Development trends in Taiwan's opto-electronics industry

Abstract

With a fast growing market in multimedia and internet industries, the demand for corresponding key optical electronic devices in optical communication systems, optical input/output, optical storage, and liquid crystal displays has been rising, thus spurring the development of related industries. Not only does the Taiwanese opto-electronics industry have a bright future, but huge investments in the area have also boosted the industries of LED (laser emitting diode), scanners, and CD-ROM in Taiwan, which are now ranked in the top three worldwide in terms of their revenues. However, the cost of CD-ROM production cannot be easily reduced due to the high cost of imported key components (e.g. pick-up head and IC components mainly from Japan), which seriously affect the competitiveness of the industry. It is estimated that the opto electronics industry in Taiwan is about 3-4 years behind that of Japan technology-wise with the revenue also far below that of Japan. In recent years, many huge investment projects in Taiwan have attracted attention from domestic and overseas Taiwanese professionals, who have been aggressively devoting themselves into development of new technology. It is therefore easy to be very optimistic about the enormous potential development in the Taiwanese opto-electronic industry which has a solid foundation and is under-developed. This article analyzes the current situation of the opto-electronics industry, using the Delphi method to forecast future developments of the Taiwanese opto-electronic industry up to the year 2010. The simulated results will be a reference to those who are interested in studying the future of the opto-electronics industry in Taiwan. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.