Cambrios and Synaptics accelerate commercialization of ITO replacement

Sunnyvale, CA--Cambrios Technologies Corporation and Synaptics Incorporated (NASDAQ: SYNA) have entered into a Reference Design Partner Agreement in which Synaptics will develop reference designs incorporating Cambrios ClearOhm material as a transparent electrode in projected capacitive touch sensors. ClearOhm coating material produces a transparent, conductive film by wet processing with improved properties by comparison to currently used materials such as indium tin oxide (ITO) and other transparent conductive oxides. Applications of ClearOhm coating material include transparent electrodes for touch screens, liquid crystal displays, e-paper, OLED devices and thin-film photovoltaics.

These reference designs will incorporate Synaptics' industry leading integrated circuits and intellectual property. This system level solution will help enable a wide variety of clear, multi-touch solutions for electronic devices--such as smart phones and tablet computers--that exceed the performance characteristics of the incumbent ITO sensor designs, at a lower price point. Synaptics expects to develop and release the first reference design incorporating ClearOhm material to customers this summer.

Cambrios also announced that its ClearOhm transparent conductive film has been incorporated into the touch sensor of a leading smart phone. The touch sensor and touch module solution were developed by Nissha Printing Co., Ltd. of Japan and Synaptics Incorporated (NASDAQ: SYNA), respectively, and mark the first commercial implementation of Cambrios ClearOhm in place of ITO.

"For decades, the only transparent electrode material used for high quality display-related applications was the ceramic material ITO," said Michael Knapp, Cambrios president and CEO. "ClearOhm material is based on metal nano-wires, not a ceramic like ITO. It makes use of a completely different, highly manufacturable material for creating transparent, conductive films. ClearOhm material’s deployment as part of this phone marks the first step towards its adoption as a higher performance and lower cost alternative material for consumer electronic devices."

SOURCE: Cambrios; www.cambrios.com/206/Synaptics_Agreement.htm and www.cambrios.com/207/Smart_Phone_Release.htm