Friday, August 07, 2009

Pixart to Enter Touch Screen Market

Pixart continues to explore niche but still big markets. Its next product appears to be the sensor for multitouch computer monitors. The company has licensed the technology and related know-how from Canadian SMART Technology two months ago. SMART idea is based on CMOS image sensor, rather than more conventional resistive and capacitive touch panels.

In July Pixart privately placed two million shares, with the major subscribers including Quanta Computer and KYE Systems, Chicony Electronics and Smart Technology. Quanta executives pointed out the company would introduce multipoint touch-panel PCs some time this quarter, making it dependent on PixArt`s CMOS image sensors. Industry executives expect PixArt to snatch up 65% of the market of image sensors for touch-panel PCs in 2011, at which time touch-panel PC is estimated to constitute 20% of the world PC market.

The rumor is that Pixart is planning a second private placement now, with Nintendo being the major subscriber since the two companies have been working on Wii machines for a while. PixArt executives have refused to comment on the reports.

It's interesting to see Nintendo is still committed to remote-based solution while Sony and Microsoft are preparing to gesture recognition in their future gaming consoles. To me gesture recognition might be a great idea for general purpose interface but it might be too slow for many fast-paced games. In that sense Nintendo Wiimote with Pixart sensors complemented by rapidly sampled gyros and accelerometers might be a faster solution than a pure optical gesture recognition limited by the sensor frame rate.

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