Himax Technologies, Inc. (Himax) operates as a global fabless semiconductor solution provider dedicated to display imaging processing technologies.
The company's display driver ICs and timing controllers have been adopted at scale across multiple industries worldwide, including TVs, PC monitors, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, automotive, ePaper devices, industrial displays, among others.
As the global market share leader in automotive display technology, the company offers innovative and com...
Himax Technologies, Inc. (Himax) operates as a global fabless semiconductor solution provider dedicated to display imaging processing technologies.
The company's display driver ICs and timing controllers have been adopted at scale across multiple industries worldwide, including TVs, PC monitors, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, automotive, ePaper devices, industrial displays, among others.
As the global market share leader in automotive display technology, the company offers innovative and comprehensive automotive IC solutions, including traditional driver ICs, advanced in-cell Touch and Display Driver Integration (TDDI), Large Touch and Display Driver Integration (LTDI) and local dimming timing controllers (Local Dimming TCON), as well as and AMOLED solutions, including AMOLED drivers, TCONs and touch controller ICs. The company is also a pioneer in tinyML visual-AI and optical technology related fields. The company's industry-leading WiseEye Smart Sensing technology which incorporates Himax proprietary ultralow power AI processor, always-on CMOS image sensor, and CNN-based AI algorithm has been widely deployed in consumer electronics and AioT related applications. While Himax optics technologies, such as wafer level optics (WLO), LCoS microdisplays and 3D sensing solutions, are critical for facilitating emerging AR/VR/metaverse technologies. Besides, Himax designs and provides touch controllers, AMOLED ICs, LED drivers, EPD drivers, power management ICs, and CMOS image sensors for diverse display application coverage.
Products and Solutions
The company has several principal product lines, such as display drivers and timing controllers; touch controller ICs; ASIC service; LCoS and MEMS products; Power ICs; CMOS image sensor products; wafer level optics products; 3D sensing business; and ultralow power WiseEye smart image sensing.
Display Drivers and Timing Controllers
Display Driver Characteristics
Display drivers deliver precise analog voltages and currents that activate the pixels on panels.
Large-Sized Applications
The company provides source drivers, gate drivers, Power Managements ICs (PMIC), P-gamma OP level shifter and timing controllers (TCON) for large-sized panels principally used in desktop monitors, notebook computers and televisions. Display drivers used in large-sized applications feature different key characteristics, depending on the end-use application. For example, the industry trend for large-sized applications is generally toward super high channel, low power consumption, low cost, thin and light form factor, touch function, higher data transmission rate and higher driving capabilities. Higher speed interface technologies are also key for 4Kx2K and 8Kx4K high-resolution TVs. Greater color depth, thermal solution, high data rate and high driving, are particularly important for advanced televisions and certain monitors.
The company's large display driver IC business achieved several milestones since 2019. For example, it successfully added 12-inch fabs into the pool of the company's foundry capacity for its large display driver ICs to ease the capacity shortage of 8" foundry where the vast majority of large panel driver ICs are fabricated. On high-end TV, Himax outpaced peers to lead the mass production of customized high-speed point-to-point (P2P) transmission using embedded panel intra interface such as iSP, CHPI, USI-T, CMPI, CEDS and CSPI for 4K TVs and 8K TV. On gaming monitor, the company has high frame rate and high driving driver to meet various resolutions needs and frame rates such as UHD 240Hz, QHD 360Hz, FHD 480Hz, etc. The company also successfully developed low power consumption driver applied in low power monitor to satisfied Energy Star 8.0 and even Energy Star 9.0. Lastly, the company's P2P driver and TCON ICs with 13.3" FHD can meet Intel 1W project requirements.
The company also made tremendous progress in TCON product lines in 2022. The UHD TV penetration rate is larger than 65% in 2022, and the company developed competitive UHD TV TCON to seize this market. Himax UHD TV TCON has mass production at all major China LCD makers. The company also provides gaming TCON for the new QHD 360Hz and UHD 240Hz gaming monitor and notebook. For high-end gaming requirement, the company has developed eDP 8.1G TCON to increase bandwidth.
Small and Medium -Sized Applications
Automotive Display Applications
The company offers source drivers, gate drivers, timing controllers and integrated drivers for the fast-ramping automotive display applications, such as instrument cluster display (ICD), center stack display (CSD), head-up display (HUD), rear seat entertainment display (RSE), rearview mirror display and sideview mirror display.
