Nichia 'to mass produce blue lasers' next year
Nichia will begin mass production of GaN-based blue lasers in early 2005, reports Nihon Keizai Shimbun.
The company is believed to be investing more than ¥5 billion ($45 million) at its head office in Anan, Tokushima Prefecture, as it looks to ramp monthly production capacity to around 250,000 units by the end of next year.
Nichia was the first company to develop a blue laser diode and has already invested a similar sum of cash at its Anan plant. The additional investment comes as rival chip manufacturing companies Matsushita, Toshiba and NEC look to ramp up their own blue laser production.
The race to bring next-generation DVD players and recorders to market has stepped up a gear in recent weeks as key hardware manufacturers look to finalize format specifications and sign up Hollywood studios to their respective technology camps.
Sony recently said that it would begin sampling key components for its Blu-ray Disc format, while Toshiba and its allies in the high-definition DVD group have set up an industry group to promote the alternative format it and NEC have developed.
Sample shipments of blue lasers from Nichia are expected to begin next month, with the price of a blue laser for next-generation DVD recording thought to be in the region of $270, according to the report.
In its fiscal year 2006, Nichia is expecting to generate around ¥5 billion from sales of blue laser diodes.
•According to another report from Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Sony and Matsushita plan to incorporate Blu-ray technology in new camcorders that the companies plan to release in 2005.
Using 8 cm discs, as opposed to the conventional 12 cm format for DVD, the camcorders will enable home video recordings in high-definition format.
The smaller discs will have a capacity of 15 GB, compared with 27 GB for the "standard" single-layer Blu-ray format.
