August 1999

NEWS & ANALYSIS

Three-Five Buys National's Microdisplay Assets
Three-Five Systems, Inc. (Tempe, AZ) has concluded a deal whereby they will purchase assets, license technology, and hire key employees of the Light Valve Business Unit of National Semiconductor Corporation (Santa Clara, CA). The purchase effectively ends National's initiative in the microdisplay market and bolster's Three-Five's position. National was one of the original pioneers in developing liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCOS) microdisplay technology.

Hana Technologies Gets S-Vision Fab
S-Vision's liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCOS) manufacturing facility in Twinsburg, Ohio, has apparently been sold to Hana Technologies, a contract manufacturing firm based in Thailand that maintains a sales and marketing office in Santa Clara, California. While Hana company officials could not confirm the purchase, independent sources indicated that only legal issues are holding up a formal announcement.

Camcorder With Kopin Eyepiece Reaches Market
Kopin Corporation (Taunton, MA) reached a milestone in July when the Victor Company of Japan (JVC, Kanagawa, Japan) finally shipped the DVC-CyberCam. These digital video camcorders (models GR-DVF-11U and GR-DVF-21U) feature a viewfinder with a monochrome QVGA (320 x 240) display from Kopin. This is the first high-volume product to reach market employing the company's 0.24-inch CyberDisplay.

SpatiaLight/Varitronix in Manufacturing Tie-up
Liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCOS) developer SpatiaLight (Novato, CA) has announced that it plans to use Varitronix Limited (Hong Kong, China) as a manufacturer for the LC cell fabrication part of display production. The agreement means that their new SXGA ImagEngine microdisplay (see July, 1999, Microdisplay Report) should be ready for volume production by Q4 this year.

Daewoo Electronics Faces Major Restructuring
Daewoo Electronics' (Seoul, Korea) Thinfilm Mirror Array (TMA) technology is thought to be one of the bright star's for the company's future in digital TV and projection systems. But given the major financial problems the company has faced recently, solving these issues seems necessary before major progress can be made with the technology.

New Cholesteric LC Polarizer Technology Introduced
CLCEO Technologies (Sunnyvale, CA), a subsidiary of Reveo (Hawthorne, NY), used SID'99 to kick-off a series of new products based upon their new Cholesteric Liquid Crystal (CLC) technology. The technology can be used to fabricate narrow-band or broad-band polarizers, spatial color filters, and several other products.

FPD INDUSTRY NEWS
Apple Invests $100M in Samsung LCD Operation

Summer Shutdowns Canceled At LCD Plants

Sharp To Build New LCD Fab

Acer Peripherals Plans Second LCD Line

SOAPBOX
Will Low-Cost Headsets Ever Become Commercially Successful? - by Ben Vaughn
To an external observer, it must seem baffling that so many companies continue to enter the low-cost personal display market when a quick look at the history would make most executives and investors run a mile. However, as an industry insider that has watched the convergence of digital technology, 3D graphics hardware & software, the Internet and low cost tracking & display technology, it comes as no surprise that many of the world's leading electronics companies are now dominating this nascent market.

APPLICATIONS
Front Projection
Large Venue Segment (with Table)
Wrap-up of high luminace projectors from Panasonic Broadcast & Digital Systems Company, Digital Projection, Electrohome, Ampro, NEC Technologies, Barco Projection Systems America, The Victor Company of Japan (JVC), and Sony Broadcast & Professional Company.

HDTVs
Flat-screen TVs
Flat-screen TVs from Matsushita Electric Industrial Company, Toshiba, Sony, and Philips Japan.

Projection TVs
Rear-projection DTVs from Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi Electric Components, and Thomson Multimedia.

Digital TV
News from Panasonic, Konka, and Sensory Science.

Wearables
News from ViA, Inc., Virtual Vision and Xybernaut.

Videocubes (with Table)
News from Texas Instruments, Lanteco, Clarity Visual Systems, Toshiba America Consumer Products, Synelec, Seleco, and Electrohome.

Rear Projection (with Table)
News from Toshiba America Consumer Products, Eiki International, Raytheon's Digital Display Group, Synelec, Barco, Sony Electronics, Canon, Hughes-JVC, and Proxima.

MARKET INTELLIGENCE
Market studies from Frost & Sullivan, Forrester Research, Multimedia Research Group, McLaughlin Consulting, DisplaySearch, and CEMA

BOTTOM LINE
Financial news from Microvision, Planar Systems, Kopin, Three-Five, Barco, Aura Systems, Laser Power, Vista Medical

MOVERS & SHAKERS
Personnel information from Three-Five Systems.