ITE to Cash in on China's Handset Market With Multi-touch ICs

Taipei, Sept. 14, 2009 (CENS)--The Taiwan-based ITE Tech Inc., a fabless IC (integrated circuit) design company, is poised to explore the Chinese market for handsets ICs used in mobile phones under generic brands with its newest capacitive multi-touch ICs, according to Lin Hung-yao, general manager of the firm.

Since merging three Taiwanese counterparts early this year and spending several months integrating their resources, ITE has achieved a lead in its technology development, with a couple of new products, including the capacitive multi-touch IC, LED (light emitting diode) driver IC and power control and management IC, to be launched.

Lin said that the capacitive multi-touch IC chip, now in a masking stage with 0.18um production process in United Microelectronics Corp.'s wafer fabrication factory, is slated for mass production in October and for delivery in the fourth quarter of this year. The chip is mainly for use in handheld devices with 7-inch and below screens, like mobile phones, especially models under Chinese generic brands, and MID (mobile Internet devices).

According to institutional investors, ITE has sent its capacitive multi-touch IC chips to Young Fast Optoelectronics Co. and Wintek Corp. for certification, in an effort to cooperate with these companies to promote the products. To avoid competing against its existing clients, the firm will be focused on only chip design instead of development of modules.

ITE reported its sales revenue of NT$360 million (US$10.9 million at US$1: NT$33) for August, down from NT$381 million (US$11.54 million) posted in July due mainly to price hikes in flash memory forcing some of its clients to temporarily stop delivery, according to Lin. However, he stressed, with the situation to ease soon, his firm is expected to attain sales revenue of NT$390 million (US$11.81 million) in September and enjoy a 15%-20% growth in its third-quarter revenue, compared with the second quarter.