The automotive display drivers can support various display resolutions to meet the customized needs of automotive display, including GIP panel and non-GIP panel, a-Si TFT panel and LTPS panel. Meanwhile, the automotive display drivers can support higher output driving voltage for higher contrast ratio and faster liquid crystal response in automotive display applications. The automotive Timing Controller can support Local Dimming function for the goal of higher contrast ratio and thermal reduction in automotive display applications. The company launched the world's first TDDI design for automotive displays technology which started shipping in 2019 with meaningful mass production shipment to industrial leading automotive panel house, Tier-1 and brands starting 2021.Himax is the market leader in automotive display driver business covering the entire spectrum of products and technologies, including the industry's most comprehensive traditional DDIC product offerings as well as leading solutions for new technology areas such as TDDI, local dimming TCON, LTDI and AMOLED. The company's automotive TDDI is broadly adopted by named Tier 1s and auto makers in their new launches of vehicles. Himax also have reached over 10 million units shipment accumulated in the third quarter of 2022, a milestone that demonstrates a robust growing trajectory moving forward. In 2023, Himax successfully supplied over 20 million units of automotive TDDI, and the company is witnessing a continued expansion of TDDI design-wins across various segments. With the initiation of LTDI mass production in the third quarter of 2023, the company is poised for further growth in its overall market share within the automotive display driver market. The company's unwavering commitment to technological innovation sets it apart from its competitors, positioning it as leaders in the development of next-generation automotive display solutions. In addition, on TCON ICs for automotives, the company also has embedded local dimming feature in TCON for TFT-LCD to support higher contrast instrument panels needed for drivers to read the content of the meter quickly. Additionally, several key panel makers have sought cooperation with Himax to develop AMOLED solutions for automotive applications. The company has developed customized AMOLED ASICs, including traditional DDICs and TCONs, for some of these key panel makers, with some already in mass production since 2021.
Smartphone and Tablet Applications
The company offers display drivers for small and medium-sized displays in smartphone and tablet applications that combine source driver, gate driver, timing controller, DC to DC circuits, and optional frame buffer into a single chip or cascades chips in various display technologies, such as TFT-LCD and OLED.
Smartphones and tablet have gained greater popularity among small and medium-sized display drivers and enjoyed high growth in recent years. This has also contributed to increased demand for larger size and higher resolution smartphone displays. In 2016, Himax developed a series of single chip touch display driver integrated circuit (TDDI) for advanced in-cell touch display panel. Himax started the shipments of in-cell TDDI for some smartphones in 2016 and extended TDDI solution to tablet application in 2017. In-cell TDDI, featuring thinner display, slimmer border, and better visual quality, has been getting popular, so the company re-invented a new generation of TDDIs supporting COG and COF for 18:9 or wider aspect ratio with interlaced output pins, which makes the bottom border of the in-cell touch display even smaller to gain higher display to body ratio. The company's FHD+ and HD+ TDDI successfully gained design-wins with a few leading Korean and Chinese smartphone brands and panel makers. The company started small volume shipments in the first half of 2018 with accelerating volume starting in the second half of 2018 into 2019 and beyond. Starting in 2020, Himax extended the company's product offerings with high frame rate TDDI solution and has started shipping to top-tier smartphone OEMs.
A major development the company is seeing in the marketplace is increased utilization of the OLED display for smartphone, smart watch, automotive and tablet. The company is collaborating closely with leading panel makers across China and Korea for AMOLED product development in smartphone, tablet, automotive and other consumer electronics. In the first quarter of 2022, the company's flexible AMOLED driver and TCON for automotive display successfully ramped up for a customer's flagship EV model, while in the second quarter of 2022, the company commenced production of AMOLED TCON and Driver IC chipsets for tablet applications for a leading OEM for their 11-inch and 12.6-inch flagship models. Concurrently, the number of awarded projects in AMOLED for automotive and tables with worldwide named vendors is increasing. Himax continues its R&D efforts to upgrade new TCON and OLED DDIC solutions for tablet PC applications AMOLED solutions, including driver ICs and TCONs, will become one of the major growth engines for the company moving forward.
On the other hand, the application of in-cell TDDI started to extend from mainstream smartphone to larger displays in 2018. Himax started to offer various new TDDI solutions for tablet, smart speakers, and even some infotainment displays in automobiles. The first tablet TDDI with WXGA resolution went into mass production in 2018 and also extended to leading smart speaker applications as well. In 2019, Himax announced a series of new driver and TDDIs for tablet application. The COF packaged driver IC solution enabled one leading tablet OEM to successfully launch a WQXGA resolution tablet with super slim bezel. The company also added another new features to its TDDI that can support up to WUXGA and WQXGA resolution which has gained several design-wins from tablet OEMs across Korea and China in 2019. The company also launched the first TDDI supporting active stylus function in tablets which commenced mass production and contributed to its tablet application business in early 2020. With the demand increase for bigger size display, higher resolution, and precise touch accuracy and stylus performance, Himax kept developing new tablet TDDIs to broaden the company's product lineup to maintain its leading market position. The company started mass production for the world's first 12.4" WQXGA super high-resolution in-cell tablet PC with a leading end customer in 2021 and expanded collaborations with more brands into more models moving forward.
Tablet in-cell TDDI offers the benefits of lower cost and a simplified supply chain that represents an easier manufacturing process for panel makers. For consumers, it offers a lighter weight, slimmer and more stylish design, as well as improved touch accuracy with added option for active stylus. The company's active stylus in-cell technology is adopted in many launched tablet products. At present, the company is the dominant supplier for literally all leading Android names. In 2020, tablet demand picked up significantly, fueled mainly by remote work and online learning demand due to the pandemic. TDDI for tablet application continues to broaden its market, representing a potential upside for Himax into 2023 and beyond.
Electronic Paper Display Applications
The company offers display driver for the Electronic Paper Display (EPD) applications, Electronic Shelf Label (ESL) and Signage Display. The Electronic Paper Display (EPD) drivers can support various display resolutions to meet the customized needs of applications. The company is collaborating with world-leading e-paper customers for certain ASIC projects on their next generation products. This consolidates the company's market presence in the emerging e-reading and e-signage segments from 2022 and onward.
