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EPTE Newsletter from Japan: NEPCON JAPAN 2015

NEPCON JAPAN 2015, the largest exhibition for the Asian electronic packaging industry, was held at the Tokyo Big Sight last January 14. The three-day show was the first major exhibition for the Japanese electronics industry this year. CEATEC JAPAN and SEMICON JAPAN are the other two large electronic shows held annually in Japan. Last year, both shows saw declining attendance in the wake of a slowdown in the industry. That is why industry analysts kept a close eye on the turnout for NEPCON JAPAN 2015 since it may set the trend for trade shows this year.

The trade show started out as INTERNEPCON JAPAN about 43 years ago. As more and more exhibitions were added each year, the show evolved into NEPCON JAPAN. Listed below are the combined shows and exhibitions:

• 44th INTERNEPCON JAPAN
• 32nd ELECTROTEST JAPAN
• 5th FINE PROCESS TECHNOLOGY EXPO
• 16th Printed Wiring Board Expo
• 16th IC PACKAGING TECHNOLOGY EXPO
• 16th ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS & MATERIALS EXPO
• 7th International Automotive Electronics Technology Expo
• 1ST Automotive Component Processing Technology Expo
• 3rd Connected Car JAPAN
• 5th Automotive Weight Reduction Expo
• 3rd TOKYO DESIGN LIGHTING EXPO & CONFERENCE
• 5th LED/OLED Light Expo
• 7th LED/OLED Lighting Technology Expo
• 1st Wearable Device Technology Expo

More than 2,000 companies and organizations reserved booths this year. The entire convention center floor was booked, and the show may grow even more next year. There were more visitors this year, but not too many were from North America or Europe; mostly from Korea and Taiwan.

“Wearable” technology was one of the key highlights at this year's show. There were seminars, exhibitions and demonstrations dedicated to wearable technology. The technical seminars attracted a lot of people, and it was standing room only in the conference rooms. The overflow crowds were ushered into auxiliary rooms where big screen monitors broadcast the seminar. 

More than a hundred companies with new wearable technologies were represented in the wearable section of the exhibition hall. The first group of exhibitors demonstrated the types of wearable devices such as head-mounted types, eyeglasses, goggles, bracelets and wrist watches. And there are many new companies in the wearable device industry. Some of the bigger companies (Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics) did not present anything related to the wearable device industry this time. Google obviously did not show any product in this category either because of its recent business decision to discontinue Google Glass.

The second group of exhibitors in the wearable device industry were material suppliers. These companies focused on advanced materials related to wearable electronics that includes conductive strings & fabrics, elastic conductive ink, transparent conductive compound, bendable thin battery and more. There were so many people at their booths that I could not spend as much time as I wanted to at each exhibit.

In my opinion, both exhibitors and visitors have no exact idea where the wearable electronics segment is going, but neither wants to miss a new business opportunity. Exhibitors are trying to demonstrate wearable electronic devices and customers are looking for wearable electronic devices to add to their current product lines. All I know for sure is that wearable technology is popping up in more and more areas of life. The uses of wearable technology can work its way into individuals' daily lives. It could be a positive influence for the elderly, disabled, or almost any walk of life. I think this is going to be big!

Headlines of the week

(Please contact haverhill@dknreseach.com for further information of the news.)

1. Yamagata University (Japan) 12/17

Has developed a new organic EL device with multi-layer construction using printing process.

2. Oki Printed Circuits (Circuit manufacturer in Japan) 12/24

Has established the manufacturing process of 30 layer circuit boards with over thousand 0.35 mm pitch interconnection pins.

3. Showa Denko (Major chemical company in Japan) 1/8

Has developed a new packaging material for thin lithium ion batteries. A conductive aluminum laminate makes the thickness less than 100 microns.

4. Murata (Major device supplier in Japan) 1/9

Has developed  a new SMT type small size rotary sensor position sensor “SVK3 Series” for automobile applications.  11 x 12 x 2.1mm

5. Furukawa Electric (Major cable manufacturer in Japan) 1/13

Will start volume production of new heat sink device “HYC Series” for LED lighting devices.

6. Hitachi Maxell (Major electronic material supplier in Japan) 1/13

Has developed a new process technology with new master batch resin for MID (Molded Interconnect Devices).

7. Konica-Minolta (Major optical device manufacturer in Japan) 1/13

Has developed a new multi-layer wide angle (180 degree) laser radar for automobile applications.

8. Fujitsu (Major electronics company in Japan) 1/13

Has developed a new ring type wearable device with NFC. (less than 10grams) It can trace hand written characters.

9. Riken (Public R&D organization in Japan) 1/16

Has developed a new 3D engraving process for fine structures of bio-chip devices introducing bottle-ship type femto second laser.

10.  Fujitsu (Major electronics company in Japan) 1/19

Has commercialized a new wearable EEG (Electroencephalogram) sensor that support driver’s safety detecting how much sleepy.

11. Shibaura Mechatronics (Major equipment supplier in Japan) 1/20

Has released new COG/FOG system “TTC-3000 Series” for small and middle size LCD manufacturing process.

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Dominique K. Numakura, dnumakura@dknresearch.com

DKN Research, www.dknresearchllc.com

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