New Products

Mitsubishi Electric Corp. will start offering a set of samples—LCD panel, touch panel, and a graphics board—from July. With the in-house-developed GUI Designer, Mitsubishi claims users can develop a touch panel display with a multi-touch graphical user interface function for roughly half the cost and in half the time compared with conventional technology. Mitsubishi intends to start mass producing the LCD module in the first quarter of next year and to promote it mainly to small and mid-scale manufacturers that want to enrich their products with high-level graphical user interfaces but have limited development resources.

Rohm Co., Ltd., which became the first Asian promoter in the EnOcean Alliance last October, has started offering products supplied by EnOcean GmbH, championing the energy-harvesting wireless communication technology in Japan.

4K or so-called UHD (ultra high definition) TVs, which have 3840 (4K) x 2160 (2K) pixel resolution, four times the resolution of current HD TVs with 1920(2K)x1080(1K) pixels, seem to be in pole position for inclusion in next-generation TVs. Targeting 4K TVs, Thine Electronics, Inc., which is promoting the V-by-One video interface standard, has added the THCV226, a video data transmission receiver chip optimized for 4K TV implementation, to its V-by-One HS product line up. The new chip alone handles video data that required two of the company's conventional THCV216 interface chips.

Rohm Co., Ltd. has developed a system power management IC (PMIC) through collaboration with Intel's Mobile and Communication Group to support Intel's Atom-based processor, codenamed Bay Trail, which is the American company's strategic processor designed primarily for tablets.

NEC Corp. has developed an Ultrabook with a 15.3-inch display, the LaVie X, whose thickness of just 12.8mm is less than that of any previous Ultrabook, by mounting all major components on one side of a board and using low-profile components of less than 3.5mm and two fans 5mm in height.

Toshiba will soon start offering a sample of a 13 megapixel back-side illuminated (BSI) CMOS image sensor for smartphones and tablets, which features the industry's smallest pixel size of 1.12x1.12 microns. Introducing its proprietary color noise reduction circuit, the sensor achieved a high S/N ratio equivalent to that of sensors with 1.4-micron pixels, according to Toshiba.

Sharp will introduce a 32-inch LCD monitor with 4K2K resolution, which features a thickness of 3.5cm—the thinnest among 30-inch and larger 4K2K displays, which was achieved by the company's IGZO (indium, gallium, zinc oxide) technology, according to Sharp. The display will be first introduced in Japan next February, with an overseas rollout under consideration.

Panasonic Corp. has developed microcontrollers that it claims incorporate the industry's first embedded resistive random-access memory (ReRAM) and will start offering an evaluation kit for the 8-bit microcontrollers with ReRAM within this month.

NGK Insulators, Ltd. announced it has developed a gallium nitride (GaN) single-crystal wafer featuring luminous efficiency twice that of current LEDs by using a crystal growth method from the liquid phase. The company started sampling 2-inch wafers last December and plans to begin offering 4-inch samples within this year.

Ulvac Inc. has developed new processes that allow direct deposition of solder on the backside electrodes of power devices, eliminating an Au deposition process previously necessary to prevent the electrode from oxidizing and to improve soldering. The new processes make it possible to process all layers formed on the backside electrode by sputtering.

Panasonic Corp. will start taking orders for a home-use system integrating a lithium-ion battery unit and the Power Station, which controls both electricity generated by photovoltaic cells and that supplied by the storage unit, from March 21 in Japan. This is the opening shot in a new product category inspired by Panasonic's drive to become a "Green Innovation Company" by 2018, its centennial. Though this system is for the domestic market, Panasonic wants to take its green theme overseas by offering green products attuned to local markets worldwide.

Diversifying from TV applications, which are suffering sharp price erosion, Sharp is reinforcing non-TV applications for its LCD business. It will introduce an 80-inch interactive white board in Japan this month, followed by a U.S. launch next month and subsequent introductions in other markets.

Sharp Corp. has developed the industry's thinnest 12-megapixel CMOS camera module with optical image stabilization for smartphones. The company has started shipping the sample of the RJ63YC100 module and plans to begin mass production in January.

Elpida Memory, Inc. announced it has completed the development of 4-Gbit mobile DRAM with a wide IO interface and will begin shipment of the sample fabricated on a 30nm process in December. As its second wide IO product, Elpida plans to add a four-chip stacked wide IO 16-Gbit DRAM using TSV technology. Sampling will begin next spring and mass production is planned within the year.

Elpida Memory, Inc. announced it has completed the development of 4-Gbit mobile DRAM with a wide IO interface and will begin shipment of the sample fabricated on a 30nm process in December. As its second wide IO product, Elpida plans to add a four-chip stacked wide IO 16-Gbit DRAM using TSV technology. Sampling will begin next spring and mass production is planned within the year.