Touch Controller ICs
The company offers touch controller solutions for capacitive touch panels. The company's touch controller solutions are suitable for touch panels in electronic devices with TFT-LCD or OLED displays, such as smartphones, tablets, automotive displays, and notebooks. The company commenced production of capacitive touch controller ICs for on-cell TFT-LCD displays with smartphone brand customer since 2011. Subsequently, the company expanded its customer base to include more well-known smartphone and tablet brands. In 2015, the company developed a series of TDDI products for Tier 1 and panel makers and commenced mass production for smartphone brands. Additionally, the company began mass production of its TDDI for tablet and automotive displays in 2019. TDDI has gradually replaced on-cell touch controllers and discrete driver solutions, offering thinner displays, slimmer borders, and better visual quality, thus becoming the mainstream technology. The company continues to expand its TDDI solutions to replace discrete DDICs and touch controller ICs in the TFT-LCD display market.
Since 2023, aligning with the market trend of OLED display proliferation, the company embarked on developing AMOLED on-cell touch controllers tailored for tablets, notebooks, and automotive OLED displays. The company's AMOLED on-cell capacitive touch controller boasts several innovations and merits. It is meticulously engineered, featuring an industry-leading touch signal-to-noise ratio exceeding 45 dB, making it the ideal solution to meet the demands of flexible OLED panels commonly required for automotive applications. It also offers improved sensitivity to challenging user conditions, such as glove-wearing and wet finger operations, ensuring exceptional performance with display quality unaffected by touch-display interactions. Moreover, the company's touch controller not only supports multi-finger capacitive touch and is compatible with various types of OLED panels, but it can also cascade multiple chips to support displays larger than 20 inches. For consumer and IT applications, it boasts a 240Hz high touch report rate at 5-finger operating conditions, and its embedded micro-controller single-chip solution reduces costs for flexible products. To support the state-of-the-art active stylus feature of tablet and notebook touchscreens, the company's AMOLED touch controller integrates multiple active stylus protocols, such as USI, MPP, LPP, and HPP. The company's AMOLED designs have garnered several design wins from leading customers and are set to commence production in 2024.
ASIC service
From 2012, the company successfully completed several ASIC service projects for Japan top TV, Projector and HMD makers with advanced and high-performance customized video processing chips. All of these chips are implemented with the company's proprietary video process platform that includes its video process display IPs and high-speed transmission IPs. The process nodes adopted for these ASICs are usually 40nm, 55nm and even 28nm processes. From 2016, the company also developed the depth sensing technology that aims 3D sensing and AR/VR markets.
LCoS and MEMS Products
Himax Display, the company's subsidiary, has contributed to its microdisplay products lines: Color-filter LCoS, Color-sequential LCoS, Front-Lit LCoS, Phase modulation LCoS and MEMS.
The latest development of Front-Lit LCoS enables an ultra-compact and extremely power-efficient optical engine by consolidating and integrating LED illumination system and the polarization beam splitter (PBS) into the micro display module itself. Front-Lit LCoS enables a much-simplified optical engine design and assembly process that could successfully lowered customers' manufacturing time and costs.
Himax Display is one of the market leaders of the LCoS industry since 2012 with its whole product line patented. Himax Display has a mass production ready liquid crystal assembly line, which is unique in the industry with mass production shipping volume. The company has produced and shipped over 3 million units from this ISO certified line. The company's customers use its products in various applications such as pico-projector, communication, toy projector, AR glasses, and AR-HUD for automotive.
The merits of the company's technology feature in resolution, power consumption, size, cost, optical engine design, and image quality. Many of the company's industry-leading customers have demonstrated their state-of-the-art products, including pico-projector, holographic display, AR glasses and AR HUD system, with Himax LCoS technology inside at the 2020 CES with positive market feedbacks. The company's technology leadership and proven manufacturing expertise have made it a preferred partner for customers in these emerging markets and their ongoing engineering projects in AR glasses and AR HUD for automotive applications. In May 2021, Himax Display revealed its proprietary LCoS 2.0 phase modulation technology, which enable features such as multi-focal plane images displaying along with less power consumption, lower cost and smaller form factor to enable holographic display applications for AR-HUD. In addition, phase modulation technology provides LiDAR for autonomous driving and Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS) for Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM) optical communications networks. In May 2023, Himax Display unveiled the cutting-edge color sequential Front-lit LCoS for advanced AR glasses solutions at Display Week. It's a new technology that features a lightweight, compact form factor and high brightness. Several tech giants in the industry have shifted their focus away from micro-LED to the company's Front-Lit LCoS for their AR goggles after seeing company's live demo at the event. This shift is demonstrative of the company's exceptional achievements in both performance and functionality, marked by breakthroughs not only in the luminance performance in full RGB color, but also in terms of superior optical efficiency, tiny form factor and ultra-lightweight design. These factors are critical and represent technological advancements that may meet rigorous requirements to support next generation see-through goggles.
The company provides a rich products family for customers to choose for different applications, as each product has its own most important parameters to select and Himax Display provides choices to customers.
