The selling price of Fortrend's OGS is the cost of．DIGITIMES

It takes more than six hundreds of days for Fortrend Taiwan Scientific Corp. to invent its unique technique, materials and equipment and created the miracle of OGS TP. The quality of its OGS TP is the best of the world and it is the only manufacturer that can produce different colors of frames of OGS. Moreover, the selling price of the TP is the cost of the same products manufactured by conventional process.

A large number of orders have been placed by numerous of world famous manufacturers. Even some of the well-known manufacturers, who are the top-ten companies in the world, endeavor to have the authority to manufacture its OGS TP. There have been several manufacturers obtaining the license to proceed.

The smart technical products have changed the way of our lives and the human-machine surface is touch panel. The market demand of TP has expanded tremendously. The global annual demand has reached two billions and more. Nevertheless, the price of TP has been too high to expand. Thus, it is the time to make a breakthrough on the price of TP now.

The conventional process of TP continues the LCD process. This kind of technical process is old, the yield rate is low and a great amount of materials has been wasted. The investment of equipment can be more than tens of billions of dollar, yet the capacity is low. The cost is affordable for producing 7" TP and smaller size under this conventional process; however, it will be too high for producing 10" TP and larger sizes. The monthly capacity of 27" of a five-generation production line is two hundred thousand pieces and the cost of each piece could be more than one hundred US dollars. The cost of the Fortend's equipment is approximately one seventh of a five-generation production line, yet the capacity is five hundred thousand pieces. The selling price is much lower than the panel cost of a five-generation production line.

The size of the glass used for conventional process is fixed. The glass has to be strengthened ahead of all the processes and to be cut after the whole processes are accomplished. Therefore, it results in the massive waste of glass and damages the strength of glass as well as increasing the costs. Moreover, the glass needs to be re-strengthened by soaking the glass into high temperature potassium nitrateacid. In the meantime, the sodium ion on the surface of the glass exchanges with the potassium ion of nitric acid. The glass can be strengthened due to the difference of the rate of shrink after cooling. Nevertheless, the glass with ITO layer cannot be heat resisted after strengthened and release the sodium ion and potassium ion to exchange. Thus, it can only be soaked into hydrofluoric acid at the room temperature to erode the rough parts. Meanwhile, there will be SiF6 left in spacing to create similar strengthening effect. However, SiF6 is actually an unstable ion. SiF6 and water will recover hydrofluoric acid. Hydrofluoric acid is severe poison; as little as 1.5g of it can be killing while 2% of human body is exposed to it, it can be deadly.

The chemical reaction equation is as follows:

SiO₂(glass)+6HF(hydrofluoric acid)→H₂[SiF₆](unstable)+2H₂O

H₂[SiF₆] (unstable)+2H₂O(water) →6HF(hydrofluoric acid)+SiO₂

Fortrend's process is to have the glass cutting and grinding and tempered treatment before ITO sputtering and other processes. After the process, there is no need to cut the glass and the process of soaking the glass into hydrofluoric acid. The strength of Fortrend's glass is three times stronger than others. Consequently, Fortrend's TP and LCD does not need to be bonded completely by OCA, which can reduce the cost approximately US$1~US$2 per inch.

Conventional OGS's BM is made by Photo Resistive and the color is black only. Yet, Fortrend do it with printing and any color is workable. It will not be carbonized in hi