Business briefs

11 Jul 2002

Sanyo is to start production of LCD projectors and plasma display panel TVs in China early next year. The company plans to produce about 1000 a month to boost its global sales of LCD projectors to 320,000 units in the year to March 2004. Sanyo started production of PDP TVs last July, with all of its products sold in Japan. The company projects sales revenue of ¥ 15 bn (USD 130 m) for PDPs for fiscal year 2003/4.

DuPont Displays has acquired the remaining equity it did not already hold in Polar Vision, an optical components and lamination services provider serving display integrators and OEMs. DuPont already had a majority stake in the company from 2001.

Creo of Vancouver, Canada, has signed an agreement with DuPont Imaging Technologies to develop equipment for a new DuPont thermal imager color filter system for manufacturing color filter components in LCDs.

The High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) founders have announced that the draft specification v0.9 defining the next-generation digital interface for consumer electronics is now available for review at www.hdmi.org. Designed to usher in a new era of digital entertainment, HDMI combines high-definition video and multi-channel audio in a single digital interface with a bandwidth of 5 Gbit/s. The HDMI founders are Hitachi, Matsushita Electric (Panasonic), Philips, Silicon Image, Sony, Thomson Multimedia and Toshiba.

Time magazine has named Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) as "one of Europe's 50 hottest tech firms". CDT was named alongside a mix of early stage and established companies including biotechnology, semiconductor, optics, wireless and emerging technology firms. CDT was one of only three companies in the last category, alongside Memscap, the French micro-electro mechanical systems manufacturer, and fuel cell developer Smart Fuel Cell.