Unidym Announces JDA with Nissha Printing Co. on Carbon Nanotube-Based Products

Nissha Printing Co., Ltd., the world’s leading manufacturer of touch panels, and Unidym, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Wisepower Co., Ltd., announced that they have entered into a joint development agreement (JDA) as of Nov. 11, 2011. Under the agreement, the companies will work together to introduce the world’s first three-dimensional touch panel product. Unidym will supply carbon nanotube-based products to Nissha for Nissha’s 3-D touch panels.

“We are pleased to be working with Unidym to co-develop 3-D touch panels based on conductive carbon films. The use of a flexible conductive film will allow us to remove design constraints and introduce new touch panel concepts,” said Eiji Nakagawa, deputy general manager at Devices Business Unit of Nissha.

“We have worked with Nissha for several years to demonstrate that carbon nanotube-based conductive film will meet the demands of the three dimensional touch panel manufacturing process,” said John Miller, vice president of business development at Unidym. “We will now jointly invest in product development and commercialization.”

Nissha displayed three-dimensional touch panel prototypes based on Unidym’s CNT products at SID (The Society for Information Display) in 2010 and 2011. Next-generation touch panel displays are expected to be three dimensional or curved, and materials used in 3D devices need to be robust and extensible while retaining their optical and electrical properties.