Devices

Renesas Electronics Corp. will start mass production of a blue-violet laser in August that features a proprieatry structure realizing high power and low cost, according to the company. Renesas is targeting the high-power blue-laser market, which is expected to grow rapidly, and plans to ramp up production to one million units a month by summer 2011.

Sharp has developed a 60-inch LCD monitor display with the narrowest bezel for multiscreen digital signage applications. The panel's bezel is 4.1mm at the top and left side and 2.4mm at the bottom and right side, making the frame width between neighboring panels 6.5mm.

Elpida Memory, Inc. announced that it has developed the industry's smallest 2-gigabit DDR mobile DRAM, whose size is less than 50mm2, using a 40nm CMOS process. The company will begin sampling in June and start mass production in July at its Hiroshima fab, aiming at portable equipment applications.

Chasing Samsung Electronics, Elpida Memory, Inc. announced that it has developed a 4-gigabit DDR3 SDRAM using a 40nm process, which will begin sampling in the second quarter (April to June) of 2010 and enter mass production in the third quarter.

Dowa Electronics Materials Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Dowa Holdings Co., Ltd., has developed a deep ultraviolet LED that emits 300-350nm wavelength light, a wavelength shorter than that of products available on the market now, and has started sampling of the LED chip.

Lumiotec Inc., a company based in Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture, started offering samples of an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel for lighting design in the middle of February, prior to the ramp-up of production at its pilot line scheduled for July.

Renesas Technology Corp. has announced the RX62T, the third product in the RX microcontroller series, which the company has been promoting as next-generation microcontrollers to replace 16-bit and cheaper 32-bit controllers. Renesas offers the R8C series of 8-bit microcontrollers and 32-bit RISC SuperH series for high-performance applications.

Fujisoft Inc. has developed a humanoid robot named Palro, which has a proprietary software platform enabling function enhancement, and will begin marketing the robot on March 15 mainly to academic and research institutes in Japan.

Panasonic Corp. has showcased a 152-inch 8k-resolution PDP display with 3D capability at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) being held in Las Vegas. The company has been doubling the efficiency every year since 2007 and the 152-inch panel features improved efficiency four times better than the most advanced panel in 2007, according to the company. Panasonic, however, has not disclosed a concrete figure.

Panasonic Corp. has announced development of a cylindrical 18650 lithium-ion battery with 3.1Ah capacity, the industry's highest according to the company, and has started mass production.