IMI’s German Subsidiary, VIA, partners with Toppan

Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc. (IMI) announced its subsidiary VIA Optronics GmbH (“VIA”), has formed a new joint venture with Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. (“Toppan”) in Japan.

VIA and Toppan formed a new joint venture company to serve the market for copper-based metal mesh touch sensors by transferring 65% of the shares of Toppan Touch Panel Products Co., Ltd., a recently established spin-off from Toppan, to VIA. The name of the newjointventure company will be VTS-TouchLtd. sensor Co., (“VTS”).

VTS will develop and manufacture the metal mesh touch sensors in Japan on the existing premises of Toppan. VIA will leverage its years of knowledge and experience of market requirements, system-level design, and production in the automotive, consumer and industrial markets to support further development of the core sensor technology.

Juergen Eichner, CEO of VIA Optronics said, “Using the experience of both companies, VTS will provide game changing metal mesh touch sensors to their existing and future customer base. The new setup will also strengthen VIA’s portfolio of differentiated and value-added sensor technology for touch panels, touch-display modules, display head assemblies, and interactive display systems across multiple markets and segments.”

VIA, together with Toppan, will continue to grow the business in all market segments, extend touch sensor production line capacity of VTS and continuously develop the technology itself.

VIA is a supplier of interactive display solutions, with core competences in the area of optical bonding for sunlight readability and robustness as well as high-performing touch-display modules. Having its roots in the highreliability and industrial market segments, the company now serves multiple touchdisplay applications in consumer electronics, automotive and industrial markets. VIA’s optical bonding technology enables high yield bonding for multiple display application such as thin, lightweight, curved, plastic lens, 3D and large size applications. Now in combination with superior copper based metal mesh touch technology, VIA is in a strong position to address the growing demand for interactive display solutions in consumer electronics, automotive and industrial display applications.