Japan Technology Information

Release of New Contactless Charger Set for Wii Remote by Sanyo

sia — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:53:53 +0000

This is good news for all Wii enthusiasts if you weren’t already aware of its existence. Sanyo just released its improved version of its contactless charger for Wii remote which company introduced last year for obvious reason of not wanting to replace its AA batteries every so often. The last year model was developed to eliminate any needs to remove the protective silicon Wii Remote Jacket when replacing the batteries. Through the contactless charging method the user is able to charge the remote by simply placing them in the charger, without removing the remote jacket. Now, the new charger does all that plus it allows the user to simultaneously charging two remotes or even wanting to charge the remote with the Wii MotionPlus while still attached. The charger accesses its power through the USB port on the Wii console. Watch out all you heavy Wii users it will take approximately 220 minutes to charge one remote and 440 minutes to charge two, but you can only get to use the charged remote for approximately 6.5 hours. There is no retail price on the set which will hit the market in Japan (only) on November 14th. The charger set has been made under license from Nintendo.
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Development of QHD High Temperature Polysilicon TFT LCD by EPSON

sia — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:34:29 +0000

Epson is at it again by their announcement on development of yet another version of high temperature polysilicon TFT color panel for electronic viewfinders. This time the new panel offers QHD a 960 x 540 resolution in red, green and blue with a total of 1.56 megapixels which would be ideal for widescreen electronic viewfinder in broadcast and industrial camcorder for professionals. Development of this type of displays has been driven by spread of wide screen, high-definition content via digital broadcasts and high-definition video players which demanded improvement in image quality as well as improvement in features on camcorders and their smaller form factor and lightness for improved mobility. The new display comes with a 0.52 inch diagonal screen, in addition of being capable of accurate focusing and recreating smooth gradations plus a natural softness. Furthermore the use of color filter in the new display prevents the color breakup which usually occurs with other color systems during shooting fast moving subjects and while panning. The newly developed L3F05Q-80200 display is available for immediate shipping.
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Release of Industry’s Thinnest LEDs by ROHM

sia — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:26:24 +0000

Rohm now offers to the world industry’s thinnest LEDs. The PICOLED series by the company comes in a tiny 0.2mm thick package offering a high brightness. The newly developed PICOLED offers no brightness degradation in comparison to conventional products and at the same time achieves a reduction in mounting area and volume of 53% and 74% respectively over the standard 1608 size contributing to device miniaturization.
The smaller form factor of PICOLED translates to closely placing the LEDs next to each other allowing for highly dense matrixes configuration which would result in a greater resolution. The high reliability of PICOLED has been achieved through 4-element ((AlGaInP) structure offering no brightness degradation even after 30,000 hours in comparison to conventional products that experience a 30% drop in brightness. The PICOLED offers a 2.7 times the brightness and 37% less power consumption in low current region of 1mA, resulting in the brightest, most efficient LEDs in their class. The newly offered PICOLED is targeted for such application as mobile phones, digital cameras, IC recorders, notebook PCs, battery driven devices as well as other compact equipment. PICOLED is available in customized colors such as Pink, Light Blue and Purple.

Release of a reference Design Kit for recorder IC by Epson

sia — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:50:26 +0000

Seiko Epson made an announcement on release of reference design kit which is equipped with company’s driver IC, the S2S66A30. The kit supports the latest driver functions including an S2S66A30 equipped main board, an analog camera interface board as well as Linux-based driver recorder applications. The driver applications are royalty free source code and are available for download directly from Epson online site, including the source code will result in a significant time reduction in developing a driver recorder. The new kit comes with ARM-equipped driver IC and it connects with analog cameras via a CMOS camera and video decoder equipped interface board. The Linux-based driver recorder application supports functionality such as simultaneous recording from tow cameras, audio recording (with use of microphone), playback of footage on PCs via USB interface , choice of real time recording or event recording (requiring accelerometer) and choice of SD or CF cards for storage of video data. The kit also includes IAR Systems Arm development environment which includes development tools of IAR Embedded Workbench (32KB KickStart Edition) as well as IAR J-Link (JTAG-ICE). The new kit became available on November.
The S2S66A30 is an improved version of company’s earlier image controller S2S65A00. The new S2S66A30 comes with such features as input image correction which has been achieved by real-time image processing plus interlaced-to-progressive scan image conversion that allows the connection with cameras through interlaced scanning. Furthermore, it is capable of replaying recorded images and high speed writing to SD cards. The new S2S66A30 is an ideal image controller for such application as automotive event data/image recorders. The pin-out and software on the new S2S66A30 are compatible with the S2S65A00.
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KYOCERA Unveils the World’s Thinnest Sliding-Face Mobile phone with One-Seg capability

