NEWS & Notice

Motor is used as camera module and inductor is used as small speaker.

Component convergence, which transforms products with similar manufacturing principles, is popular. Parts makers are focusing on producing mobile phone and display parts that can be applied based on existing product principles.

Due to the nature of the manufacturing industry, where it is not easy to change items at once, products that used to be produced additionally with the same raw materials are the main contributors.

Even if the market for mobile phones and display parts is large, it is difficult to jump into the market without technical skills, a company official said. "Only when parts that can be applied with existing technologies are found can they easily enter the market."

The driving parts of the camera module, such as zoom, autofocus, and shutter, are implemented in a principle similar to that of a motor that must move the lens. Speakers are similar to inductors in that they use coils and magnets. In addition, in display parts, a mold maker with light guide plate production technology has entered the backlight unit company and is succeeding.

Citi Electronics (CEO Jang Heon-joo), which is known as a vibration motor company, recently entered camera module business. Automatic focus (AF), zoom, and shutter of camera modules implement functions by relocating materials of motors so that they can move part of lenses. AF and zoom move the lens in a solenoid method that causes magnetic fields by arranging coils in a cylindrical shape. A slightly different shutter is a method of applying the principle of the motor in that it rearranges the magnetic and coil on a flat plate and drives it. Sung Bu-hwan, director of Citi Electronics, said, "We were able to do the camera module business because we accumulated ultra-precision small manufacturing technology while manufacturing motors."

Coil Master (CEO Cha Kwon-mook), which developed the world's first small-sized surface-mounted speaker, has also established a speaker business department earlier this year after manufacturing an inductor. The inductor is used to convert current flowing through the coil, and the speaker converts current into kinetic energy, that is, sound, and the raw materials are the same and the manufacturing process is similar. President Cha Kwon-mook said, "Micro speakers go into mobile devices such as mobile phones and PDAs, so the market is growing, so we will focus."

Display parts makers Reizen (CEO Tae Sung-gil) and Woo Young (CEO Park Ki-jeom) started as mold manufacturers and developed into backlight unit manufacturers. The manufacture of backlight units is to assemble lamps, prism sheets, and diffusion sheets, but it is impossible to make a prism light guide plate to reduce costs without mold technology. The competitiveness of the backlight unit lies in how cheap the backlight unit can be manufactured, said Tae Sung-gil, president of Reizen. "To make a prism light guide or diffusion plate that reduces costs, we need to have pattern technology and nano process technology."

Staff Reporter Mun, etnews okmun@etnews.co.kr