The media in Japan reported the news of an integrated new firm by Sony Mobile Display and Toshiba Mobile Display (TMD) on June 7, 2011. Shipments of small- and medium-size panels of the new firm could exceed Sharp and become the world's largest panel maker. This will also retrieve the lost market shares from South Korea- and Taiwan-based competitors. However, Sharp has been shifting production and market strategies by using its 8G production line (2,160mmx2,460mm, monthly production capacity of 100,000 glass substrates) to produce small- and medium-size panels and will incept the production of oxide semiconductor TFT. Therefore, even if Sony Mobile Display and TMD complete integration, their largest production line is only 4.5G, and it would be difficult to compete with Sharp in the Japan market. Hence, the integration between Sony Mobile Display and TMD is not only to gain market share of the high-end small- and medium-size TFT LCD panels, but also to improve on the technology and production schedule of AMOLED where South Korea-based firms are the market leaders. The new firm has been anticipated to combine the AMOLED and oxide semiconductor TFT technology development by Sony Mobile Display and the production capacity of LTPS TFT LCD by TMD to bring Japan-based firms to the leading position in such technologies. In addition, some media in Japan stated that Sony and Toshiba anticipate the semi-official investment foundation for promoting industries to provide JPY 1 trillion (US$12 billion) to fund the new integrated company. The foundation will hold 70-80% of the new company's shares and the government will direct the development of the company. Sony and Toshiba have refused to verify the news. Overall, Sony and Toshiba might integrate the current panel technology and capacity through government funding to gain significant market share. However, difficulties still exist for Sony and Toshiba to lead the industry due to aggressive capacity expansion by Sharp and low prices by Taiwan-based panel makers.

The surging oil price has drawn much attention to the development of renewable energies, in particular, solar energy. According to Solarbuzz, worldwide solar photovoltaic (PV) market installations reached a record high of 18.2GW in 2010, representing a 139% growth on year. Growth will continue in 2011 when the market of related manufacturing equipment is expected to climb 41% from a year earlier to US$15.2 billion, said the market research firm.TrendForce's statistics also suggests that the global solar cell production capacity is estimated at 20-25GW in 2011, and demand will continue to grow at 20-25% per year.Digitimes recently had a chance to talk to Leon Wang, senior supervisor of Marketing Center for NS Micro Motor Technology, to discuss how the rising demand for solar energy worldwide could generate new growth opportunities for his company. Specializing in the manufacture of computer fans and blowers, NS Micro Motor has expanded its product lineup specifically designed for use in PV inverters and uninterrupted power systems (UPS), and has grown its client portfolio to include Motech Industries and other major solar cell companies.The following is an excerpt of the conversation.Cooling solutions for solar applicationsNS Micro Motor has a complete portfolio of fan modules targeted at solar inverters and UPS. Similar to cooling solutions used for other different applications, those designed specifically for parts and components used in solar-powered devices require a certain degree of performance and stability. But the latter segment should also meet some special requirements such as the ability to resist weather of all kinds.As solar power systems must be installed outdoors to receive direct sunlight, parts and components used to build the installations will require a higher level of weather resistance than those used for other applications. Different countries around the world have varying climate and weather conditions. For instance, weather patterns in Europe and the Middle East are very different.Furthermore, in many countries, the difference between day and night time temperatures could be huge. For example, the desert regions of the Middle East have wide diurnal temperature ranges. Average temperatures are around 40 degrees Celsius during the day, but fall to minus 10 degrees Celsius at night time. Accordingly, components and parts used in solar installations may even comply with stringent military level specifications for temperature and humidity, waterproofing and dust resistance.In addition, PV system parts and components have to be certified in accordance with different standards for electrical equipment around the world. Products exported to the US must meet the IP laboratory standards while those to Europe are required to be VDE-approved. NS Micro Motor's cooling modules for solar applications all conform to both standards, joining Japan's Sanyo Electric, and Taiwan-based Sunonwealth Electric Machine Industry and Delta Electronics.Capability