Mitsubishi Rayon hereby announces that it will begin marketing the new C Series of its DIAART prism sheets for LCDs in June: sheets in the new series feature an added diffusion sheet function.
Additionally, regarding production facilities for these products, the Company announces that it plans to supplement the existing production at the plant operated by its subsidiary MRC Kohda Co., Ltd. in Aichi Prefecture with fullscale production to start from September this year at the parent company’s Yokohama Production Center.

Features of DIAART C Series
In the backlight system used by Mitsubishi Rayon up to now, a Y-type DIAART prism sheet had been placed on top of the light guide panel to increase the brightness of the LCD screen. In addition, we had to place a diffusion sheet on top of the prism sheet to achieve an even spread of light across the entire screen. Now, however, we have developed the C Series of prism sheets by upgrading the Y-Type prism sheets to additionally perform the function of diffusion sheets. C Series prism sheets thus do not require separate diffusion sheets. This allows us to make the whole backlight unit lighter and thinner, and to reduce the total number of separate components and make assembly of the backlight units easier. The measure will also result in a reduction in total costs.

For your reference:
Characteristics of Y-Type DIAART prism sheets The development of DIAART produced a single prism sheet that did the same job as the two sheets previously required. Then, in April 2003 we started the mass production and sale of Y-Type DIAART prism sheets, which realized a higher level of brightness (up 30% over the previous type). This product was made possible by a fusion of our proprietary technology in precision molding of acrylic resins with our optical design technology, enabling us to manufacture prism sheets with optimal (and highly reliable) dimensions and shapes.

Outline of the Group’s factories producing prism sheets:
Yokohama Production Center: Opto-Material Plant (new plant)
Address: Daikokucho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture
Production capacity: 15 million sheets per annum (in terms of 15-inch sheets)
Kotacho Plant of MRC Kohda Co., Ltd. (existing facility)
Kotacho, Nukata-gun, Aichi Prefecture
Production capacity: 45 million sheets per annum (in terms of 15-inch sheets)

Background Factors
Demand for the principal applications of DIAART – the LCDs used in notebook PCs, cell phones, handheld game consoles, and so on – is still following a growing trend, and it is to cope with the expected increase in demand in the near future that Mitsubishi Rayon has launched the initiatives described above to increase its production capacity.
In addition, with the development of the C Series of DIAART, the integration of different functions in the same component has helped to reduce total production costs and has reduced the number of components in line with requests, principally from LCD makers.

Description of prism sheets
As liquid crystals do not emit light themselves, LCDs employ a backlight unit as a light source. In the case of 17-inch LCD screens or smaller, such as are used in notebook PCs, cell phones, and so on, compact “edge-light-type” backlight units are used. The prism sheets in these units play a crucial role in spreading the brightness evenly out across the entire surface of the screen.

Reference: Application of a C Series model used for a backlight system (comparison with Y-Type model)