Liquid lens

Wednesday, February 20th 2008 - 11:00 CET - Comments: 0

S eiko Instruments Inc. (Japan) and Varioptic Lyon (France) - Varioptic and SII announced the signature of a cooperation agreement to develop, manufacture and market Varioptic’s Liquid Lens products. The aim of this agreement is to achieve a significant penetration with Liquid Lens products in the fast growing camera module market and other large volume end equipment markets such as barcodes and webcams. Seiko will use its manufacturing expertise as the number one supplier of Backup button battery and Capacitor to Cellular phone companies to produce Liquid Lens units in very high volume with aggressive cost reduction to ensure liquid lens products maintain their cost advantage for auto-focus.

 

 

Varioptic liquid lens manufactured by Seiko
Seiko production capacity plan is expected to reach 0.5 million units per month by 3Q of 2008 and will expand mass production capacity according to market needs. This agreement builds on an existing production capacity for Arctic 314 and Arctic 416 liquid lenses designed for 5-Megapixel, 1/3" and ¼'' format camera modules.

 

 

Varioptic liquid lens technology
Varioptic will continue to develop the liquid lens technology and to ensure the system wide competitiveness of the Liquid Lens products. Varioptic's liquid lens feature many advantages over competing technologies in terms of cost, size, robustness, power consumption, silent operation and speed. These advantages position liquid lenses particularly well for the emerging camcorder phone market where continuous auto-focus for video is a "must-have" feature.

 

 

Varioptic liquid lens for mobile phone market

Commenting on this agreement, Christian Dupont, CEO of Varioptic said: "We are delighted to have signed this agreement with Seiko. Seiko's unique position as the number one Backup button battery and Capacitor supplier to the leaders in the cellular phone market meets perfectly Varioptic's objective to become the leading supplier of high quality image solutions for mobile devices. Seiko's proven expertise in the production of low cost miniature mechanical assemblies make them an ideal partner of Varioptic."

 

Varioptic liquid lenses for camera phone industry

Takeshi Sasaki, General Manager of Micro Energy Division of Seiko Instruments, added: "We look forward to working with Varioptic. Varioptic's Liquid Lenses present significant advantages for the miniature camera phone industry and other large volume end equipment applications, resulting in higher yields and reduced production costs in line with our strategy to provide quality and innovative products."

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