to meet stringent environmental requirementsAs solar power stations are usually located in remote areas, they require a higher level of cooling solutions that achieve a life expectancy of 100,000 hours compared to the generally-required 70,000 hours. In order to meet these requirements, NS Micro Motor has been constantly improving its manufacturing process technology and the use of select parts and components has become more strict.NS Micro Motor made inroad into the solar sector about six years ago, with Motech being its long-time partner. NS Micro Motor has steadily expanded its client base to include another major Taiwan-based solar cell supplier and a number of Japan-based companies. Meanwhile, NS Micro Motor's shipments for solar energy applications have enjoyed stable growth. The company now ships 30,000-50,000 fan modules monthly to the solar sector, and the proportion of sales generated from this new product segment is estimated at around 10%.In the market for cooling fans specifically targeting the solar energy sector, NS Micro Motor used to face strong competition from its Japan-based cooling module firms. However, over the last couple of years, NS Micro Motor and other Taiwan-based players have significantly enhanced their production capability. NS Micro Motor now also views its domestic peers including Sunon and Delta as major competitors.NS Micro Motor believes that the Japan nuclear crisis stemming from the March massive earthquake and tsunami has spurred demand for solar energy in many countries, and therefore the market outlook for 2011 is positive. The company is committed to satisfying all the demand with its existing PS and PE series of cooling modules.Founded in 1989, NS Micro Motor has grown to boast a capital base of US$42 million. Around three years ago, NS Micro Motor took over an R&D center located in Kaohsiung, and received more than 20 additional employees for a total of 60 R&D staff in Taiwan. Another 20 R&D personnel are stationed at the company's production base in Shenzhen, southern China, where the total workforce tops 1,000.

With Computex just around the corner, Digitimes decided to pay a visit to Taiwan-based video specialist AVerMedia to see what the company has planned for this year's show. President Allan Yang was on hand to tell us his thoughts about the company's direction and future trends in the wider industry.As Yang explained, AVerMedia has specialized in video technology since its inception in 1990. The company's early products focused on overlaying multiple analog video streams, but as video editing went digital, AVerMedia moved into video cross-conversion. AVerMedia's products enabled the conversion of PC VGA output to TV signals and vice versa, and sold strongly in the educational sector in particular.AVerMedia's next step was to bring TV signals to the PC, allowing digital recording of TV content and helping customers to get the most out of their existing equipment, something that Yang says is central to the company's philosophy. AVerMedia now offers a wide range of peripherals focused on streaming home content across different devices, with particular emphasis on integrating HD, digital broadcasting and the Internet. As Yang puts it, "Video anytime, anywhere - that's where we're going."Yang is unequivocal in his enthusiasm for HD video. "We believe high definition is the trend. Once you've used HD, it's hard to go back to SD. It's simply more persuasive, more immersive." While AVerMedia first moved into HD video capture 18 months ago, the company's lineup recently took an intriguing turn after its products proved a surprise hit in the gaming sector - a development that even Yang concedes took him "a little bit by surprise."When they looked into the situation more closely, the AVerMedia team was amazed at the sheer quantity of games-related video online, with literally hundreds of thousands of clips uploaded to websites such as YouTube and China-based Tudou. Further research showed that the Xbox360 and PlayStation 3 have a collective user base of around 100 million people, an enormous potential market. While most games consoles feature HD quality graphics, the video capture market was largely limited to SD, with the HD sector served exclusively by expensive professional products costing upwards of US$1,000. AVerMedia aims to fill this niche with a range of budget HD capture devices for gamers, to be launched sometime between now and August. Products will include an external PC-based capture solution with editing functionality, which passes video from the console through to the TV so the gamer can play on without interruption from the capture process; an internal video capture card for DIY enthusiasts; and a standalone box that keeps HD capture simple for console players that don't want the hassle of using a PC. The greatest selling point of these products is likely to be their price tag of around US$200, which Mr Yang says AVerMedia selected because the existing capture solutions cost far more