Power ICs
Himax provides TFT-LCD television, monitor and notebooks power management solutions. The main products are Power Managements ICs (PMIC), Programmable Gamma OP ICs (PGOP) and Level Shifter ICs (LS). In recent years, PMIC/PGOP 2-in-1 and PMIC/PGOP/LS 3-in-1 PMIC have gradually become the mainstream solutions. Besides, Himax also provides power management solutions for OLED notebooks.
Power Management ICs
A power management IC integrates several power components to fulfill system power requirements. It may include step-up or step-down pulse width modulation, or PWM, DC-to-DC converters, low-dropout regulators, or LDO regulators, voltage detectors, operational amplifiers, p-gamma OP, level shifters, and/or other components. For panel module applications, a power management IC provides a reliable and precise voltage for source drivers, gate drivers, timing controllers, and panel cells. Moreover, its built-in over-temperature and over-current protections help prevent components from being damaged under certain abnormal conditions. As integrating an increasing number of components into a power management IC is likely to be a continuing trend, power management ICs will continue to be critical components of a TFT-LCD and OLED panel module.
Programmable Gamma OP ICs
It is a Programmable Gamma, DVR and VCOM IC. Each is controlled by a 10-bit digital analog converter (DAC). The user can easily select one of the two gamma curves to compensate for the display. The PGOP also includes a channel DVR, VCOM buffer and built-in 7-bit DAC. Support 128-step to adjust the VCOM output voltage by I2C control setting automatically.
Level shifter
TFT-LCD panel manufacturers have developed panel designs to reduce the usage of display drivers, like gateless designs, which integrate the gate driver function onto the glass but needed level shifter. All level shifter channels feature the same input circuitry and are compatible with the standard logic-level signals generated by timing controllers in typical applications. The level shifter converts the timing-controller (TCON) logic-level signals to the high-level signals needed by the GOA (gate on array) display. The output circuitry has been designed to achieve high rise and fall times when driving the capacitive loads typically encountered in TFT-LCD display applications.
LED driver
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor light source that is widely used in lighting, display and TFT LCD backlight nowadays. The advantages of LEDs as light sources are the small size, fast switching, low power consumption and long lifetime etc. LED driver IC is designed to dim the LEDs with critical features such as high current accuracy, high current matching, short LED protection, open LED protection, over voltage protection, ghosting effect reduction and current sink leakage protection etc.
CMOS Image Sensor Products
The CMOS image sensor products are developed by the company's subsidiary, Himax Imaging. The products were designed firstly for camera-equipped mobile devices, such as mobile phones, tablets and notebook computers, with a focus on low light image and video quality. Although it seems relatively challenging for the company to gain significant market share in conventional RGB camera, it does think there are various interesting and different applications in imaging. Based on the technologies and IP the company developed, on top of legacy products for laptop and multimedia it has been supplying, the company's product lines have been expanded to cover three domains: ultralow power computer vision- Always-On Sensor (AoS), Near Infrared (NIR) sensor, and big pixel BSI sensors in automotive and surveillance. In 2019, the company furthers prioritized its focus on ultralow power computer vision- Always-On Sensor (AoS) as the demand for battery-powered smart device with AI intelligent sensing is rapidly growing. Together with the technologies the company already developed, such as Near Infrared (NIR) sensor, it can provide its customers the best integrated solutions for several specific domains.
In specific video applications such as battery-powered surveillance cameras, doorbell cameras, and door-lock cameras, customers require not just an ultralow power sensor for sensing or pre-rolling functions but also high-resolution video for end-users after an event occurs. Himax Imaging addresses these needs by providing a 1/3" 4MP sensor with a 1:1 aspect ratio. This sensor features a 2048x2048 resolution tailored for doorbell and door-lock cameras, delivering a broad Field of View (FOV) in both horizontal and vertical directions. This capability allows users to observe a visitor's entire body, even when they stand very close to the camera. Himax Imaging can offer a variety of these 2-in-1 sensors, combining high-resolution video capabilities with low-resolution ultralow power imaging for the surveillance market.
The company is dedicated to becoming one of the key players in the CMOS image sensor industry.
Wafer Level Optics Products
Wafer level optics are optical products manufactured using semiconductor process on wafers. This innovative approach enables wafer level optics to manufacture micro/nano optics structure and high temperature resistance, making the compatible Surface-Mount Technology or SMT reflow process possible. The company offers entire optical solutions for customers who need compact and easy-to-handle optical products on their electronic devices.
Combining traditional optical lens design, precise mold control and semiconductor manufacturing expertise, the company's WLO lens with integrated waveguide, refractive optics and diffractive optical element (DOE) is one of the best solutions for next generation computational imaging module for 2D/3D illumination and 3D dot projector, which can be applied to 3D face recognition, 3D sensing, 3D reconstruction, and gesture control. Himax is a pioneer in high-precision diffraction optics technology with over 15 years of experience, having worked on very different designs over a variety of applications with some of the world's most heavyweight tech names. With the innovative process and specific structure, the company's wafer level optics products provide small form factor and compact module size to be easily integrated into consumer products. The diffraction optics technology is well adopted in 3D sensing, AR/VR devices, holographic display, automotive, biomedical inspection, optical communication, etc. The company is seeing that DOE plays an even more decisive role for the next generation optical technology in light of its high-precision and lightweight characteristics.
