Integrated Digital Technologies Inc (劍揚光學) said yesterday that it will start mass production of embedded solar cells in liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panels by the end of this year because of the increased popularity of panels known as interactive screens (iScreen).
The company said it would ship 5 million units of iScreen panels by next year, grabbing a global market share of 20 percent, Naejye Hwang (黃乃傑), Integrated Digital’s display division director, told a press conference.
“Unlike other touch screen panels that have extra film or glass with photo sensors on top of the regular LCD panel, Integrated Digital embeds solar cells in the thin-film-transistor [TFT] array layer during the panel-making process, thereby reducing the weight and thickness of the final product,” Hwang said.
This can save up to 30 percent of manufacturing costs because it reduces the need for additional film or glass components as well as additional labor, company founder and chief executive officer Hwang Huey-liang (黃惠良) said.
The company said the iScreen could be used on PCs, while its applications ranged from gaming, interactive Excel, Picasa, Google Earth as well as AtutoCAD and other drawing software. It said iScreens use less power and have an extended lifetime and unique remote control and writing capabilities.
The company will display its technology at Computex Taipei, which opens on Tuesday and closes on June 6 at Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall I.
Meanwhile, VMAX Telecom Co (威邁思電信) will provide high-speed wireless Internet service on the MRT Muzha Line as part of its program for Computex Taipei.
It said WiMAX would be the main theme of this year’s show, using the slogan: “WiMAX on the Move.”
“There will be a more diverse display of [WiMAX] products and many are equipped with built-in WiMAX chips,” said Enoch Du (杜全昌), secretary-general of the Taipei Computer Association (TCA, 台北市電腦公會).
“This year, the entire [WiMAX] industry is expected to reach a growth rate of 50 percent and the output value will exceed NT$10 billion by the end of this year,” Du said.
Michael Chen (陳武宏), director of Intel Asia-Pacific Embedded Sales Group, said WiMAX has proved to be an economic and efficient broadband network.
Intel projected that the number of WiMAX subscribers worldwide could nearly double to 800 million by the end of next year, from 430 million at present, Chen said.
On April 27, Tatung InfoComm Co (大同電信) became the first company in Taiwan to launch its WiMAX service in Penghu.
Five more WiMAX operators are expected to launch commercial services in the second half of this year, Du said.
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