than the games consoles themselves. As the first manufacturer to address this sizeable niche market, AVerMedia expects to see strong sales.AVerMedia also makes a line of more professionally-oriented video capture products known as DarkCrystal. DarkCrystal products are compatible with Adobe Premier Pro and include a full software development kit (SDK), allowing the development of dedicated apps for direct integration with other devices. Potential users include the medical industry, where a thriving market in HD capture is emerging as doctors find themselves under increasing pressure to justify and document every aspect of surgery, in order to avoid lawsuits.One of the hot topics at Computex this year will be tablets, and Allan Yang is looking forward to showing off AVerMedia's latest efforts on this front, which are perhaps best represented by the company's HomeFree range of "standalone network tuners". The HomeFree range combines either an analog TV tuner and a digital (DVB-T) TV tuner, or a pair of DVB-T tuners, with Wi-Fi connectivity, allowing a tablet user to watch one TV source wirelessly while a PC or laptop user watches another. Add in the household TV and that should be enough to avoid most family arguments about what to watch! Windows is naturally supported, while Mac OS support will come in June. The tablet end is implemented via a special app that even allows the user to switch channels and browse digital TV content guides. The app is currently only available for the iPad, but Digitimes was given a sneak preview of a forthcoming Android app with similar features. The HomeFree Combo model also builds in the company's IR Blaster technology and AV-in support, allowing PC/laptop users to control a DVD player once the HomeFree Combo has been set up to emulate the DVD player's remote control.Given the booming market for tablets and HD devices, Mr Yang is unsurprisingly upbeat about the prospects for AVerMedia and the video market in general. So what will AVerMedia be working on in the coming year? "Video is the key trend... along with networks and HD. Combining these to produce new products." With digital convergence, HD video and tablets all the topics of the moment, this year's Computex will provide a welcome opportunity for companies like AVerMedia to show what they can do in a sector where attention is too often focused solely on a handful of big name brands. If the products Digitimes has seen so far are anything to go by, Computex should prove to be an exciting affair for visitors and exhibitors alike.AVerMedia DarkCrystal HD Capture StationHomeFree ComboDarkCrystal HD Capture SDK IIPhotos: Company

The arrival of the iPhone 4 on Verizon Wireless effectively buoyed the iOS's share of the US smartphone market by nine percentage points sequentially in the first quarter of 2011. However, Verizon's actual iPhone 4 sales for the quarter reached only 2.2 million units, far below industry watchers' previous estimates of 3-4 million units.Verizon's lower-than-expected iPhone 4 sales mean that it was only a temporary setback for Android. Digitimes Research believes that Android will resume its growth path in the US starting the second quarter.In fact, Apple's actual shipments of iPhones have missed its internal estimates given to supply chain partners over the recent quarters. The gap between the estimated and actual iPhone shipments expanded to 39.4% in the first quarter of 2011 from 29.3% in fourth-quarter 2010, implying that demand had been overestimated.A total of 18.65 million iPhones were shipped in the first quarter compared to 16.24 million units in the fourth quarter of 2010. Both numbers came below Apple's targets of 21 million for the fourth quarter 2010 and 26 million for the first quarter of 2011.Digitimes Research predicts that about 13.5 million iPhones will be shipped in the current second quarter of 2011, still below Apple's planned sales of 18 million units.With more Android-based devices hitting store shelves in the second half of 2011, the Google smartphone OS will further widen its gap with iOS thanks to its more complete ecosystem, according to Digitimes Research.Note: 2Q11 actual shipments are based on estimation by Digitimes Research.Source: Digitimes Research, June 2011

Prior to Computex 2011, we wanted to get NVIDIA's opinions on a number of topics that affect both them and the industry. So in order to gain insight we sat down and had a conversation with Dan Vivoli, NVIDIA Senior Vice President of Marketing, and covered a variety of topics from mobile computing to cloud computing, to whether or not the PC can ultimately survive in the face of growing competition from tablets. Here's what Dan had to say and some takeaways that we had from our conversation.State of the computing industryNVIDIA has never been more excited about the prospect of GPUs then it is today. Everywhere you look, whether it's the latest super phone all the way up to the world's fastest supercomputer, you'll find GPUs front and center. Consumers