With the support from the Industrial Development Bureau at Ministry of Economic Affairs, Smart Microsystems Technology Center at the Industrial Technology Research Institute helps domestic manufacturers to develop metal injection-compression molding technology. It not can only produce the key components which meet the optical grade positioning requirement for laser micro-projection used in consumer products, but also can provide cost-wise competitive capability for mass production.
Trying to meet consumers’ increasing needs for social networking and multimedia sharing, built-in audio and video hardware and software functions are constantly being enhanced. However, the display screen of portable electronic device is limited by the size of the device. Regardless how powerful the hardware’s features are, it is hard for consumers to fully enjoy the visual experience on a small screen. It has a major limitation in the development of handheld products.
The best solution to the above problem is micro-projection technology which can overcome the inherent physical screen size limitation. Currently, domestic manufactures utilize costly CNC machining to produce the optical engine base of laser micro-projector. The highly time-sensitive consumer’s market has put the system factories under the double pressures of mass production and cost competition. In order to break through the machining process and effectively reduce the cost for processing, the molding technology is developed. With the growing metal micro-components industry and the maturing high-precision manufacturing technology, it can reduce the difficulty in secondary processing and achieve high-precision performance in the international market.
The future market of portable micro-projectors is expected to grow rapidly by the Industrial Development Bureau. By 2018, the global sales are estimated to reach 140 million units, increasing both the micro-manufacturing production value and value-added rate. With the high-precision processing of the metal base, the size of micro-projectors can be reduced from 10 cm3 to under 8 cm3. The high-precision manufacturing technology is expected to rigorously drive the development of emerging industries.