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. has tied up with NTT Docomo Inc., Japan's largest mobile carrier, for 3G connectivity for the PS Vita, its new portable game terminal that will hit stores in Japan on Dec. 17, before the overseas roll-out early next year.

NTT Docomo, Inc. has announced two tablets supporting data communication through the LTE (Long Term Evolution) network, following its launch of the Xi (pronounced "crossy") service last December, Japan's first LTE service. The two tablets—one is the Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE SC-01D supplied by Samsung and the other is the Arrows Tab LTE F-01D from Fujitsu—will be introduced in Japan next month.

Sharp Corp. has announced a new LCD TV series that features a lightweight display and a separate tuner with a wireless transmitter. The company claims the lightweight, thin display with wireless transmission liberates the TV in terms of layout and usage style. Hang it on the wall, carry it around and place it on a table, in the kitchen, or on the floor—whatever feels good.

Sanken Electric Co. Ltd. has started sampling of switching power supply ICs whose no-load power consumption is 10mW, claimed to be the industry's lowest for this class, compared with 25mW for its conventional products.

Ubiquitous Corp., a ten-year-old Tokyo-based venture, has developed a prototype smart tap named iRemoTap, and intends to promote it together with an energy management platform to visualize power consumption.

The possibility of power shortages in Japan this summer is prompting Toshiba Corp. to introduce a 19-inch "peak-shift" TV equipped with a lithium-ion battery pack in early July, which can switch from AC power supply to battery power at the push of a button and run on battery power for three hours, or for four hours in power-saving mode. With this TV, the idea is to stop consuming electricity from the grid during periods of peak power demand and charge the battery during off-peak periods.

While various tablet and smartphone prototypes were showcased last week at the 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, NEC Corp. announced in Tokyo a keyboard-equipped Android PC targeting intermediate demand between smartphones and PCs. Despite retro styling that may suit the Japanese market at which this model is exclusively aimed, NEC envisages establishing a new "cloud communicator" category of machines under the LifeTouch series name. Working with Lenovo, its PC partner since January, NEC plans to develop a volume-sales business model for cloud communicators covering overseas markets as well.

Sony Corp. will start marketing a 25-inch OLED professional-use monitor on May 1. And a 17-inch model will follow in July. Sony commercialized an 11-inch OLED TV in 2007 "Ever since then, TV studios have been clamoring for professional use OLED monitors," said a Sony spokesperson.

Panasonic Corp., a major supplier of lighting equipment in Japan, has developed LED lamps featuring a wide light-dispersion angle, a design that largely overcomes a notable disadvantage of LED lamps, namely, a light casting angle much smaller than that of legacy electric lamps.

Renesas Electronics Corp. has started sampling of a system-on-chip LSI dubbed the CE150, which enables 16-megapixel image processing and full HD (1920x1080 pixels) video shooting on a smartphone or a high-end camera phone. The CE150 is compliant with the MIPI CSI-2 (mobile Industry Processor Interface-Camera Serial Interface-1) standard and has a 4-lane configuration, the standard' maximum configuration, with 2 lanes for input and another 2 lanes for output. Each lane has a speed of 800Mbps.

Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. announced it has developed mass-production technology for 2-inch semipolar/nonpolar gallium nitride (GaN) wafers, which opens a path to mass production of pure-green semiconductor lasers and high-efficiency blue LEDs. The availability of semiconductor green lasers is expected to lead to new devices such as micro projectors and new types of displays.

Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. has developed a six-inch GaN wafer for blue LED fabrication and will start sampling in the first quarter of next year, with mass production scheduled to start in the second half (Oct.- Mar) of next fiscal year.

Toshiba has started marketing thin, blade-form solid state drive (SSD) modules named the Blade X-gale series, featuring 2.2mm thickness for modules with 64GB and 128GB capacity and 3.7mm thickness for a 256GB module.

Toshiba Corp. has started sampling an SD card that has attained a 95MB-per-second data transfer speed in read mode and 80MB/sec in write mode and will begin mass production of the card in November. The company will also start sampling of a microSD card in November that has a maximum read speed of 40MB/sec and a write speed of 20MB/sec.

Sharp Corp., which has been aggressively expanding its LED business by establishing a vertical business model extending from LED chip fabrication to manufacture of LED lighting equipment, has announced LED ceiling lights with a view to taking the lead in replacement of fluorescent ceiling lights, which are the most popular living-room and bedroom light fixtures in Japan.

Nichia Corp. has started sampling of a 510nm green semiconductor laser diode with 50mW optical output. It plans to shift to mass production within the next 12 months.