sia — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:20:40 +0000

I don’t know why, but I always get a feeling as Japanese manufacturer is looking for the tiniest feature in a product to make it the world’s first, of course with much research done before jumping to that conclusion. Anyhow, this time the thinness and One-Seq compatibility is the feature that makes Kyocera’s new mobile phone the world’s first. The newly designed SA001 is a sliding face type mobile phone with capability of receiving one-Seg signal built for Japanese domestic mobile service provider “au”.
The new SA001 features a hybrid construction of stainless steel and magnesium for giving it a thin profile as well as ensuring its durability. The new handset has been designed with ease of use as well as ease of grip in mind. Furthermore, the jog key in the most frequently used arrow key section on the new hand set utilizes smart operability in reducing the amount of finger movement s the user must complete. The new SA001 comes with some convenient features like Blind Screen whereby allowing user by holding down the TV key for more than one second to make their private information difficult to see by someone else, Business card reader which allow user to easily read and store contact information on their address book through use of hand set’s built-in camera and PC document viewer function allowing user to view PC documents including Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF files to name a few. The new SA001 is equipped with 3.21 megapixel CMOS camera with auto-focus and anti-blur and 3.1 inch VGAIPS display type. Among other features on this SA001 is Open Shuffle which randomly shuffles each time the phone is slide open, open for call/close to end call allowing user to answer an incoming call by simply slide the phone open and end the call by slide closing it, mail reply function as well as incoming caller info display. The SA001 is available in Innocent Blue, Bohemian Pink, Silent Black as well as Peace White.
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Development of World’s First 4K Compatible High temperature Polysilicon TFT LCD by EPSON

sia — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:34:56 +0000

Well the next best thing to Full HD in display technology before reaching true 3D display ear is 4K panels offering a resolution of 8.85 mega pixel which is four times the resolution of full HD (1920 x 1080) ideal for high resolution demanding special applications such as industrial design, architectural design and simulation plus for use in presentation in projecting a four full HD images at the same time where market is seeing a continued expansion. To meet such market need, Seiko Epson made an announcement on development of world’s first 4K compatible high-temperature polysilicon (HTPS) TFT liquid crystal panel targeted to be used for 3LCD projectors.
The new panel measures only 1.64 inches diagonally supporting resolution of up to 4096 x 2160 pixels. In developing this panel Epson employed its latest process and C2 Fine technologies. Through C2 Fine technology the display panel is capable of displaying smooth images in high contrast and jet-black color reproduction. The C2 Fine is Epson original technology whereby combining an inorganic liquid crystal alignment layer with vertical alignment technology. The product will go on display during the International Equipment Exhibition to be held at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan from November 18 to 20.
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Development of Industry’s Lowest Current Consumption CMOS OPAMPS by ROHM

sia — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:16:08 +0000

ROHM recently made an announcement on development of a new addition to its extensive lineup of CMOS opamps. The new CMOS opamp is a single-channel type featuring a current consumption of only 0.00035mA optimized for signal amplification in compact, portable applications that require lower voltage operation and reduced current consumption. The product lineups also feature ground sense and full swing types capable of operating up to either +85 or +105 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, all models have 4kV ESD resistance for greater reliability. Rohm also provides a 1ch high-speed-response type featuring slew rate of 0.05V per 1000th of second at 0.0085mA. Rohm’s full swing opamps support not only ground sense, but also supply voltage sense providing the capability of signal input/output from ground level to the supply voltage making them compatible with high supply voltage. The wide voltage range in these products will contribute to lower power consumption. Among some of the target applications are Digital and portable cameras, Mobile phones, Surveillance camera, Mobile printers, Digital Photo Frames, Communication equipment, Portable TVs, Gaming controller, Blood pressure monitors, Portable web devices and Portable gamong systems to name a few.