really understand the benefits of an amazing visual experience, and they are demanding it in all their devices.Mobile leading the wayMobile computing is on a tear, as evidenced by simply looking at the cumulative shipments of iOS and Android devices. It took just two years to reach 20 million installed users. If you contrast this to how long it took on the Mac/Windows PC side, the same milestone took over eight years.But it makes total sense. If you think about it, the most personal of computers for consumers is currently their mobile device. Mobile devices follow users wherever they go and consumers expect the devices to be able to do all the things their PCs can do. Users want to be able to multi-task, to have super-fast web browsing, including support for Flash. Users also want to be able to play games on these devices and watch movies. As networks get faster and consumers have access to bigger data pipes, this demand for richer content will increase even more.This is the primary reason NVIDIA built Tegra. The company saw convergence coming and wanted to make sure it was at the forefront of this revolution. NVIDIA understood that the future of computing was all about delivering efficient performance at every level, meaning performance per watt per density will be critical in determining success for mobile processors.For example, a successful mobile computer based on the x86 chipset, such as the Macbook Air, requires a minimum of 25 watts of power. NVIDIA can provide even better comparable performance all around with a next- generation Tablet built on Tegra, and that device can be delivered on something less than a watt of power.When you start getting into such dramatic differences in terms of performance and capability per unit of power consumption, it makes a huge difference concerning what kind of device you can design and build. NVIDIA envisions that the market will increasingly see hybrid types of devices that can be used as phones, tablets and notebooks.Such convergence has been building for years, and the market is now starting to experience exciting and disruptive new applications and usage. For example the Motorola Atrix comes with a Lapdock so you can dock your phone and effectively use it as a notebook. The Asus Transformer is a tablet but also comes with a keyboard dock. System and application developers will only be limited by their imagination, and it's hard to predict what the imagination will unleash.As for consumers, they neither understand nor care about the laws of physics when it comes to what needs to go into the designs that provide these exciting new experiences. Consumers are not concerned with semiconductor or system design, or with the relationship between power consumption and heat dissipation. They simply want to do everything with their mobile device that they can do with their home PC. Consumers will expect their notebooks to provide all day battery life, and will expect their super phones to do all the things their PC can do.While consumer expectations are incredibly high, NVIDIA aims to exceed them. This is the main reason the company has been investing heavily in its Tegra family of mobile processors over the last five years. It's the reason NVIDIA was the first to market with the Tegra2 dual-core super chip and it's why it will be first to market with quad-core as well as with the Kal-El technology for Tegra it showed off this year at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.Tegra2 is the world's first dual core super chip. This means that it delivers extremely fast web browsing, up to 2x faster performance than competing solutions, and supports hardware-accelerated Flash so users can view the whole Web, a whole lot faster.It also features console-quality gaming because of its integrated GeForce GPU. NVIDIA has used this to bring games like Riptide GP that were XBOX 360 games over to Tegra super phones and tablets.NVIDIA did this by focusing its development on the ARM platform. NVIDIA believes ARM is an architecture that can deliver amazing performance per watt. It's one of the reasons NVIDIA chose it as the basis for its Project Denver, an NVIDIA-designed custom high-performance ARM core.NVIDIA believes that the computing industry is currently undergoing a disruption that is seen every few years, such as when the work station replaced the minicomputer as an industry standard or when the x86 platform took over the server market. The same kind of thing is happening now with ARM architecture becoming so pervasive that it will have an order of magnitude of more devices shipped in the computing market, providing application vendors to develop on the platform. The larger the platform the more it has going for it and NVIDIA believes it has every chance to be a major disruption in all levels of computing over the next 10 years. For example, earlier this year Microsoft announced it will be supporting Windows on the ARM-based Tegra platform.Don't forget the cloudAs mobile computing on superphones and tablets