CEATEC AWARD 2020

Elemental Technologies and Devices that Support the New Normal Society Category

Grand Prix

Touchless Control Panel

Alps Alpine Co., Ltd. (Exhibit Area: Themed Exhibit - New Normal)

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Outline

This touchless panel can be operated without hands or fingers coming into contact with the screen. Proprietary capacitance sensors featuring high sensitivity can detect the presence of a hand as it approaches within 10cm. The company’s unique ASIC and algorithms allow this screen to accurately detect the distance between it and a hand/finger, enabling various operations in response to gestures. The panel can be used in medical and nursing care facilities where hygiene is a priority, as well as in public facilities and homes, where it is important and/or desirable not to come into physical contact with buttons/switches. It can also contribute to preventing the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19.

Assessment

This technology is highly regarded for its excellent design flexibility and abundant potential for implementations in daily life: by replacing existing buttons and switches, in addition to touchscreens, it can be used in a wide range of markets and applications. It can be employed for elevators, for residential lighting, for ticket vending machines in stations and in restaurants, for checkout kiosks in hotels, in hospitals, for seat-back displays on aircraft, and in ATMs. This technology helps solve the problem of physical/psychological avoidance of physical contact in the “new normal” world we live in, providing safe, secure, and convenient operation. Also highly evaluated was the system’s ability to solve such security issues as the risk of a third party determining a PIN from the fingerprints left on a screen.

Semi Grand Prix

Ultrasmall Full Color Laser Light Module for AR Glasses

TDK Corporation (Exhibit Area: Themed Exhibit - New Normal)

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Outline

With the increasing popularity of on-line conferences, it is likely that demand will increase for AR glasses that allow participants to feel closer to each other. To this end, TDK has developed a full-color planar waveguide module in collaboration with NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone). The company has achieved a significant reduction in the size of AR glasses as well as developing a rapid 5-second production process for the alignment/bonding of the waveguide and laser.

Assessment

In the future, the AR glass market is expected to grow to 10% of the size of the smartphone market, and TDK believes that the productivity gains and product miniaturization it has achieved will make these AR glasses highly competitive. In addition, the company’s high-speed laser alignment and bonding technology makes it possible to reduce the size of optical components (which have proved difficult to miniaturize) to the size of electronic components, thus significantly contributing to the development of wearables. This technology is also anticipated to be of use for silicon photonic devices, which will play a major role in the high-speed optical communications that will become necessary with widespread 5G.