Toray Industries, Inc. (headquarters: Tokyo; president: Sadayuki Sakakibara; hereinafter referred to as “the Company”) announced that it has successfully developed a non-photosensitive polysiloxane-based coatings for image sensors used in digital camera and cellular phone cameras. The coatings were developed using the Company’s proprietary molecular design technology to give superior transparency, heat resistance and low shrinkage, while allowing control over refractive index. The Company plans to start full-fledged sales of its highly refractive “VF Series” used in Light Pipe forming applications, low refractive “LS Series” used in planarization layer applications as well as the medium refractive “MS Series” targeting image sensor manufacturers in Japan and abroad in December 2007.

Image sensors such as CCD and CMOS are the key elements for shooting photographs and movies and they have been conventionally used in digital movie and still cameras. In recent years, it has been increasingly adopted for cellular phone cameras and the related market has expanded to almost 2.7 billion yen for fiscal 2006 (based on Toray estimates).

In response to increasing sophistication of hardware-related functions such as high pixel definition and miniaturization, the pixel pitch of image sensors has been shrinking and image sensors themselves have become smaller. These developments mean increased quality requirements such as transparency, heat resistance and widely controllable refractive index for the materials used in image sensors. Also, the structure of image sensors has been shifting to inner lens type and subsequently to Light Pipe type in order to improve the light focusing efficiency. Furthermore, the Light Pipe type sensors are recently required to have additional special features such as embedding and planarizing qualities.

In response to such requirements, Toray has succeeded in achieving high transparency, heat resistance and low contractility in its novel polysiloxane-based coatings employing its own molecular design technology while adding broader control of refractive index and superior flatness.

Especially with Light Pipe forming applications, which require high refractive index, the Company employed nano-particle dispersion technology to achieve a refractive index of 1.7 or higher, the highest level for a polysiloxane-based materials, as well as superior embedding and planarizing qualities. Furthermore, for planarization layer applications, which call for a wide refractive index range of 1.4 to 1.6, the Company made full use of its polymer design technology to achieve refractive index controllability to suit the relevant parts and enable superior coating of stepped areas.

Since 2003, the Company has been offering its “CS Series” photosensitive polyimide coatings for outer and inner lens applications of image sensors. Compared to the conventional acrylic products, the higher refractive index and superior heat resistance of the Company’s coatings, coupled with its ability to handle high-definition pattern processing through photolithography enabled by its photosensitivity, became widely popular and some manufacturers have started adopting the product.

The additional line-up of polysiloxane-based coatings this time enabled the Company to promote its products’ adoption in majority of the organic materials used in image sensors.