Samsung and Mitsubishi collaborate on CMOS sensors
Samsung Electronics (Seoul, South Korea), and Mitsubishi Electric Tokyo, Japan), have formed a strategic alliance to develop camera chip solutions for mobile applications such as cellular phones, PDAs and mobile PCs. Samsung and Mitsubishi will develop two core camera chip solutions; a CMOS image sensor (CIS) chip designed and manufactured by Samsung and an image signal processor (ISP) chip from Mitsubishi. The two companies will exchange engineering resources and technical support. In September, Samsung began volume shipments of its quarter-inch VGA-class (330,000 pixels) high-resolution CIS chip, with Mitsubishi as a first customer.
Liteye Systems buys eMagin OLED displays
Liteye Systems (Hopewell Junction, NY) has placed a purchase order for 3000 high-resolution organic-light-emitting-diode (OLED) full-color microdisplays from eMagin (Denver, CO) for delivery beginning this fall. The order was stimulated by demand for Liteye's new head mounted display (HMD) based on a license agreement with IBM (Armonk, NY) signed earlier this year. Customers to whom Liteye will be supplying HMD solutions which incorporate eMagin's OLED microdisplays include the U.S. military and Antelope Technologies (Highlands Ranch, CO).
Liquid-crystal-display market stalls in Europe
A new research report from Meko (Surrey, England) indicates that European desktop-monitor market volume declined by 20.9% quarter on quarter and by 2% year on year, matching well-reported declines in the PC market. Unit sales of CRTs fell by more than 20% year on year, reflecting the strong shift toward LCD monitors. As a result of the rise in LCD monitor pricing during the first two quarters of 2002, LCD monitor sales volumes declined sequentially for the first time. The total sales volume of LCD monitors in Europe was just under 1.9 million units, down 15.9% compared to the first quarter 2002. Year on year sales were up by more than 130%, reflecting the technology's continuing popularity in the market.
Demand booms for Drexler laser ID-card technology
Drexler Technology (Mountain View, CA) has received a $7.4 million U.S. government order for its LaserCard multibiometric ID cards, through Information Spectrum (Annandale, VA). The order is part of a five-year, U.S. government procurement subcontract authorizing up to $81 million for optical-memory cards used for U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) "Green Card" Permanent Resident Cards, and U.S. Department of State (DOS) "Laser Visa" Border Crossing Cards (BCCs). About 11.32 million cards have been ordered thus far, including the latest order, under the U.S. government subcontract for up to 24 million LaserCard optical memory cards.
Microvision expands with new distributorships
Microvision (Bothell, WA) has signed a reseller distribution agreement with Laser Control (Bloomington MN) to market the Microvision wearable display in its line of surveying and measurement instruments used by professional surveyors, civil engineers and the construction industry. Microvision has also signed distribution agreements with two resellers of automatic identification data capture (AIDC) products, Abraham Technical (Maple Grove, MN) and Keystone Processing Group (Cherry Hill, NJ) to market the Microvision laser bar-code scanner, commercially launched last September, in their lines of AIDC products.
Also in the news . . .
V.J. Electronix, a division of V.J. Technologies (Bohemia, NY) and manufacturer of x-ray inspection systems, has entered a strategic alliance with the American Competitiveness Institute (ACI; Philadelphia, PA). ACI leads a consortium of industry, university, and government participants that provides resources for the Electronics Manufacturing Productivity Facility, which provides high-quality electronics systems to the Department of Defense. . . . Implant Sciences (Wakefield, MA) expects the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee vote on Sept. 19 to extend the deadline for the installation of automated baggage screening to Dec. 31, 2003, in as many as 40 major U.S. airports to provide more time for the government to purchase advanced systems, such as the laser-based system developed by Implant Sciences. . . . Access Services, the field-service unit of Scan-Optics (Manchester, CT), has agreed to provide Buhrs Americas (Plymouth, MN) with on-site field service and support for product lines of high-performance envelope-inserting systems and high-speed poly- and paper-wrapping systems in the United States. . . . DRS Technologies (Parsippany, NJ) has been awarded a $29 million contract from the U.S. Army to enhance the Bradley Fighting Vehicles with improvements such as second-generation forward-looking infrared.