For Immediate Release
Feb. 18, 2004

Contact: Jim Maxwell
330-672-7770
maxwell@lci.kent.edu

Hana Microdisplay Technologies Inc. Donates 55” Rear-Projection Television To Kent State’s Liquid Crystal Institute

Dr. John Erdmann, president, CEO and co-founder of Hana Microdisplay Technologies Inc., will donate a Philips big-screen rear-projection liquid crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) television to Kent State University’s Liquid Crystal Institute at 2 p.m. on Feb. 18. The television, and a Samsung HD DVD player and DVI interface also donated by Hana, will be placed in the Liquid Crystal Institute so that visitors to campus and students can better understand the use and impact of liquid crystal technology.

Erdmann, who earned his Ph.D. in physics from Kent State in 1990 and studied under Dr. J. William Doane, director emeritus of the Liquid Crystal Institute, decided to donate the television to celebrate the technological innovations being studied, developed and produced in Northeast Ohio, specifically those technologies derived from basic and applied research being done at Kent State’s Liquid Crystal Institute.

Hana Microdisplay Technologies Inc., located 15 miles north of Kent in Twinsburg, Ohio, is producing microdisplays for Philips LCoS Microdisplay Systems to be used in Philips line of Cineos televisions. For this particular Philips line, Hana assembles a Philips wafer, with back-plane integrated circuits (ICs), into a liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) microdisplay. These televisions are now being sold commercially, and can be purchased at the Bose store at the Aurora Premium Outlets in Aurora, Ohio.

Established in Ohio in 1999, Hana Microdisplay Technologies Inc. assembles microdisplays for its customers’ displays products, including rear-projection televisions, head-mounted displays, optical communication (telecom) devices, adaptive optics devices, photonic sensors and camera modules for a wide variety of customers, using a pure foundry business model.

“We are technically a microdisplay foundry, and we really have no products of our own. We build our customers’ products,” Erdmann said. “We also do contract development for several different types of products to help our customers get started in their chosen fields. The products we build for our customers (sensors, telecom components, etc.) are not as sexy, or even well known, but are all being developed here in Ohio, and many in conjunction with the Liquid Crystal Institute.”

Hana Microdisplay Technologies Inc. is a member of the Liquid Crystal Institute’s industrial partnership program. The partnership program is mutually beneficial to Hana and to the Liquid Crystal Institute. The company taps into human resources at the Liquid Crystal Institute, and employs its graduates. It sponsors research and graduate students, and uses the Liquid Crystal Institute’s Clean Room facility for research and product development. Hana is also a contributing partner on the Wright Capital Fund Project.

According to Erdmann, “Companies like Hana are helping to convert the area from a Rust Belt, primarily focused on the steel and auto industries, by bringing high-tech, high-paying jobs to the region, following Gov. Taft’s vision for the Third Frontier.”

“We started with one person (me) and have added about 100 jobs over the last four years, and have expanded our facility from 8,000 square feet to 30,000 square feet. We are just a small part of the Ohio puzzle, but have done well to survive the economic downturn brought on by the telecom bust of 2000-2001 and Sept. 11.”

“We are located in Northeast Ohio solely because of the presence of the Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State. This is the only location in the world where I can have one engineering team build prototypes in an existing clean-room facility (at the Liquid Crystal Institute) and construct our own fabrication facility with minimal travel in between. I know this is the reason other companies have located here as well,” added Erdmann.

“The more companies like ours that train people in clean-room and semiconductor protocol, the more likely it is that new companies will come to the area. These companies will have trained technical people to draw from,” Erdmann said. “We appreciate the efforts of Kent State and the financial support of the state of Ohio in our quest for high-tech, highly trained human resources.”

“The Liquid Crystal Institute helped spawn the billion dollar flat-panel display market. The Institute remains the world’s center of excellence in liquid crystal research. Recently it has helped to create small companies like mine in the area,” Erdmann said. “With the help of Senate Bill 286, a number of companies have spun out of Kent State’s Liquid Crystal Institute in the past few years.”

Interim Director of the LCI and Professor Dr. Oleg Lavrentovich appreciates the donation. "Mutually beneficial collaboration between academic research centers and industry is an important feature of modern economy that relies on technologies with ever raising level of sophistication,” he said.

“It is rewarding to see that research and education efforts of my colleagues at the Liquid Crystal Institute not only advance the basic knowledge and educate new specialists, but also create new jobs and become a part of the success stories in industry, such as the story of Hana Microdisplays Technologies, Inc. I thank John Erdman for this generous donation and look forward to continuing fruitful collaboration."

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Dr. John Erdmann, president, CEO and co-founder of Hana Microdisplays Technologies Inc., donated a Philips big-screen rear-projection liquid crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) television to Kent State University's President Carol A. Cartwright. Erdmann, who earned his Ph.D. in physics from Kent State in 1990 and studied under Dr. J. William Doane, director emeritus of the Liquid Crystal Institute, decided to donate the television to celebrate the technological innovations being studied, developed and produced in Northeast Ohio, specifically those technologies derived from basic and applied research being done at Kent State's Liquid Crystal Institute.

Established in Ohio in 1999, Hana Microdisplay Technologies Inc. (Twinsburg, Ohio) assembles microdisplays for its customers' displays products, including rear-projection televisions, head-mounted displays, optical communication (telecom) devices, adaptive optics devices, photonic sensors and camera modules for a wide variety of customers, using a pure foundry business model.

Photograph by Jeff Glidden