Oki Electric Industry has signed a contract to acquire the driver chip business for large TFT-LCDs from Texas Instruments Japan.
This acquisition is part of Oki’s growth strategy to enhance the large TFT LCD driver chip business, which is considered to be one of Oki’s unique semiconductor businesses. With the transfer planned for the end of March 2005, Oki will take in all the customers and employees of Japan TI.
“This business acquisition will expand our large TFT-LCD driver chip business used in notebook PCs, monitors and TVs by enhancing the product lineup with an overwhelming resource for technology development,” said Akira Kamo, President of the Silicon Solution Company at Oki Electric. “With such strengths and by providing new solutions to contribute to a higher performance, next generation LCD panel modules, we will aim to hold the No. 1 market share in the world.”
Oki has rapidly expanded its business for driver LSIs for large TFT-LCDs used for notebook PCs and monitors since it joined the market in 2002. In 2003, it commercialized high performance driver LSIs for large LCDs for TVs, ahead of other companies. In February 2005, Oki became the world’s first company to achieve volume production of 10-bit large-size TFT LCD drivers, enabling the display of one billion colors on an LCD TV. The company also has unique technologies and has a strong advantage in high voltage processing LSIs that influence driver performance.
TI Japan has developed various industry-standard technologies since 1991 in the TFT LCD driver chip field, such as new interface technologies, new driver methods and new packaging technologies. It has been the leader in the industry by developing advanced technologies, and in 2000, TI Japan developed the mini-LVDS interface method, the mainstream for today’s interface.
Oki and TI Japan each hold 8% market share in the non-captive (excluding products for its own panels) large TFTs over 10.4-inch LCD driver chips. Especially in the 22-inch-and-above large LCD TV-use driver chip market, Oki is evaluated for its leading technologies with a 25% market share.
Going forward, Oki will actively deploy its business for further growth in the information and telecom converged business, semiconductor business and printer business — the three business segments in which Oki can bring out its strengths.
Murdok | Breaking eBusiness News
Your source for investigative ebusiness reporting and breaking news.