Development of Industry’s Largest Capacity 1.8-inch class HDD by TOSHIBA

sia — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:12:39 +0000

Toshiba once again is breaking its own record by introducing yet again the largest capacity in 1.8-inch type HDD, a record breaking 320GB with 16MB of buffer memory and improved transfer rate for supporting high-speed processing of large data volumes. He new HDD is designed to fit into the PCs and portable external hard disk drive. The improvement in capacity has been largely due to improvement in perpendicular magnetic recording head and disk’s magnetic layer resulted in an increase of an areal density of 801 Mbit/mm2 (516Gbpsi) which happen to be the industry’s highest for 1.8 inch class of HDD. The new drive is equipped with ATA interface, 5400 RPM rotational speed in addition to its large capacity of 16MB buffer memory which makes it ideal for notebook PC applications requiring high storage capacity as well as high speed processing. Improvement in areal density has contributed in an increased in data transfer rates of 15% form the company’s earlier 250MB 1.8-inch HDD. The new 320GB drive, the MK3233GSG, cut acoustic noise during seek time by 19dB, a 4dB decrease from the MK2529GSG, the top-end drive in Toshiba’s previous generation of 5,400RPM 1.8-inch HDD. Toshiba is planning for the mass production of the new drives from December.
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Development of Industry’s lightest Tatami Mat

sia — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:18:55 +0000

Tatami as being part of traditional Japanese culture is going through a though time partly due to shift to more western style of flooring such as rugs, carpets or even wood flooring ,and party due to ongoing difficulties with supply of rice straw, the main ingredient in making tatami. The supply issue has been created due to insufficient straw materials, reduced request because of aging of tatami artisans and need for price reduction with consistent quality. As a result of this, there has been a shift toward tatami mat construction materials that do not use any rice straw. One such company that makes alternative material for tatami construction is Dow Kakoh, where the company uses “STYROFOAM” extruded polystyrene foam boards to match the feel of a straw tatami mats resulting in a lighter tatami mat.
The company in constructing the new tatami mat examined methods to increase the strength of extruded polystyrene foam board as well as combining suitable cushiony and reinforcing materials to help in producing the feel of straw tatami. The new tatami incorporates KURARAY’s steam-jet type non-woven fabrics by using new-and-improved DK Boards designed for tatami mats. The new DK Boards combines the two layer construction, a layer capable of absorbing shock and another in providing rigidity. Now a days Tatami with artificially made materials come in different colors and shapes and I even seen one with embedded LED lights targeted for Japanese type restaurants and drinking places. Being a naturalist, I have a difficulty in replacing that natural and soothing smell of rice straw tatami mat with an artificial one no matter how light it is and how well it has been made. Well, once again you can’t stop progress. The retail price for this new tatami mat is at 18,000 yen per mat. The sale target is set at 1 million tatami mats within 5 years.

Development of World’s Thinnest Capacitor by MURATA Manufacturing

sia — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:38:35 +0000

Murata Manufacturing made an announcement on development of thinnest capacitor in the world. The new tinny capacitor is only 0.05mm-thick, a rather ultra-low profile capacitor resulting in its easy placement in such places as directly under the components such as ICs, helping in design of lighter, thinner and overall smaller form factor equipment. Furthermore, it contributes in enhancing equipment features through reducing inductance in wiring patterns.
The new capacitor helps in significantly reducing the thickness of component built-in substrates. It comes with a high capacitance of 0.0001F given its size. The new capacitor would make it possible for higher mounting density due to the location of terminal electrodes on the upper surface. It is targeted to be used with component built-in substrate for mobile equipment and modules. A production capacity of 1 million units per month is scheduled for April 2010.
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