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Philips LCD held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new back-end module production plant in Wroclaw, Poland. The new plant is a result of an investment agreement LG.Philips LCD signed with the Polish government and Wroclaw's municipal government in September of last year.

LG.Philips LCD is the first global LCD panel maker to establish a production base in Europe. The Korean firm plans to start mass production at the plant in March of 2007 with an initial capacity of 3 million modules per year. The new plant will reach its design capacity of 11 million units per year by 2011.

According to DisplaySearch, Europe has emerged as the world's largest market for LCD TVs, with a 41% market share in 2005 (based on units), ahead of Japan and North America. DisplaySearch expects the European LCD TV market to record a compound annual growth rate of 29.6% per year from 2005, generating three-fold growth by 2009.

Separately, LG.Philips LCD has decided to reduce its worldwide production to address inventory concerns and better balance its short term supply with demand. The company recognize weaker seasonal demand during the second quarter, which has increased its inventory to about four weeks. The average selling price per square meter of glass at the end of the second quarter of 2006 is anticipated to decline by a mid-teen percentage quarter-end on quarter-end, says LG.Philips LCD.

LCD-TVs in three years will displace CRTs as the leading type of television manufactured worldwide, according to iSuppli. The research market company has boosted its 2006 forecast of shipments of LCD panels used in televisions to 46.7 million units, up from its previous prediction of 41.9 million units. LCD-TV panel shipments now are forecasted to rise by 74 percent compared to 2005.

LCD-TV panel shipments in the first quarter increased by 7 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2005, reaching 10.6 million units. LCDs accounted for 17 percent of television shipments in the first quarter, up from 15 percent in the fourth quarter, according to iSuppli. With its rate of adoption accelerating, LCD will become the leading display technology for television by 2009, accounting for 48 percent of factory shipments. The CRT’s share of the market will decline to 42 percent that year, marking the first time ever that CRT is not the leading technology for television display. By 2010, LCD will account for the majority of television shipments for the first time, with 56 percent of unit shipments, iSuppli predicts.

Philips Electronics confirmed closure of the deal, as announced on 9 January 2006, to transfer Philips' optical pick-up (OPU) business unit to Arima Devices, an affiliated company of Arima Computer, a Taiwanese group. As a result, Philips holds a 12% share in Arima Devices. The Dutch company also announced that it has completed the merger of Philips Mobile Display Systems with Toppoly Optoelectronics of Taiwan to form a mobile display company. The company is named TPO and it's principal shareholders are Compal Electronics (25.1%) and Philips (17.5%).

Leoni, a German cable and wiring systems manufacturer, will acquire Studer at a price translating to about 105 million euros. With sales of about 84 million euros in the 2005 financial year and approximately 350 employees, Studer, founded in 1939 is one of the five largest Swiss cable manufacturers.

Varioptic, the French liquid lens company, has closed the second tranche of its most recent funding round, bringing the total of this round to 17,4 millions euros. Varioptic pioneers in designing and manufacturing electrically controlled optical liquid lenses for optical designers. Founded in 2002, Varioptic is located in Lyon (France) and headed by Etienne Paillard, CEO.

Fuel cell component company Bac2 has secured £500,000 investment funding, enabling it to further develop ElectroPhen, an electrically conductive plastic. This investment money is in addition to DTI grant funding of £240,000 awarded to a six member consortium, lead by Bac2, to optimise its ElectroPhen material for use in fuel cell components. The British company is now in the process of exploiting the material commercially with patents pending in Europe, America and Japan.

Elron Electronic Industries announced that A.M.T. - Advanced Metal Technologies-, an Elron group company, has completed a $14 million financing led by Shamrock Israel Growth Fund. Elron is investing an aggregate of $5 million in this financing round in which other existing shareholders also participated. AMT develops, markets and licenses advanced technologies for amorphous and nano-crystalline materials, for a wide range of commercial applications. AMT operates together with its group companies, creating innovative solutions for applications mainly for electrical heating, sensoring (authentication and coding solutions), electronic shielding and electronic components.

Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) and Litrex are paving the way for the production of a new generation of high resolution polymer organic light emitting displays (P-Oled) through the development of an inkjet printing solution capable of producing P-Oled displays at up to 200 pixels per inch (ppi). Cambridge Display Technology is a pioneer in the development of light emitting polymers (P-Oled). Litrex develops precision inkjet systems for color displays and electronics. Litrex is based in Pleasanton, CA and was acquired by ULVAC in 2005, after a period of joint ownership between CDT and ULVAC.

DesignAdvance Systems, a developer of design automation software for users of EDA and MCAD tools, announced its entrance into the European PCB design market with the appointment of Cadlog as its distribution partner. Cadlog, based in Rome, Italy, supplies design tools and services for PCB and electronics industries in Italy and Southern Europe.
Cadlog will provide PCB designers in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland with DesignAdvance products and technical support.

OLED-T, a UK-based manufacturer of organic light emitting diode (OLED) materials, has invested $900,000 in a R&D facility on the Brunel University Science Park site, Uxbridge. The new 186m2 R&D facility is a chemistry laboratory that will enable OLED-T to accelerate the production of its OLED materials known as Elamates and develop future generations of materials.

DisplaySearch, the worldwide leader in display market research and consulting, reported that the OLED industry reached revenues of over $500 million in 2005 and forecast revenues of more than $4.6 billion by 2010.

Acculogic announces a further expansion in board test capabilities with a successful bid to purchase Scorpion Technologies in Germany.

VaST Systems Technology announces the opening of its new European headquarters in Grenoble, France. The company is considering locating part of its research and development team there in the future. VaST's virtual prototyping solutions enable the design of embedded systems and system-on-chip (SoC). With VaST solutions, users can analyze and optimize their architecture, and develop software concurrently with hardware.

Triton, an independent European private equity investor, and the Dematic management have together taken over the shares in the worldwide Dematic business from Siemens. This step concludes the realignment of Dematic - which started in September last year - leaving the company as an autonomous enterprise. The companies involved have agreed not to disclose details of the transaction or of the sale price. Dematic is one of the world's leading suppliers of logistics automation equipment. Dematic employs about 4,000 people and achieved a business volume of more than 800 million euros.

US Zyvex and French Arkema announced their intention to strengthen their strategic partnership by jointly developing commercial nanomaterials applications. Through a new licensing arrangement, Arkema will use Zyvex’s patented Kentera dispersion technology, in conjunction with its own Multi Wall Carbon Nanotubes (MWNTs). Arkema will also be the exclusive distributor in Europe of Zyvex’s NanoSolve supply range.

Arkema produces and distributes multiwalled nanotubes (MWNTs). Its production capabilities, opened at the beginning of 2006, currently enable Arkema to manufacture 10 tons per year of high-purity MWNTs at its Lacq site (France). With this new facility, Arkema is planning a commercial development to fulfill the expectations of converters in the thermoplastics, epoxy resins, elastomers and coating sectors. Progress is also expected in the field of energy in which the use of carbon nanotubes should help manufacture energy-efficient batteries, super-capacitors and fuel cells. Present in over 40 countries with 18,400 employees, Arkema achieves sales of 5.7 billion euros (2005).

DisplaySearch has updated its 2006 OLED technology report, saying that the worldwide Oled market reached $491 M in 2005, up 8% Y/Y, and unit shipments of 55.8 M, up 72%. For 2010, the display market research firm lowers OLED revenue forecast to $4.6B. Mobile phones applications will represent $3,189.1 M a that time.