The company's WLO technology is also adapted to form microstructures such as lens array, DOE and lenticular lenses for advanced applications in digital and computational imaging fields. These technologies stand in a unique position to integral optical design, semiconductor manufacturing process, and compact packaging service, which are rarely covered by one single company. Deeply rooted in core wafer level optics technologies, the company provides highly customized optical solutions and high-volume manufacturing to many Tier-1 customers, such as structured lighted and ToF 3D sensing on mobile devices, AR/VR gadgets, automotive, biomedical devices and many other AIoT applications.
The company's WLO business hit inflection in the middle of 2017 when it began mass shipment to an anchor customer. The overall 2018 shipment increased considerably year-over-year because of the customer's large-scale adoption in more models. In 2019, the company continued the strong shipment momentum from 2018 to fulfill an anchor customer's higher demand with a significant year-over-year increase. The company continued its shipment to an anchor customer for their legacy product and continue making progress on R&D projects with world-leading high-tech giants for ToF 3D sensing, AR/VR gadgets, automotive, biomedical devices and others, targeting their future generation products centered around the company's exceptional design know-how and mass production expertise in WLO technology. One illustration is the company's WLO technology being deployed by one VR player to empower 3D perception sensing for precise controller-free gesture recognition. The company initialed volume production starting in second quarter of 2023.
3D Sensing Business
The company continues to participate in most of the smartphone OEMs' ongoing time-of-flight (ToF) 3D sensing projects. In 2018, the company's structured light-based 3D sensing total solution targeting Android smartphone's front-facing application was unsuccessful due to the high hardware cost of 3D sensing, the long development lead time required to integrate it into the smartphone and the lack of killer applications which is limited to phone unlock and online payment. Instead of 3D sensing, most of the Android phone makers have chosen the lower cost fingerprint technology which can achieve similar phone unlock and online payment functions with somewhat compromised user experience.
As a leading provider of 3D sensing technology, Himax is also an active participant in smartphone OEMs' design projects for new devices involving ToF technology. The company is seeing increasing ToF adoption by smartphone makers for world-facing cameras to enable advanced photography, distance/dimension measurement and 3D depth information generation for AR. Unlike structured light 3D sensing where the company provides total solution or just projector module or optics depending on customers' needs, with ToF, the company will only focus on transmitter module or optics component by leveraging its WLO related expertise. Leveraging on the company's WLO technology, it has provided its partners with spot projectors or optics components for their reference design.
3D sensing can have a wide range of applications beyond smartphone. The company has started to explore business opportunities in various industries by leveraging its structured light 3D sensing total solution. Starting in 2021, the company shipped small volume of business access control and biomedical inspection devices. To strengthen the company's offers in 3D sensing total solution, it has been collaborating closely mainly with two types of partners: those with industry-leading expertise in facial recognition algorithm and those offering application processors with strong AI capability.
Other than 3D sensing total solution, the company also provides key component, including 3D decoder IC and 3D vision processors. The company's proprietary 3D decoder IC can accelerate local image processing for face recognition and offer best-in-class security authentication, therefore it is particularly suitable for customers who wish to design their own structured light-based 3D sensing solution. It was already certified by the leading Chinese electronic payment standard with requirements of accurate data decoding, timely operation and strict privacy and now it's well-adopted by many China e-payment solution providers. The company's proprietary 3D decoder IC entered into volume production starting in 2020, followed by meaningful volume shipments into 2021 and 2022. In the light of increasing adoption of 3D sensing technologies in various aspect of the company's daily life, a series of next generation 3D vision processors is also under development to support a variety of state-of-the-art 3D sensing technologies in Time of Flight (ToF) and structured light, aiming to improve user experience when people interact with AR and VR applications.
The company's critical 3D sensing Technologies includes the following:
Wafer Level Optics (WLO) Products
WLO is one of the key technologies enabling 3D sensing, AR goggle devices, and many other applications. Levering on our exceptional design know-how and mass production experience in WLO technology, the company is able to produce the world's most compact optics required for 3D sensing, while also achieving superior performance and lower costs.
Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)
One of the critical elements of the company's 3D sensing total solution is an ASIC for 3D depth map generation. The company is able to develop the ASIC thanks to its unique in-house capability in developing video ASICs for customers. Equipped with the ASIC, the company's 3D sensing total solution can substantially reduce the power consumed while processing 3D sensing, enhance personal data security, accelerate the 3D depth map generation, and provide superior depth data output that matches with the company's optical component. The company considers this unique capability as its competitive advantage. It has been and will continue to be one of the company's key drivers in the success of its 3D sensing total solution.
Active Alignment
With much experience in optical assembly for AR and VR devices, the company's factory has developed a system to do active alignment for tiny components. From the incoming quality check, assembly process, and testing, all steps are monitored and checked. The precision assembly capability gives us a very good foundation to do the optical assembly for DOE, WLO, and laser.
