Dominique Numakura’s Newsletter from Japan

DVD (Digital Video Disc) RecorderIs another booming consumer electronics in Japan. 130 thousand units were sold in 2001. 620 thousand units were sold in 2002. The manufacturers have been expecting more than 1.3 million units in this year. Globally, it will have more than 10 million demands in the next few years. Previously, there were only three manufacturers. They were Matsushita, Pioneer and Toshiba. Matsushita was keeping more than a 50% share. But Sony, the big giant in this area entered into this business with 4 new models this autumn. A latest data said Sony already had 2% share in October and more than a 20% share in November. Sony rolled out a new hybrid product "PSX" which has game machine capability this month to get more market share. The Japanese manufacturers are expecting a huge potential market for this new product because of its multiple capabilities in the consumer market. They believe Sony’s products will expand the whole market significantly. More manufacturers including the Koreans will enter into this market in the next two years. DVD is not portable equipment, and it does not use many flex circuits, but multi-layer rigid boards. It will generate a huge market for the printed circuit manufacturers and component manufacturers. An issue for the Japanese manufacturers is that the majority of the assembling will be made by their overseas’ plants or Taiwanese manufacturers. The Japanese PWB manufacturers must survive the price war against Taiwanese PWB manufacturers. Fortunately for the Japanese manufacturers, Taiwanese manufacturers are very busy recently, therefore it will not be a situation for a price war for a while, but in the future.Dominique NumakuraHeadline NewsSanyo (Major electronics company) Will increase the manufacturing capacity of digital cameras 74% to 20 million units per year in 2004for mostly OEM production. The expansion will be done in both domestic and overseas plants. Fujitsu (Major electronics company) Developed 35 micron micro bump array and termination technologies for the high density flip chip process.Mitsubishi Aluminum (Aluminum product manufacturer) Developed a new aluminum alloy for the flat panel display. The new alloy has a higher toughness than traditional alloys and an equivalent heat conductivity as pure aluminum.Mitsui High Tech (Semiconductor package material supplier) Established the manufacturing technology of the world finest lead frame products by a punching process. (125 micron pitch)Nippon Steel Chemical (Flexible laminate manufacturer) Will invest 5 billion yen to install two more manufacturing lines for the adhesiveless flexible laminates. The total capacity will be for 8.5 million square meters by 2005. Toppan Printing (Major printing company) Will invest 30 billion Yen to found a new plant of LCD color filters in Taiwan for the 6th generation process.JEITA (Japan) Expected mild growth (+6.5%) of domestic electronics production in 2004. Digital home appliance and PDP will lead the market.Kyocera (Major component manufacturer) Re-organized the business divisions of the organic materials including the chip carrier tapes and mother boards.All original news items were written in Japanese. Volunteers are choosing the topics and translating to English for free delivery. We are not responsible for the accuracy of the news. Quick news is the first priority of the headlines, therefore, we can not eliminate all of the mistakes in the translations.