus and Takeo Kawase. While
admitting that the news of the knighthood took him somewhat
by surprise, Friend said he was, "delighted with the
award. This is good recognition for physics, a field in
which the UK has a very high standing."
Stuart Evans,
Plastic Logic CEO, said "everyone at Plastic Logic is
very pleased for Richard. This is recognition of a highly
distinguished career during which he has made striking
contributions to physics. More than any other person, he is
responsible for the UK's world leadership position in
plastic electronics."
Friend, aged
50, pioneered the physics and engineering of semiconductor
devices made with carbon-based semiconductors. He has shown
that semiconducting polymers can be processed to form
high-performing semiconductor devices, and was the first to
demonstrate a variety of semiconducting devices made from
them. Friend is also one of the principal investigators in
the new Cambridge-based Interdisciplinary Research
Collaboration (IRC) on Nanotechnology. Chief Scientist and
co-founder of both Plastic Logic Limited and Cambridge
Display Technology (CDT). He has over 600 publications and
more than 20 patents, and he has been the recipient of many
awards, including the 2002 Royal Academy of Engineering
Silver Medal for his outstanding personal contribution to
British engineering.
Plastic Logic
is a spinout from the University of Cambridge and is
privately held. With over 40 employees, it is headquartered
in state-of-the-art clean room, labs and office on the
Cambridge Science Park.
Information: www.plasticlogic.com.
ADI's
JPEG2000 IC Powers NHK Encoder/Decoder Board
Norwood,
Massachusetts, June 12 - Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) today
announced that NHK, the national Japanese broadcast company,
has incorporated ADI's JPEG2000 image compression chip into
its latest HiVision high-definition-television (HDTV)
advance. This May, NHK Science & Technical Research
Laboratories (STRL) announced the development of the world's
first single, real-time encoder/decoder board based on the
JPEG2000 standard, enabled by ADI's JPEG2000 chip.
The board
compresses Hi-Vision HDTV signals into the JPEG2000 format
and allows broadcasters to simultaneously handle signals
required by different media, such as TVs, PDAs, and cell
phones. Traditional JPEG2000 encoder/decoder systems for
HiVision HDTV signals divide an HDTV picture into small
sub-images, using 5/3 wavelet transforms, and are housed in
large-form-factor equipment. Providing JPEG2000
functionality in ICs housed in a small 12 mm x 12 mm
package, ADI has enabled STRL to develop a system that
employs features of the JPEG2000 standard efficiently. As an
example, by using 9/7 wavelet transform technology in the
JPEG2000 standard, the ICs are able to process an HDTV
picture as a single tile without the need to break it into
smaller parts to process. The ICs sit on a single PC
expansion board, which significantly reduces the space
required for the system.
ADI is the
first company to have developed an IC dedicated to the
JPEG2000 standard, a company statement said. The company's
solutions allow the extraction, compression, and
transmission of video images at varying resolutions without
further signal processing and using half the amount of
memory required by the original JPEG standard.
The JPEG2000
standard, which was established as an international standard
in January 2001, is a still-image compression standard based
on wavelet transforms. The wavelet transform is a technology
that processes two-dimensional filtering and sub-sampling
(pixel decimation) in hierarchical and multi-step
combinations. Unlike MPEG4, JPEG2000 does not require the
payment of a patent license fee.
ADI's ADV202
is an image codec IC supporting the JPEG2000 standard,
capable of real-time compression and decompression of
high-resolution moving and still digital images. With a
flexible interface, the ADV202 can be used with multiple
types of video- and still-image formats, and comes in a
compact 12mm x 12mm BGA package. The ADV202 will be sampling
in July and will be in full production at the end of 2003.
Information: www.analog.com/ADV202.
ADS Earns
ISO 9001:2000 Certification
Columbia,
Maryland, June 10 - Applied Data Systems (ADS), the designer
and manufacturer of embedded single-board computers,
announced today that it has received ISO 9001:2000
certification through the certification body Det Norske
Veritas (DNV). The certification includes all design
activities.
This new
version of the ISO quality standard places a greater
emphasis on top-management involvement in the quality
system. The compliance audit now examines the extent to
which a company's quality system contains customer-focused
elements, including understanding needs, meeting
requirements, keeping customers informed, and measuring
satisfaction.0
ADS embedded
computer systems are used in manufacturing, industrial,
medical and retail applications. Their embedded systems
often interface with other technology such as global
positioning systems (GPS) and are increasingly part of
mobile, wireless, and internet-enabled applications. The
company has been a leading provider of single-board computer
technology for the embedded systems market since 1984.
Information: www.applieddata.net.
Sharp
Starts Producing "System LCDs" Four Months Early
Camas, Wash.
May 30 - Sharp Corporation will start production of
"System LCDs" at its Mie Plant No. 3, beginning in
June, 2003 - four months ahead of schedule. The early
start-up of this production line represents a significant
boost in production capacity, and will enable the company to
maintain a consistent supply of these next-generation
devices, the company said. Sharp went on to say that the
demand for these displays for use in mobile products is
robust, fueled by the strengthening trend toward higher
display resolutions combined with greater functionality.
The core
technology on which System LCDs are based is CG-Silicon, a
material having properties close to those of single-crystal
silicon. The technology allows peripheral circuitry and
other necessary functional components to be integrated onto
the same glass substrate as the display itself, enabling
dramatic reductions in the surface area required for parts
mounting and in the number of externally mounted components
compared to existing approaches, the company said.
Super-high-resolution displays are possible, delivering
realistic, life-like reproductions remarkably faithful to
the originals.
This Mie No.
3 Plant was initially scheduled to begin production in
October of this year, but in response to the rapid migration
toward higher resolutions of LCD displays embedded in mobile
equipment, the need for additional production capacity
became more urgent and the planned start of operations was
moved up by four months. Sharp's Tenri Plant began
production of System LCDs in October of last year. The Tenri
plant has a production capacity of 2.5 million 2-inch units
per month; the new Mie plant will have a capacity of 4
milion units per month. The mother glass at the Tenri plant
is 620x750 mm; at the Mie plant it is 730x920 mm.
Information: www.sharpsma.com.
DisplaySearch
and Westar Announce Panel Procurement Evaluation
Service
Austin, Texas
and St. Louis, Missouri, June 2 - Market research firm
DisplaySearch and test & measurement equipment maker
Westar Display Technologies have teamed to provide
electrooptical test data and custom reports for helping in
panel selection and OEM procurement engineering processes.
The two companies are offering a new panel evaluation
service, available to OEMs, which rapidly produces test
results and streamlines the selection of panels for new or
existing products.
The ability
to quickly and accurately measure panel performance is
increasingly important as volumes increase, and as more
product and more product choices become available in the
market. OEMs must assess a greater number of ODM panels to
select first- and second-tier suppliers consistent with the
highest possible end-product quality. To do this, OEMs need
objective comparative data to make the most informed buying
decisions. OEMs and suppliers can benefit from common
qualification test procedures and panel measurement
standards or criteria to reduce "specification
management" practices that add time, cause confusion in
qualification, and have led to avoidable differences in
interpreting testing results.
The Panel
Procurement Evaluation Service provides OEMs with quick and
accurate comparisons of panel performance or products from
any number of suppliers, avoiding "specmanship,"
saving time and money, and minimizing the complexity of
external coordinations, said an announcement from the two
companies. "This service gives OEMs a huge advantage by
providing apples-to-apples comparative data in a simple to
review format," said Rob Topping, President of Westar.
Information: Kendra
Smith at DisplaySearch. Tel: (512) 459-3126, email kendra@displaysearch.com,
www.displaysearch.com.