Laser Driver
Based on the company's expertise in projector, optics, and driver, it has designed a special Glass Broken Detection (GBD) mechanism on its projector. The company also has a proprietary laser driver design that detect the connection of the GBD on the projector. When GBD connection is abnormal, which means glass was broken, the laser driver can cease the laser to prevent users from being exposed to higher power laser energy leaking from the broken glass.
Ultralow power WiseEye Smart Image Sensing
The demand for always-on battery-powered smart devices with AI intelligent sensing is rapidly growing. By combining an ultralow power image sensor with a custom computer vision ASIC and machine-learning algorithms, Himax ultralow power WiseEye smart image sensing solution enriches connected edge devices with AI capability. The end-point AI system, which consumes only a few mW power consumptions, is leading the industry for the next-generation of battery operated, clever computer vision applications. The ultralow power WiseEye smart image sensing solution is being engaged in a variety of applications, such as notebook, home appliances, utility meter, automotive, battery-powered surveillance camera, panoramic video conferencing, and medical, just to name a few. Among Himax's ultralow power WiseEye smart image sensing businesses, the company's WiseEye for notebook solution features human presence detection and on-looker detection, offering power saving and enhancing privacy and security for notebook users. In 2021, the company was highly encouraged by its WiseEye notebook solution being officially awarded by Dell, with a sizable purchase order, for a series of their new models. This represented a remarkable achievement and an illustration of the robustness of the company's AI solution. In 2022, the company continues to support the mass production of Dell's notebook and other end-point AI applications, such as shared bike parking, video conference device, door lock and medical capsule endoscope and many others. The company expects to see more design-wins awarded across a broad customer base and a high variety of applications leading to robust sales growth for this new high margin product line moving forward.
For the other business model, the company provides key components, such as proprietary ultralow power WE1 AI processor or Always-On CMOS image sensor (AoS). For the company's key component business model, it reinforced its go-to-market strategy by intensively participating in leading AI partners' infrastructures and ecosystems and/or AI communities. The company collaborates with world-leading edge-to-cloud service providers and system integration companies, such as Google TensorFlow, Microsoft Azure, Arm AI Partner Program, tinyML Foundation, Seeed Studio and many others, to enjoy the enormous network of these ecosystems partners and their numerous participants to drive further adoption on applications such as smart home/ office, healthcare, agriculture, retail and many other applications. Additionally, the company continued its marketing efforts through joint webinars and other online activities with several well-known platform partners, such as Edge Impulse, Digi-Key and SparkFun. The company continues to receive inquiries from large corporations and individual developers alike with hundreds of evaluation boards and developments kits having been purchased online and distributed across the globe. The company is very encouraged by the traction this relatively new product line has generated in a short amount of time and expect to see increasing sales contribution through 2023 and beyond.
Core Technologies and Know-How
Driving System Technology: Through its collaboration with Panel Manufacturers, the company has developed extensive knowledge of circuit design, TFT-LCD/OLED driving systems, high-voltage CMOS processes and display systems, all of which are important to the design of high-performance TFT-LCD/OLED display drivers. The company's engineers have in-depth knowledge of the driving system technology, which is the architecture for the interaction between the source driver, gate driver, timing controller and power systems as well as other passive components. The company's understanding of the entire driving system has strengthened its design capabilities. The company's engineers are highly skilled in designing power efficient and compact display drivers that enhance the performance of TFT-LCD/OLED. The company is leveraging its know-how of display drivers and driving system technology to develop display drivers for panels utilizing other technologies, such as next generation OLED and electronic paper displays.
High-Voltage CMOS Circuit Design: Unlike most other semiconductors, TFT-LCD display drivers require a high output voltage of 3.3 to 50 volts. The company has developed circuit design technologies using a high-voltage CMOS process that enables it to produce high-yield, reliable and compact drivers for high-volume applications. Moreover, the company's technologies enable it to keep the driving voltage at very high uniformity, which can be difficult to achieve when using standard CMOS process technology.
High-Bandwidth Interfaces: In addition to high-voltage circuit design, TFT-LCD display drivers require high bandwidth transmission for video signals. The company has applied several high-speed interfaces, including transistor-transistor logic (TTL), Reduced Swing Differential Signaling (RSDS), mini low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS), dual-edge TTL (DETTL), turbo Reduced Swing Differential Signaling (RSDS), Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) and other customized interfaces in the company's display drivers. Moreover, the company is developing additional driver interfaces for special applications with optimized speed, lower EMI and higher system stability.
Die Shrink and Low Power Technologies: The company's engineers are highly skilled in employing their knowledge of driving technology and high-voltage CMOS circuit design to shrink the die size of the company's display drivers while leveraging their understanding of driving technology and panel characteristics to design display drivers with low power consumption. Die size is an important consideration for applications with size constraints. Smaller die size also reduces the cost of the chip. Lower power consumption is important for many portable devices such as notebook computers, smartphone, tablet and consumer electronics products.
