Nikkei Business Asia Tech News

Several prototypes and products of CIGS (CuIn-GaSe) photovoltaic (PV) cells that have large areas and high conversion efficiencies were exhibited in Yokohama City, Japan.

Nissho Electronics Corp, NGC Corp and Samsung Japan Corp announced a digital signage system that can freely combine LCD displays with different sizes and in different orientations and show one image.

Optiled Japan Ltd will release a string-like LED lamp for use in ornaments and indirect illumination in July 2010.

Just before starting to tear down the iPhone 4, we heard the news that the reception of the iPhone 4 becomes unstable when it is held by the left hand.

Murata Manufacturing Co Ltd announced that it has developed the "LXWS series," a wireless power feeding system based on "electric field coupling" technology.

The electronic health record (EHR) is an essential part of the "doctor in your pocket" social infrastructure linked to the medical establishment. EHR is a framework for single-source storage of all medical information, including individual health and electronic patient records. It is possible that EHR may be adopted very rapidly throughout the United States.

Service providers are flocking to the healthcare field, where electronics technology is being utilized extensively. Until lately electronics companies have only bee proposing new constituent technologies, but at last the service providers are expecting to see profits.

Solid-state batteries, replacing conventional liquid organic electrolytes with solid electrolytes, are attracting increasing attention. Demand for high-capacity batteries in applications including electric vehicles (EV) and stationary use is soaring, and solid-state batteries are emerging as a candidate offering both safety and long service life. Solid electrolyte is becoming more important in next-generation batteries as well, as the search for higher capacity continues. The solid electrolytes available today, though, still have a number of problems.

Televisions are becoming mere commodities, especially in the United States, and as commoditization progresses, TVs are growing closer and closer to PCs. In response to the trend, manufacturers in the PC industry are hoping to move into the TV industry. For a better understanding of what's going on, we took a look inside the ROBRO-TV, the first set to mount the Atom from Intel Corp. of the US.

At IDF Beijing, Intel showed the Single-chip Cloud Computer (SSC) message-passing microprocessor, which integrated 48 Pentium-equivalent CPU cores. The SCC provides each CPU core with 256Kbytes of secondary cache, but hardware is not provided with a mechanism to ensure cache integrity. This decision was made to minimize chip size.

The new Sandy Bridge (development code name) microarchitecture will probably begin showing up in microprocessors for PCs and servers at the end of 2010. At IDF Beijing, Intel announced that volume production would start in the 4th quarter of 2010, using 32nm manufacturing technology. The first 22nm chips using the same architecture are expected a year later.

The major growth rates of the past seem unlikely in today's PC market, and the embedded equipment market has emerged as the key to future growth for Intel Corp. of the US. Intel hopes to use its foothold in the giant Chinese market to launch its embedded business effort successfully.

Sony Corporation of Japan continues to hold the largest share–and by a wide margin–of the imaging devices market for digital cameras, camcorders and similar products. The company has consistently driven technological evolution through advances such as tighter pixel pitch and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor functionality, remaining competitive.

An industry standard for wireless power supply to smartphones, digital cameras and other portable equipment has been drawn up by major mobile telephone manufacturers and other firms. The standard was announced by the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), an industry body working on wireless power standardization, in April 2010.

Companies like Sony and Panasonic Corp. of Japan already market TVs that let you watch YouTube videos, but Google TV is different in two important ways.

The TV rumored to be under development by Google Inc. of the US has finally been revealed: Google TV, announced at the Google I/O developer's conference on May 20, 2010. It is a TV platform designed for Internet-based content viewing.

Demand has finally returned to the Japanese electronic component and semiconductor industries, starting from fall 2009. Demand from equipment manufacturers has remained strong into 2010. In a sudden change from the pits of the global economic depression, triggered by the Lehman Shock in fall 2008, now the biggest problem is a parts shortage.

We began to remove the black parts one by one. First, we took out the lithium polymer rechargeable battery, which is the largest component. When we torn down the iPhone 3G and the iPad, their batteries were attached by using adhesive, etc and very difficult to remove.

Nikkei Electronics Teardown Squad started disassembling the iPhone 4 with help from Japanese engineers.

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Elpida Memory Inc respectively delivered speeches on the business strategies for their DRAMs designed for smartphones June 25, 2010, in Tokyo.