MagnaChip Ships LCD Driver IC for Mobile Application
Oracom’s New Mini PMP
Samsung Electro-Mechanics Develops Ultra Thin Semiconductor Interposer
I&C Develops CMOS RF Chip
Fujifilm to Contract CCD Manufacturing to Toshiba
Seiko Instruments to Sample Ship CMOS Temperature Sensor IC
KDDI to Ship EV-DO Rev. A Data Card
GPS Cellular Phones to Become Mainstream

MagnaChip Semiconductor of South Korea announced on September 10, 2007 that the company had begun volume production of LCD driver ICs for mobile applications such as cellular phones with a high-resolution screen. The PA7551 is a driver chip for LTPS (low temperature polysilicon) LCD.

The driver chip is suitable for phones supporting either digital terrestrial DMB or digital satellite DMB. It supports WQVGA (240 x 432) resolution as well as conventional QVGA (240 x 320) resolution. It supports 260,000-color reproduction capability.

The driver IC also supports Qualcomm’s data transfer method, MDDI (Mobile Display Digital Interface) technology, achieving high capacity data transfer to LCD and high image quality camera phones.

In order to improve manufacturing convenience, the driver IC incorporates EEPROM, which allows module manufacturers to improve or adjust image quality. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Oracom (http://www.oracomm.co.kr/ ) of South Korea has announced a new personal multimedia player, the A9, featuring a 2.4-inch color touch screen, digital broadcasting (T-DMB), games, FM radio, and text viewer. Dimensions of the PMP are 86 mm x 52 mm x 12 mm at 67g of weight. The device supports a maximum 4GByte onboard memory as well as micro SD card support. The A9 is compliant with MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV audio files. It has a 5-band equalizer for normal, rock, pop, jazz, classic and vocal settings. It plays AVI, ASF, WMV, and MPEG4 video formats. It also functions as a voice recorder.

Oracom also OEM produces LG Electronics’ cellular phones. It produces them on its own production line and supplies over 8 million phones to LG Electronics annually. The company not only assembles them but also tests them. Oracom’s strength is in technical expertise and product quality. Images of the A9 are located at: http://aving.net/kr/news/default.asp?mode=read&c_num=60241&C_Code=01&SP_Num=0 [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Samsung Electro-Mechanics of South Korea announced on September 9, 2007 that the company has developed the world’s thinnest semiconductor interposer. The interposer is the supplemental substrate which connects the semiconductor and main board.

The newly developed interposer is 0.08 mm thick, which is 20 percent thinner than the interposer developed in 2005. Samsung Electro-Mechanics claims that over 20 flash memories or SRAM can be stacked on the top of this interposer.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics adopted a new manufacturing process called the circuit transfer process. The internal circuits were fabricated with a 20 micron space, which is a 20 percent finer space than existing interposers. The company also improved the strength of the interposer by about 50 percent. The company used proprietary CCTL (Copper Clad Tape Laminates) as the raw material of the interposer.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics is currently supplying the interposer on a sample basis. The company plans to launch volume production at the end of 2007. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

I&C Technology (www.inctech.co.kr ) of South Korea announced that the company has developed super small CMOS RF chip for ISDB-T (the Japanese mobile TV standard). The StarRFG7200 is a low IF type dual band chip which is targeted at ISDB-T (known as One Segment Broadcasting in Japan) cellular phones. The RF chip removes noise in signals received through the antenna and amplifies weak signals.

The new chip is one third the size of the existing equivalent product. I&C Technology claims that it is the smallest commercially available CMOS RF chip. The company reduced the power consumption dramatically, which contributes to improvement of the cellular phone battery life. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Fujifilm of Japan announced on September 19, 2007 that the company would contract the front process of CCD (charge coupled device) manufacturing to Toshiba. Aiming to reduce costs, Fujifilm is going to enhance its competitiveness through collaboration with Toshiba.

Fujifilm is going to shift assembly of its digital still cameras to its Suzhou plant in China. Presently, the company produces 80 percent of its digital still cameras in China. At this time, the company will move its digital still camera production entirely to China.

Fujifilm is going to dissolve its manufacturing subsidiary, Fujifilm Photonics, in Miyagi Prefecture in August 2008. As it is shifting the front process of CCD manufacturing, it is going to sell its land and building in Sendai City to Murata. With drastic reorganization of its production structure, Fujifilm plans to reinforce its R&D. It is going to focus on improvements of the proprietary Super CCD Honeycomb. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Seiko Instruments (SII) of Japan is going to begin sampling of a CMOS temperature sensor IC with a maximum power consumption of 6 micro A on September 19, 2007. The maximum power consumption of the previous model was 8 micro A.

The S-58LM20 is a temperature sensor IC with analog output. The operation temperature range is -55~+130°C. Temperature accuracy is +_2.5°C in all temperature range. As it is supplied in a compact package, it is suitable for portable devices and cellular phones. The sample price is 100 yen ($0.87 @ yen 115/$US 1) per unit. SII plans to begin volume production in October 2007. The company plans to output 10 million units annually.

Possible applications are compensation of outputs and frequencies for high frequency circuits, frequency compensation for crystal oscillators, contrast compensation for LCD displays, temperature detection of secondary batteries, compensation of auto focus circuits, temperature detection of thermal printer head, and temperature compensation of GSP devices.

The S-58LM20 is available in two packages, STN-4 (1.2 mm x 1.4 mm x 0.5 mm) and SC-82AB (2.0 mm x 2.1 mm x 1.1 mm). SII is currently developing a wafer level package with a mounting area of 0.84 mm x 0.84 mm. The device is going to be ready around November 2008. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

KDDI and Okinawa Cellular, both of Japan, announced a CF (Compact Flash) card featuring EV-DO Rev. A protocol. The W04K supplied from Kyocera is going to be put on sale in late October 2007.

The W04K can be attached to a CF slot or PC card slot (when used with a bundled adapter). It can perform data communication using a notebook PC or a PDA via the cellular network of KDDI (au).

The W04K supports maximum 3.1Mbps downlink/1.8Mbps uplink (EV-DO Rev. A), maximum 2.4Mbps downlink/144kbps uplink (CDMA 1X WIN), and maximum 144kbps downlink/64kbps uplink (CDMA 1X). It can choose the protocol depending on the area.

The primary target market is corporate users. The card supports a GPS function and can limit access to sites other than originally programmed. KDDI offers a service package which allows users to pay a set fee for accessing a corporate network without going through the Internet. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

ABI Research says 335 million consumers will subscribe to location-based mobile services on their handsets by 2011.

A GPS function is increasingly popular in Smartphones and PDAs. After 9/11, handsets sold in the U.S. market are increasingly equipped with a GPS function. It gives parents peace of mind for knowing where their children are. A GPS function in cellular phones is expected to become mainstream over the next several years.

In Japan, starting in April 2007, The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications mandated that all new 3G wireless handset models support a GPS function. When a user calls emergency numbers, the handset location is detected by GPS and the location information is automatically submitted to Police, Fire Department and Marine Security Headquarters.

With the rapid penetration of cellular phones, accidents and other emergencies are frequently reported using a cellular phone. In case of an accident in an unfamiliar place, users cannot describe their current location precisely. Emergency taskforces can detect the location through automatic transmittance and can dispatch help quickly and smoothly. In spring 2008, the Japanese Police force is going to adopt the system to display the cellular phone location on a map in half of the 52 emergency response centers. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]