WiseEye Smart Image Sensing Technologies: These technologies are composed by an AoS sensor, an edge AI ASIC processor and computer-vision AI algorithm, all operated in ultralow power mode. The company's industrial first AoS CMOS image sensor features ultralow power and low latency back-illuminated solution for always on, intelligent visual sensing applications. With Himax's exceptional low power know-how and ASIC implementation technologies, the company's WiseEye AI image processor featured different power domain and mode management schemes, together with advanced image processing hardwired accelerators to construct different operating modes in balancing processor performance and power consumptions. The seamless and proprietary interface between the company's AoS sensor and AI processor ensure the efficient and fast-response sensor data transmission and wake-up mechanism operating in ultralow power mode. The computer-vision AI algorithm, which benefits from high performance and low power AI processor and image data from sensor, can therefore enable AI features such as powerful human detection, occupancy detection and motion classification for various application needs.
LCoS Microdisplay Technologies: Compared to other microdisplay technologies, LCoS microdisplay offers smaller form factor, higher brightness, and less power consumption. Himax Display has own proficient engineering team to develop patented industry-only non-captive LCoS, front-lit waveguide, and module design, along with an in-house ISO certified manufacture line, all of which positions the company at the forefronts of leading AR glasses and AR-HUD markets. The latest development of Front-Lit LCoS enables an ultra-compact and extremely power-efficient optical engine by consolidating and integrating LED illumination system into the micro display module itself and makes the patented technology ideal for AR headsets. Furthermore, Himax Display provided phase modulation LCoS 2.0 technologies to offer high-efficient, low power and multi-focal plane displaying features to fit for holographic displaying needs in numerous leading applications.
3D Technologies: Several technologies in Himax are integrated together to form the company's 3D solution. First, wafer level nanoimprinted technology is used to design and manufacture DOE and Waveguide. Then, the company's in-house capability on semiconductors enables it to design IC that particularly matches its optical component. The company's expertise in precision assembly in optics also helps it to provide a more complete solution to its customers.
Customers
The company's customers for display drivers are primarily Panel Manufacturers and mobile device module manufacturers, who in turn design and market their products to manufacturers of end-use products such as notebook computers, desktop monitors, televisions, smartphone, tablet, automotive and consumer electronics products. The company may sell its products through agents or distributors for certain products or in certain regions. As of December 31, 2023, the company sold its products to around 300 customers.
Certain of the company's customers provide it with a long-term (twelve-month) forecast plus three-month rolling non-binding forecasts and confirm orders about one month ahead of scheduled delivery. In general, purchase orders are not cancellable by either party, although from time to time the company and its customers have agreed to amend the terms of such orders.
Sales and Marketing
The company focuses its sales and marketing strategy on establishing business and technology relationships principally with Panel Manufacturers, using LTPS and a-Si TFT-LCD, and OLED technologies, mobile display module and mobile device manufacturers for smartphone, tablet and automotive, and camera module houses in order to work closely with them on future semiconductor solutions that align with their product road maps. The company's engineers collaborate with its customers' engineers to create products that comply with their specifications and provide a high level of performance at competitive prices and also create customized features for end brand customers. The company's end market is concentrated among a limited number of major Panel Manufacturers. The company also markets its products directly to TV, monitor, notebook and mobile, tablet and automotive device manufacturers so that its products can be qualified for their specifications and designed into their products. Furthermore, the company extends its business development with system and ODM companies by using strategic ASIC business model to not only develop ASIC product based on customer specification but also jointly research and develop new technologies to meet customers' future product demand. Additionally, the company forms strategic partnership with Tier 1 customers for its LCoS microdisplays, 3D sensing and WiseEye smart image sensing to penetrate into the emerging market.
The company primarily sells its products through its direct sales teams located in Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan. The company also has dedicated sales teams for certain of its most important current or prospective customers. The company has offices in Tainan, Hsinchu, Taipei, Taiwan; and Shenzen and Suzhou, China. The company has other sales and technical support offices in Hefei, Beijing, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Foshan, Fuqing, Ningbo, Wuhan, Nanjing, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi'an and Xiamen, China; Tokyo, Japan; Asan-si and Bundang-gu, South Korea, Munich, Germany; and Irvine and San Jose, California, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Detroit, Michigan, USA, all in close proximity to its customers. For certain products or regions, the company may sell its products through agents or distributors.
The company's sales and marketing team possesses a high level of technical expertise and industry knowledge used to support a lengthy and complex sales process. This includes a highly trained team of product managers and field applications engineers. The company's team is equipped with extensive strategic marketing experience and a strong capability to identify market trends. The company also provides technical support and assistance to potential and existing customers in system/SoC architecture, designing, testing and qualifying display modules, camera modules and end application systems that incorporate the company's products and ASICs.
Semiconductor Manufacturing Service Providers and Suppliers
Through the company's relationships with leading foundries, assembly, gold bumping and testing houses and processed tape suppliers, it has established a supply chain that enables it to deliver high-quality products to its customers in a timely manner.
Access to semiconductor manufacturing service providers is critical as display drivers require high-voltage complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process technology and specialized assembly and testing services, all of which are different from industry standards. The company has obtained its foundry services from TSMC, UMC, Vanguard, Macronix, Globalfoundries Singapore, PSMC, Nexchip and SKHYSI in the past few years. These are among a select number of semiconductor manufacturers that provide high-voltage CMOS process technology required for manufacturing display drivers. The company engages assembly and testing houses that specialize in TAB and COG packages, such as Chipbond, Chipmore International trading company Ltd., ChipMOS Technologies Inc., Nepes Corporation and King Yuan Electronics Co., Ltd, etc.