begins to take precedence, consumers will increasingly become used to accessing data and applications in the cloud. For example, currently most users of YouTube do not feel compelled to download the videos to their client device. In the future, this type of usage model will increasingly be adopted for various multimedia segments including music and movies. In 5-10 years, many consumers will likely completely forego the owning of physical CDs/DVDs, or even the bits on their hard drive. Instead consumers will own the right to things that can be immediately streamed to their client devices. Amazon has already introduced a streaming system using this business model.One of the key features of this paradigm is that there will be increased demand for computation in the cloud. Devices will still need to do local processing to handle decompression and decoding, but servers will also need to improve, especially when it comes to things like graphics computations in the cloud. It is already common knowledge in the industry that the best computing devices in this area feature the perfect balance of a powerful CPU and GPUs. The fastest supercomputer on the planet, the Tiahe-1A housed at China's National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin features powerful x86 CPUs paired with NVIDIA Tesla GPUs. Tesla is also featured in the fastest super computers in Japan, India and Italy.In addition, in the HPC (high performance computing) space, the Tesla GPUs delivers cluster-level performance in a power-efficient workstation. This "high density computing" allows every technical professional to have a dedicated high-performance supercomputer at their desk-side instead of building up a small cluster in the data center. In the HPC space packing as much performance as possible within fixed budget and power parameters is critical. By adding a GPU to a CPU NVIDIA is able to accelerate computing, and this is something the industry is really excited about. Developers with just a minimal amount of work can take small portions of their computing code and move it to the GPU using CUDA to get massive speedups in performance. This is game changing and the results are faster time to insight, something that is crucial in science.For example, in the medical field one of the potential dangers of getting a CT scan is the chance that the process of looking for cancer may actually cause cancer in some cases due to the fact it may take minutes of prolonged X-ray radiation exposure to produce the scan. The use of GPU acceleration to do computation in this field can reduce the amount of radiation needed to complete the scan while also allowing for higher fidelity results through filtering out data. Developments such as these show how advanced GPU accelerated performance can help directly save lives.Can the traditional PC survive?The PC is still going to be the central computing device for consumers, but as processing power increases in all devices, it will actually be the GPU that is the differentiator in these systems in the future. Even now, GPU attach rates in consumer desktops and notebooks are at their highest levels ever. In fact, more than half the consumer PCs today, ship with discrete graphics. This is a trend that NVIDIA believes will continue to grow as consumers expect more from their PCs.However, no matter what can be done on a handset or tablet, users will still be limited by the size and power consumption and there are several applications and many different uses of the classic PC where there is a lot more headroom, including gaming and professional applications. For many years there is going to be a happy cohabitation between traditional PCs and mobile computing devices and consumers will be the beneficiary.In the gaming industry, for example, whether it is smoke in the form of fluid dynamics or an added level of realism through NVIDIA PhysX technology, it will be the GPU that will process a lot of that computation to deliver a jaw dropping experience. NVIDIA understands there is still a whole lot that needs to be done in the traditional personal computer, as well as graphics, areas. More and more the problems of creating the reality users experience and face in real time games requires a combination of the visual as well as the simulation of the environment around the user.During Computex Taipei 2011, NVIDIA will feature demos from companies such as Epic and Crytek that shows off what creative people can do when you put amazing technology in their hands.Investment in Tesla pays offVivoli concluded by stating it is clear that whether it's mobile computing, computing in the cloud, or computing on a PC, NVIDIA is well positioned to be the leader in all these areas. The company made a bet on mobile computing five years ago when they built their Tegra family. This gamble is paying off now as the mobile market is taking off and sales of super phones and tablets are sky rocketing. On the PC side, NVIDIA's focus on GeForce continues and they're constantly raising the