Terminal Technology
Terminal Technology

Casio to Buy LCDs from Taiwan

Casio Computer Co. Ltd. has indicated it would buy liquid crystal displays from Taiwan’s HannStar Display Corp., aiming to boost its presence in the cell-phone-use panel market without investing in its own production facilities. Casio has agreed to extend to HannStar its technologies to make high-resolution panels. Casio is the world’s largest maker of LCD panels used in digital cameras with a 40 percent market share while HannStar is Taiwan’s fifth-largest LCD maker.

Samsung to Adopt Aplix Java

Samsung has announced it will adopt “JBlend” for its mobile phone handsets. JBlend is the Java execution environment developed by Aplix Corp. for use in embedded devices. Samsung plans to deploy JBlend in several of its models to be developed and launched in the future. “It is to be the first time for Samsung to deploy JBlend in the mobile phone,” according to Aplix.

Renesas Starts Sample Shipments of Dual-Mode Chips Developed With NTT DoCoMo

Renesas Technology Corp. today announced it has started shipping evaluation samples of a single-chip LSI, jointly developed with NTT DoCoMo, Inc. for dual-mode mobile handsets supporting W-CDMA (3G) and GSM/GPRS (2G) systems. Evaluation samples have been available for customers since the end of July 2005. With technological development investment from NTT DoCoMo since July 2004, the jointly developed LSI is expected to promote the global use of FOMA(R) and similar 3G mobile handsets. It also reduces costs by incorporating a dual baseband processor handling W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS systems together with a Renesas Technology SH-Mobile application processor.

Toshiba to Boost Memory Output

Japan’s Toshiba will invest 200 billion to boost output of flash memory chips used for mobile phones and portable music players to meet soaring global demand, a report says.The Japanese electronics giant will lift production capacity at its domestic chip plant to 150,000 units per month in 2007, up sharply from the current capacity of 10,000 units, the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Sunday.

Maxis, Sony Ericsson and RIM announce BlackBerry Connect for P910i

BlackBerry Connect from Research In Motion enables BlackBerry wireless email services to be used on the P910i, while maintaining the existing P910i experience and functionality. The P910i is a high-quality communications tool for voice calls, text and picture messaging and email, as well as providing full PDA/organizer functions. In addition, it is a camera-phone capable of recording video and still images and also provides a good gaming experience on the 262K color touch-screen. The wide range of applications available for download enables the P910i to do much more than make voice calls, thereby increasing its value for both consumers and operators. The P910i is based on the open Symbian OS v7.0 and the established UIQ user interface.

Motorola and Ericsson Join Alliance

Motorola and Ericsson have joined South Asia’s mobile alliance, a move that may help position their growth in the region. The alliance serves 69 million customers in eight countries. The size of their investment has not been determined and the joint venture is also in talks with telecom firms in Japan, South Korea and Thailand to broaden its reach. China’s second-largest telecom equipment maker, ZTE Corp., also participated in the joint venture.