Japan's six major electronics makers have established a joint venture to develop next-generation liquid-crystal displays.
The six are Sharp Corp., Toshiba Corp., NEC Corp., Hitachi Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp.
Advanced LCD Technologies Development Center Co. (Altedec) will conduct research and development on high-performance active matrix LCDs and create advanced LCDs, goals that are difficult for a single company to realize, they said Monday.
Amid rapid development in digital and telecommunications technologies, it is urgent to make high-performance and environmentally friendly displays, the companies said.
Altedec, based in Yokohama, is capitalized at 50.4 million yen, with the six firms invested equally. It will eventually be staffed by about 50 engineers from the parent companies.
Fumiaki Funada, a senior official at Sharp, has assumed the presidency of the new company.