The company plans to strengthen its relationships with its existing semiconductor manufacturing service providers and diversify its network of such service providers in order to ensure access to sufficient cost-competitive and high-quality manufacturing capacity. The company is selective in its choice of semiconductor manufacturing service providers. It takes a substantial amount of time to qualify alternative foundries, gold bumping, assembly and testing houses for production. As a result, the company expects that it will continue to rely on a limited number of semiconductor manufacturing service providers for a substantial portion of its manufacturing requirements in the near future.
The company's principal semiconductor manufacturing service providers and suppliers:
Wafer Fabrication: Globalfoundries Singapore Pte., Ltd.; Macronix International Co., Ltd.; Nexchip Semiconductor Corporation; Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.; SK hynix system ic; Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited; United Microelectronics Corporation; and Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation.
Gold Bumping: Chipbond Technology Corporation; Chipmore International Trading Company Ltd.; ChipMOS Technologies Inc.; LB Semicon, Inc.; and Union Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
Processed Tape for TAB Packaging: JMC Electronics Co., Ltd.; LG Innotek Co., Ltd.; Stemco., Ltd.; and Chipbond Technology Corporation.
Assembly and Testing: Ardentec Corporation; Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc.; Chipbond Technology Corporation; Chipmore International Trading Company Ltd.; ChipMOS Technologies Inc.; Global Testing Corporation; Greatek Electronics Inc.; Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Technology Co., Ltd.; King Yuan Electronics Co., Ltd.; Micro Silicon Electronics Corp.; Nepes Corporation; Taiwan IC Packaging Corporation; LB Lusem Co., Ltd.; and Union Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
Chip Probe Testing: Chipbond Technology Corporation; Chipmore International Trading Company Ltd.; ChipMOS Technologies Inc.; Global Testing Corporation; Greatek Electronics Inc.; King Yuan Electronics Co., Ltd.; Micro Silicon Electronics Corp.; LB Semicon, Inc.; Union Semiconductor Co., Ltd.; and YoungTek Electronics Corp.
Intellectual Property
As of March 31, 2024, the company held a total of 2,772 patents, including 1,182 in Taiwan, 916 in the United States, 560 in China, and 114 in other countries. The expiration dates of the company's patents range from 2024 to 2043. The company also has a total of 48 pending patent applications in Taiwan, 112 in the United States and 238 in other jurisdictions, including the PRC, Japan, Korea, Israel and Europe. In addition, the company has registered 'Himax and logo' as trademarks in Taiwan, China, Europe, Singapore, Korea, Japan and the United States. 'Omniwide Film and logo' as trademarks in China, Europe, Korea, Japan and the United States, 'CMVT' as trademarks in Taiwan and China, as well as 'WISEEYE' as trademark in Israel and the United States.
Competition
The company continually faces intense competition from fabless display driver companies, including Fitipower Integrated Technology, Inc., FocalTech Systems Co., Ltd., Novatek Microelectronics Corp., Raydium Semiconductor Corporation, Sitronix Technology Co., Ltd., Ilitek Corp., LX Semicon., ESWIN, Chipone, Newvision, Ribbon Display Japan, Hisilicon and Synaptics Incorporated. The company also faces competition from integrated device manufacturers, such as Rohm Co., Ltd.
For In-cell TDDI, the company competes with Novatek Microelectronics Cop., Synaptics Incorporated, FocalTech Systems Co., Ltd., ESWIN, Chipone, OmniVision and Ilitek Corp., etc.
For LCoS microdisplay products, the company faces competition from OmniVision, Syndiant, Kopin, and RAONTECH. The company also competes with alternative microdisplay technology providers, such as Texas Instruments with DLP, Sony with Micro OLED and Bosch with scanning mirror.
For power ICs, the company faces competition from Taiwan companies, including Richtek Technology Corp., Global Mixed-mode Technology Inc., Novatek Microelectronics Corp., Fitipower Integrated Technology Inc. The company also competes with worldwide suppliers, such as Silergy Corp., and Rohm Co., Ltd.
For CMOS image sensor products, the company's focus is on machine vision. Competition in this space is primarily from OmniVision Technologies Inc., Galaxycore, Silicon Optronics, Inc (SOI), Pixart Imaging Inc. and Smartsens Technology (Shanghai) Co. LTD.
For wafer level optics products, the company faces competition primarily from Heptagon that was acquired by ams AG and certain new optical design houses from China, such as Angstrong Tech, Yuguang Science and Technology Development Co.
For 3D sensing, Himax is one of the few companies that can provide the one-stop solution though there are more companies attempting to jump into the game. ams AG and Orbbec will be the main competitors the company faces in the worldwide.
For ultralow power WiseEye smart image sensing, the main competition is Qualcomm with its 'Glance' device. Few additional small size companies develop AI base edge devises, such as Lattice, Eta Computing, Nuvoton, Altek, etc. However, Himax is the only vendor who can offer a truly in-house vertically integrated solution comprise with all three building blocks required by customers: CMOS sensor, purposely designed MCU and the AI algorithm.
Research and Development
The company's research and development expenses were $171.4 million in 2023.
History
Himax Technologies, Inc. was founded in 2001. The company was incorporated in 2001.
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