Sintek Photronic (和鑫光電), a leading Taiwanese flat-screen component maker, has tied up with Samsung to produce advanced touchscreens for next--generation smartphones, officials said yesterday.
The Taiwanese firm forged a technology cooperation and supply agreement with the South Korean tech giant on Tuesday, according to a statement posted on the Web site of the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Sintek did not disclose the investment value, nor did it say how much Samsung would spend on the project, but the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported the plant will cost NT$20 billion (US$680 million).
The statement said Sintek will set up a display plant and from the fourth quarter of this year it will start supplying its South Korean partner with touchscreens and related products using a new technology called AMOLED.
The technology consumes significantly less power and produces higher resolution images, so it is expected to be widely used in future portable electronics where power consumption is critical to battery life, analysts say.
“Samsung must have seen the great potential and realized that it cannot possibly meet the anticipated vast demand on its own,” Kuo Ming-chi (郭明琪) of Concord Securities (康和證券) told reporters.
For the time being, demand comes mainly from producers of smartphones, but it will surge if the technology also begins to be widely used in tablet computers, he said.
Samsung, already operating one plant of its kind, plans to add two more before the end of next year, Kuo said.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
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