Optics industry round-up

17 Jun 2002

This week's industry highlights include soaring sales for telecoms and displays, and the latest technology breakthroughs.

Worldwide shipments of liquid-crystal display (LCD) monitors increased by 85% early this year, reports US-based consultant DisplaySearch. With revenues peaking at USD 2.31 billion, Japanese electronics giants swept the floor. Fujitsu captured a 10.4% market share, while NEC and the Mitsubishi-NEC alliance, NMV, both secured 8%. A drop in the high-street prices of thin-film transistor LCD monitors and interface electronics costs has boosted sales.

Keeping with displays, US-based IBM has launched what it calls "the world's highest-resolution flat-panel computer monitor". Based on recent research carried out at IBM, the electronics company's scientists used aluminium in the monitor's active-matrix liquid-crystal display rather than conventional metals, such as molybdenum and tungsten.

IBM has also introduced a silicon-based transistor that is expected to drive next-generation optical networks to 100 GHz speeds within two years. "Makers of high-performance electronics are no longer forced to use chips made of exotic materials to reach these speeds," said Bernard Meyerson, fellow and vice-president of IBM Communications Research and Development Center. "Silicon's future is safe."

US Bell Labs scientists are also focusing on optical networks. By calculating the maximum amount of traffic that can be transmitted over optical fiber, they believe they have proven that the technology will provide robust, scalable communications for the future. The scientists say that a single strand of fiber can carry 100 Tbit of information, which equates to 20 billion e-mails. These figures will please Asian-pacific telecoms companies following US-based market researcher RHK's prediction that optical telecoms in this region will grow 57% to USD 6.2 billion by the end of this year.

The market for ultraviolet flexographic inks will soar to USD 121 million by 2007 forecasts US analyst Frost and Sullivan. Only a few key players dominate today's market, but Frost and Sullivan believes that companies which have previously specialized in ultraviolet screen-printing can still penetrate this market. A critical application poised for growth is the use of ultraviolet curable inks for flexographic printing onto compact discs.