Development of an Automotive Capacitive Glass/Glass Touch Panel (Mutual type) to Add to our Existing Lineup

　　　　
We are pleased to announce the development of an automotive capacitive glass/glass touch panel (Mutual type), which will be added to our existing lineup.
 Due to the spread of smartphones and tablet PCs, the feather-touch operational feel of such devices has become familiar to users, and there is now an increased demand for automotive input devices to be installed with similarly operated touch panels.
 Automotive touch panels are mainly installed in car navigation equipment and central controls for vehicles. Touch panel structures usually have polarizing plates, which are pasted together to reduce reflection in places exposed to direct sunlight, but this has been a problem in the past with rainbow patterns appearing on the screen.
 With this new product, upper and lower electrodes are made up of glass, preventing the appearance of rainbow patterns even when polarizing plates are pasted together. It also reduces reflection in touch panels and LCD surface. Adding an AR film to the structure enables the reflectance ratio to be reduced by up to about 1.5%. Further, because the sensor portion of the capacitive touch panel was formed by printing method without using the photolithographic (exposure) technology usually used to form this portion, we were able to reduce manufacturing costs.
We plan to produce 100,000 units a month at our Philippines plant.