graphics bar for what's possible on a PC. I can't wait to see what some of the next gen games will look like. I'm sure they'll be truly cinematic experiences. On the cloud front, NVIDIA's commitment to GPU computing is also paying off. As more data moves to the cloud, companies will need powerful processors that can compute all of this data. That's where NVIDIA's Tesla family comes in. Whether it's the latest super phones or the fastest supercomputer, what was clear at Computex 2011 is that NVIDA is the only company that has a strategy and product line that can address all of these markets.Tesla supercomputer helping to produce safer CT scansNVIDIA Tesla supercomputerNVIDIA helping power supercomputersNVIDIA Tegra-powered phoneNVIDIA Tegra delivering amazing graphicsPhotos: Company

Chimei Innolux will be Taiwan's top supplier of large-size TFT-LCD panels in the second quarter by shipping 32.11 million units, followed by Au Optronics (AUO) with shipments of 30.66 units. Taiwan-based panel makers will ship an estimated 71.28 million large-sized (over 9 inches, including for use in tablet PCs) panels during the second quarter of 2011, rising by 9.4% on quarter and by 1.6% on year and accounting for 40.3% of global total, according to Digitimes Research.Besides CMI and AUO, the other Taiwan-based suppliers of large-size panels are Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) and HannStar Display. Taiwan-based TFT-LCD panel makers: Breakdown of 1Q11 shipment volumes (m units) Company Main applications Total shipments TV Monitor Notebook/tablet PC CMI 11.45 11.81 8.85 32.11 AUO 9.35 8.12 13.19 30.66 CPT 1.54 2.48 1.71 5.73 HannStar 0 0.34 1.64 1.98 Total for each application 22.34 22.75 25.39 70.48 Source: Digitimes Research, compiled by Digitimes, May 2011 Source: Digitimes Research, compiled by Digitimes, May 2011

Global large-size TFT-LCD panel shipments (9-inch and above, including tablet PC applications) are expected to reach 177 million units in the second quarter of 2011, up 10.2% sequentially, according to predictions based on data gathered by Digitimes Research.The shipment growth is being driven mainly by demand for TV and tablet PC applications.Taiwan makers will have an about 40% share of the global market by shipping 71.28 million large-size TFT-LCD panels, up 9.4% sequentially.The panel industry is generally optimistic about LCD TV sales in the second quarter. Both LG Display and AU Optronics (AUO) expect their TV panel shipments to have a double-digit growth in the second quarter. Taiwan makers' monitor panel shipments will have stable growth in the second quarter, with both AUO and Chimei Innolux (CMI) likely to see 6-7% growth for the segment.Growth of notebook panel shipments is slowing down, but AUO and CMI will both see shipments to the table PC segment grow over 200% in the second quarter.Source: Digitimes Rresearch, April 2011

Demand for e-book readers remained strong in first-quarter 2011, with global shipments soaring 236% on year to 4.8 million units. Digitimes Research believes global e-book reader shipments will reach 27 million units in 2011.Among the brand-name vendors, Amazon will continue to be the market leader with an 60% share of global shipments in 2011. Barnes & Noble may hold on to second place, but its gap with third-place Sony will narrow.North America will remain the biggest market for e-book readers, accounting for 72% of global shipments, but growth in the area is slowing down. E-book reader vendors are now aggresively expanding their presence in the Europe market, which is registering higher-than-average growths.Monotone e-book readers will remain the mainstream in the next three years, during which no breakthrough in developing color devices can be expected. Global e-book reader shipments will reach 63 million units by2014.Source: Digitimes Research, April 2011

Taiwan-based makers will ship 14.772 million digital cameras in the second quarter of 2011, rising by 25.1% sequentially but dropping by 1.4% on year, according to data collected by Digitimes Research.Ability Enterprise and Altek will be the top-two makers in terms of unit shipments with a combined share of 82.9%, while Fujifilm, Nikon, Eastman Kodak, Sony and Samsung Electronics will be the five largest clients in terms of order volume.Of the shipments, 51.5% will be 14-megapixel models, followed by 12-megapixel ones with 28.5%, 10-megapixel or below with 13.3%.Source: Digitimes Research, April 2011

Taiwan-based makers are expected to ship 31.394 million LCD monitors in second-quarter 2011, up 3.2% sequentially and 8.8% on year, and accounting for 69.9% of the global total. Digitimes Research estimates that Taiwan's total second-quarter LCD monitor shipment value will reach US$3.723 billion, or US$118.6 per unit.TPV Technology, Chimei Innolux (CMI), Qisda and Wistron will be among the top-five makers in terms of unit shipments. Of the shipments, 85% will fulfill ODM/OEM order and 15% for own-brand sales.Source: Digitimes Research, April 2011