Taiwan research body wins Wall Street Journal top tech award

Taipei, Sept. 27 (CNA) Taiwan's top industrial research body, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) , has won the top honor at the 2010 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards, with its paper-thin flat panel display technology. In addition to capturing the overall Gold award for its work in developing "high-quality displays made from materials that can be bent or folded, " the institute also won the top place in the consumer electronics category with this new invention. The prestigious U.S.-based daily announced the list of winners of its annual innovation awards early Monday. Last year, the ITRI also topped the list in the consumer electronics category with a paper-thin flexible speaker, beating more than 500 competitors worldwide. The institute said that its innovative technology this year will pave the way for the development of thinner and foldable tablet computers, e-readers and large poster displays in the near future. The technology also won the U.S. annual R&D 100 Awards, another major prize in the field, in July. The United States, South Korea and Japan have tried to make paper-thin displays by using plastic instead of glass, based on the reasoning that plastic can be folded and made thinner, said Lee Cheng-chung, a division director of the ITRI's Display Technology Center and head of the research project, in an interview with CNA Sunday. However, they were unable to remove the plastic panel from the base plate without damaging the panel, he noted. The institute, on the other hand, developed what it called a "de-bonding layer," which makes the separation easy, he added. (By Alex Jiang) ENDITEM/pc

Taiwan research body wins Wall Street Journal top tech award Taipei, Sept. 27 (CNA) Taiwan's top industrial research body, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) , has won the top honor at the 2010 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards, with its paper-thin flat panel display technology.