New Taipei City-based Uneo Inc (利永環球), a technology subsidiary of Universal Cement Corp (環球水泥), recently won gold at the prestigious US-based Edison Awards in the material science technology section for its flexible resistive sensor.
Uneo won the top prize for manufacturing an e-skin sensing material for hair-thin pressure sensors in varying sizes and detecting weights from grams to tonnes, according to the awards organizer.
Originally developed by the Hsinchu County-based Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) in 2011, the micro-deformable piezoresistive sensor, which is able to detect degrees of pressure from 3g to 3,000kg, was also a winner in the Wall Street Journal’s 2010 Technology Innovation Awards, the company said at a technology presentation yesterday.
Uneo, established in 2013, has partnered with Dell Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co, Adobe Systems Inc, Sharp Corp and Lenovo Group Ltd on the commercialization of its technology, resulting in the release of a wide array of products, including keyboards, touch styluses and various consumer electronics, according to the company.
ITRI chairman Tsay Ching-yen (蔡清彥) said that it was not easy for Uneo to win the top prize at the Edison Awards, in which it competed against about 100 entries.
Tsay said that two companies spun-off from ITRI have attracted attention from big Silicon Valley companies that are expected to invest in the two firms.
Uneo vice president Johnson Hou (侯智升) said the sensor has won several international awards, adding that it boasts 10 times the lifetime and sensitivity of competing designs, enabling the development of consumer devices with new modes of user-machine interaction in a cloud environment.
The sensor has been widely employed in a broad range of consumer electronics produced by global heavyweights such as Adobe, Dell and Lenovo, Hou said.
Uneo plans to expand its partnerships to develop new applications for the technology in areas including electronic products, sports and wearable devices, as well as to tap into the fields of big data, cloud computing and medical devices, Hou said.
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