Market News

SANTA CLARA, CAAgilent Technologies has acquired the assets of Taiwan-based Escort Instruments, a supplier of low-cost test and measurement instruments and a subsidiary of Unitech Printed Circuit Board.

Unitech had a 60% stake in Escort Instruments. The purchase involves about NT$100 to 150 million (US$ 3.3 to 4.2 million) worth of assets. The acquisition includes Escort's R&D, marketing, intellectual property (IP) and the majority of the subsidiary's low-cost instrument product portfolio, Agilent said. The purchase should be completed in July.
SAN JOSE – The industry is at an interesting time in history because macroeconomics is struggling, yet the semiconductor market will continue to grow over the next three years, said George Scalise, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).
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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- RTI International has developed in new technique that may improve computer performance and significantly change the manufacturing process for electronics by eliminating the need for organic substrates.

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EL SEGUNDO, CAiSuppli Corp. forecasts the total flexible display market will reach $2.8 billion by 2013, up 35 times from about $80 million in 2007.
 
Flexible displays are being used for a multitude of products, including e-readers/e-paper, electronic display cards, electronic shelf labels, automotive applications, clothing/wearable displays, removable storage devices and point-of-purchase/public signage and advertisements.
 
“Flexible displays are intuitively appealing to end users and product designers because of their ruggedness, thinness, light weight and novelty,” said Jennifer Colegrove, Ph.D., senior analyst for emerging displays at iSuppli. “Such displays also offer manufacturers the potential for inexpensive fabrication because they can be made using new printing methods or roll-to-roll processing. Furthermore, flexible displays have the advantage of easy and relatively inexpensive shipping and safety handling compared to conventional rigid screens. When flexible displays break, they don’t have any sharp edges that can cause injuries or further damage.”
 
Before this year, there were no active matrix flexible displays that could provide the kind of image quality that users expect from their LCD-TVs and PC monitors, says iSuppli. Because of this, 2008 represents “Year One” for the AM flexible display market.
 
More than a dozen display technologies can be made into flexible screens, including traditional LCD, bi-stable LCD, OLED, electrophoretic, electrochromic and Electroluminescent.
PROVIDENCE, RI – The Rhode Island Senate has passed four recycling bills aimed at reducing the amount of trash disposed in state dumps.

Passage of three of the bills is pending the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee. A fourth, which covers disposal of electronics, is in the House Finance Committee.

The Senate e-waste bill requires manufacturers to take back and recycle household electronics products. A similar House bill is with the state Finance Committee.

TAIWAN - Unitech PCB Corp. has announced that its newly produced solar cells will be installed in vehicles, and that the company will test drive the cars this month.

Last year, Unitech began solar cell production at the Letzer Industrial Park of Yilan County in northeastern Taiwan, at an investment of $31 million (converted) for facilities and building construction.

Mass production of the solar cells is set for the third quarter of 2008, and the company predicts that revenues from the new product may be as high as $33 million (converted from TWD) for the year.

Company executives have stated that its production line is fully booked until the end of this year. The firm is reportedly planning to set up a second and third production line.

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