SEPTEMBER 29--Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (MEI)/Semiconductor Company (SC) (Osaka, Japan) has announced its expansion plan and the introduction of charge-coupled-device (CCD) manufacturing to its Singapore plant--Matsushita Semiconductor Singapore Pte. Ltd. (MSCS). It is the first time CCD image sensors will be manufactured outside Japan by a Japanese manufacturer, and MSCS will be the first CCD manufacturer in Singapore.
MSCS will be investing S$150 million over the next three to five years out of which S$50 million is for CCD new assembly and test facilities. The other $100 million will be spent on expanding on current production capacity of LSIs and key devices for DVD, MD, and CD player optical pickup units as well as on R&D activities.
CCD image sensors capture visual information in a wide variety of consumer and industrial electronics fields. Indeed, with the rapid spread of computers and image-processing devices, the application range of CCD image sensors is almost infinite. Applications of CCD image sensors are in AV (camcorders, digital still cameras), information and communications use (mobile phone, PC camera, teleconference system), industrial use (broadcast, medical and security cameras). Demand for these products has been constantly increasing globally.
