Himax Technologies Acquires Nano 3D Mastering Assets, Related IP and Business

Himax Technologies, Inc. announced the acquisition of certain advanced nano 3D masters manufacturing assets and related intellectual property and business from a US-based technology company. The transaction is expected to be closed in February 2018. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
 
The advanced nano 3D manufacturing masters are primarily used in imprinting or stamping replication process to fabricate devices such as diffractive optical element (DOE), diffuser, collimator lens and micro lens array. The acquisition brings Himax upstream master tooling capability to supplement the company’s wafer level optics (WLO) technology, which is critical in its efforts to offer 3D sensing total solutions.
 
In addition, certain intellectual properties such as those related to true grey scale image and micro lens arrays will enable Himax to enter into new markets such as biomedical, computational camera and niche displays, and develop more sophisticated DOE and diffuser for future generation 3D sensing solutions.
 
Himax IGI Precision Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary, has been established for the said acquisition. Himax IGI, located in Minneapolis, MN, will continue to invest in the development of state-of-the-art nano 3D mastering technology and solutions.
 
“The team that are joining us along with the acquisition are true experts in what they do and are arguably the best talents in the world in the small but very technically challenging field of nano 3D mastering,” Jordan Wu, president and CEO of Himax, said. “We sometimes got frustrated by the less than satisfactory result in our WLO product development, unsure whether the issue was caused by the quality of the master or our own product design or manufacturing. By adding mastering know-how into our family, we can surely enhance the overall WLO product quality and shorten our development cycle.”