Samsung to Roll Out TD-SCDMA/GSM Dual Mode Handset
Samsung SDI Presents Fuel Cell Technology for Portable Electronics
Mtekvision Develops Multimedia Chip
Pricing Trend of Cellular Phone LCDs
Toshiba Unveils New Car Navigation SoC
MEMS Sensors for Cellular Phones
FKDigital Displays Storage Unit Based on DataPlay
JVC Announces NA0.95 Lens Manufacturing Technology

Samsung Electronics is going to announce a TD-SCDMA/GSM dual mode handset before the end of 2004. A Samsung engineer at an event held by T3G Technology in Beijing on October 11, 2004 showed a PCB which will be used in the TD-SCDMA/GSM handset. T3G Technology is a joint venture created by Datang Mobile Communications Equipment, Philips Electronics and Samsung. The event was held to celebrate the success of the manufacture and testing of T3G's modem chip for TD-SCDMA/GSM cellular phones.

T3G was established in January 2003 to design dual mode TD-SCDMA/GSM chipsets for cellular phone vendors such as Samsung. According to T3G, dual mode will enable calls and data communication on existing networks and will accelerate the penetration of the future 3G wireless service based on TD-SCDMA.

T3G says Samsung's dual mode handset is going to be available before the end of 2004. It will support TD-SCDMA, GSM and GPRS protocols. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Researchers of Samsung SDI did a poster presentation of their research activities on solid polymer electrolyte of fuel cells at the ECS 2004 Joint International Meeting. According to a company engineer, the R&D has been conducted with portable electronics use in mind. Samsung SDI presented their "Self-humidified" technology, which humidifies electrolytes by using water generated through reactions at fuel electrodes. The company is going apply the technology to both direct methanol type fuel cells and hydrogen gas-based fuel cells. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Mtekvision of South Korea, a camera phone IC developer, announced a multimedia chip which supports video, a 5 million-pixel camera, MP3 functions and two-way video calls.

According to Mtekvision's announcement on October 12, 2004, it developed a hardware-based multimedia chip incorporating an MPEG4 engine, the MV8602. The MV8602 is a camera application processor. The company announced a multimedia chip for 3D graphics, the MV8601, in July 2004. By adopting hardware-based MPEG4, the company improved the performance speed by over 10 times that of software-based MPEG4 chips. Mtekvision achieved camcorder-quality video capturing by minimizing the images being interrupted. It also achieved video telephony, which is required for 3G wireless handsets. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

According to Nikkei Sangyo's bi-weekly device pricing on September 29, 2004, cellular phone color TFT LCD panels for non-Japanese markets are expected to drop in price. Some cellular phone manufacturers have accumulated inventories which offset the demand and supply balance. LCD manufacturers are likely to accept price reduction demands from cellular phone manufacturers. High-end panels for the Japanese market, which were dropping in price preceding the overseas demand, are likely to go down in price further.

Large volume user pricing for 2-inch color TFT (160 x 210 dots) during July-Sept 2004 was 3,500-3,700 yen ($31.82-33.64 @ yen 110/$US 1) per panel, which includes the prices of ICs and peripheral devices. Since Spring 2004 when demand became tight, the prices have been stable. However, for delivery during Oct-Dec 2004, negotiations are in progress with a 2-3 percent discount. 2-inch panels are typically used in cellular phones sold in Europe, North America and China. In Europe and North America, there are some vendors stuck with inventories, which are affecting their production plans. Lower demand has resulted in price discount requests. Some LCD manufacturers have agreed to lower prices for a limited time only.

Outside of Japan, camera cellular phones became more popular in 2004. Conventional STN LCD panels are being replaced by high functional TFT panels, which are suitable for camera-equipped handsets. Although there was inventory of TFT in summer 2004, LCD manufacturers believe "Replacement demand from STN to TFT will continue."

2.4-inch QVGA LCDs (240 x 320 dots), which are used in high-end Japanese handsets, are forecasted to be 3,900-4,300 yen ($35.45- $39.09) in the Oct-Dec period. The prices are 90-130 yen ($.82-$1.18) or 2-3 percent cheaper than those of the previous period. Those panels are perceived as expensive compared to TFTs and panel manufacturers have been responding to price reduction requests. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

At CEATEC JAPAN 2004, Toshiba unveiled a SoC (system on a chip) for car navigation, which was produced on a 90nm process rule. It embeds 600MHz 32Mbit DRAM. Reportedly, one Japanese car navigation system manufacturer has decided to use it. Toshiba intends to begin commercial production in spring 2005 as ASSP (Application Specific Standard Products). The company demonstrated an automobile navigation device using the board populated with the prototype chip. Windows CE was used as the demo OS. The device integrated a CPU core, a 3G graphics process circuit, 32Mbit DRAM for the frame buffer and a PCI bus interface. System vendors can achieve the required car navigation functions by adding a companion chip which integrates A-D conversion and D-A conversion circuits, ROM and RAM to this SoC. It is packaged in a 540-pin BGA (Ball Grid Array). Although current power consumption is at 4W, Toshiba plans to reduce power consumption to below 2W through improvements in the manufacturing process before commercialization. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Device manufacturers are becoming aggressive in marketing MEMS sensors to cellular phones. Handsets began to adopt CCD/CMOS sensors, geomagnetic sensors used as an electronic compass, and fingerprint verification sensors among others. In the future, acceleration sensors are going to be incorporated into cellular phones.

Under such circumstances, Seiko Epson is going to start mass-production of MEMS gyro sensors in December 2004. Oki Electric will begin commercial production of MEMS acceleration sensors in April 2005. Fujitsu, anticipating demand growth for MEMS sensors, developed an amplifier chip for MEMS sensors and will begin volume production in December 2004. Nikkei Microdevices' October 2004 issue estimates there are MEMS sensor business opportunities for cellular phones in finger print sensors, magnetic sensors for electronic compass, gyro sensors for preventing blurry images due to hand movements during image capturing and acceleration sensors as an input device. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

FKDigital of Japan exhibited a data storage device, the Bridge MARINE, which stores data on DataPlay discs at the recent CEATEC JAPAN 2004. The Bridge MARINE supports external interfaces for SD card, USB and IrDA.

The DataPlay is a stamp-sized removable disc media with a 512MB capacity. The DataPlay disc is based on DVD-R technology and a write-once disc. Although it was a highly anticipated optical disc format in 2001, the company had difficulty in launching the disc to the market. The original company, DataPlay, eventually went into bankruptcy in late 2002 and it now has a new owner, DPHI Inc. DPHI is promoting the DataPlay discs once again as new and better. A 2GB capacity DataPlay is going to be available in late 2005 or early 2006 according to DPHI. The Bridge MARINE is going to debut in Japan before the end of 2004. See pictures at:

http://www.digitalcamera.jp/html/HotNews/image/2004-10/08/FKDIGITAL-1.JPG

http://www.digitalcamera.jp/html/HotNews/image/2004-10/08/FKDIGITAL-2.JPG

[M. Robertson, Portelligent]

JVC of Japan prototyped a single sheet structure glass lens with a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.95. Combining the lens with a blue purple semiconductor laser with a wave length of 405nm, theoretically, can improve the storage capacity on one side of a 12cm optical disc to over 40GB. In addition, if this manufacturing expertise is applied to a Blu-ray Disc lens, improvements in lens manufacturing and in lens size reduction are expected. JVC presented a paper on the details of the technology at ISOM2004 (International Symposium on Optical Memory 2004), which was held in Jeju Island, South Korea October 11- 15, 2004. A picture is available at: http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/press/2004/na095_lens.html [M. Robertson, Portelligent]