Research News(2014) | Corporate Research & Development Center

Toshiba Develops Glasses-Free Ultrahigh-Definition 2D/3D Switching Display Using Low-Crosstalk Liquid Crystal Lens Technology (Dec. 2014) Toshiba Corporation has developed a new technology for glasses-free 3D displays that uses a low-crosstalk^{(Note 1)}, high-definition LCD GRIN lens^{(Note 2)} with a 15-inch 4K LCD panel^{(Note 3)}. The technology realizes a highly portable, compact display that can switch between 3D mode with high-definition resolution and 2D mode with ultrahigh-definition 4K resolution. The technology and the new display will be unveiled at the "2015 International Consumer Electronics Show" that will be held in Las Vegas from January 6-9, 2015.

Toshiba Develops World's Highest Efficiency Artificial Photosynthesis Technology for Generation of Fuel and Feedstock from Carbon Dioxide. (Dec. 2014) Toshiba Corporation today announced the development of a new technology that uses solar energy, the power of the sun, to generate carbon compounds from carbon dioxide and water, and to deliver a viable chemical feedstock or fuel with potential for use in industry. Toshiba introduced the technology at the 2014 International Conference on Artificial Photosynthesis (ICARP2014) on 26 November, at the Awaji Yumebutai International Conference Center in Japan.

Development of a high-quality and low-bitrate SHVC encoding technique to enhance existing HDTV video up to 4K resolution (Nov. 2014) Toshiba has developed a high-quality and low-bitrate video encoding technology which complies with the latest scalability extension (SHVC) to the HEVC standard to enhance existing HDTV video resolution up to 4K resolution^{(Note 1, 2, 3)}. Developed for the purpose of concurrently delivering high-quality 4K video with HDTV, this technology reduces the additional bandwidth overhead to as low as 10Mbps, which is one-third the overhead in conventional HEVC technology. This technology will be showcased at Inter BEE to be held at the Makuhari Messe starting November 19 (Wed), 2014.

Achieving the world's highest rate of quantum encryption key data distribution (Sep. 2014) Toshiba Corporation will today announce the world's highest speed quantum encryption system. The new quantum key distribution device was installed over a 45 km optical fiber between Otemachi in central Tokyo and Koganei on the cities western outskirts, and tested over a continuous 34 day period in collaboration with Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT). During this time the system achieved world records in both the total amount of secure key data (878 Gbit) and the speed of transmitting the key data (25.8 Gbit per day average) for an installed system, while remaining stable and completely autonomous. These breakthroughs will be announced at the QCrypt 2014 conference, to be held on September 1 ? 5.

Development of a video display technology for wearable displays (Jul. 2014) Toshiba has developed a video display technology for an easy-to-see and easy-to-wear display which displays videos in wearer's vision.

Toshiba achieves the world's highest efficiency of 9.9% for an organic thin-film solar cell module (Jul. 2014) Toshiba has achieved the world's highest energy conversion efficiency ^{(Note 1)} of 9.9% for a 5cm×5cm organic thin-film solar cell module. In the cell, also, Toshiba has realized the world's highest level of conversion efficiency of 11.2% This achievement marks a step forward toward the realization of thin, low-cost, and lightweight organic thin-film solar cells.

Development of small automatic tunable antenna to enable low transmit power for cellular wireless terminals ? Corrects the operating frequency to suit the environment - (July 2014) Toshiba has developed an automatic tunable antenna which is about 20% smaller than conventional antennas and enables the transmit power level to be reduced. This product can be incorporated in wireless communication terminals such as smartphones, and supports communication methods which accompany fluctuations of the transmit power level.

Toshiba ties for first place in the DPA contest to compete for the vulnerability assessment capacity of cryptographic processing devices (Jun. 2014) Toshiba has developed an efficient method for assessing the vulnerability of cryptographic processing devices. We participated in the DPA v4 contest, in which contestants from all over the world competed for the vulnerability assessment capacity of processing devices, and tied for first place for achieving a single waveform, which is the minimum power consumption required for the assessment.

Development of an embedded non-volatile memory technology for low-power and high-performance FPGAs (Jun. 2014) Toshiba has developed a technology by which a flash memory and CMOS transistor are adjacently integrated each other in the same chip. This technology enables the creation of non-volatile FPGAs with high performance and lower power consumption. Details of the technology were presented at the VLSI Technology Symposium, an international conference on semiconductor devices in Honolulu, Hawaii on June 12 (local time).

Development of a real-time 4K-HEVC software compression technology complying with the latest video compression standard HEVC (Jun. 2014) Toshiba has developed real-time 4K ^{(Note 1)}-HEVC ^{(Note 2)} software compression technology complying with the latest video compression standard HEVC, which is highly expected to be used for next-generation, ultra-high-definition video distribution services.

Development of an SoC aggressive power-saving control technology for ultra-low power consumption platforms (Apr. 2014) Toshiba has developed a control technology that realizes significant power savings by aggressively transiting the core device SoC (System on Chip) of battery-operated information devices to the power-saving mode. We tried this technology on a test model loaded with electronic paper (a type of battery-operated information device) and found that the power consumption was reduced by up to one-fifth. The details of this technology were presented at CoolChips 2014 held in Yokohama from April 14 to 17.

Toshiba has developed a 7-kW contactless charger for electric vehicles (EVs) that meets the requirement for a wider range of car types (Mar. 2014) It is a bother to plug and unplug the connector of a conventional wired charger for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs). To address this problem, Toshiba has developed an easy-to-use and safe contactless EV charger. The new contactless charger can transmit electric power over a distance of 17 cm, accommodating the requirement for high-bodied minivans. The charger has been tested in combination with a battery controller mounted on an electric vehicle. The test has verified that the charger has a capacity of 7 kW. Thus, it will halve the charging time, compared to 3-kW-class wired on-board chargers that are most widely used in Japan. The permissible right-left misalignment between the transmitting and receiving pads is up to 25 cm. This will ease the strain on drivers for parking accurately, compared to comparable chargers from other vendors that tolerate a misalignment of only up to 15 cm.

Development of DaisyRings™, a content transliteration support system utilizing text-to-speech technology to support the creation of e-books for the visually impaired (Feb. 2014) Toshiba has developed a content transliteration system called "DaisyRings™", which allows users to create spoken content easily using text-to-speech technology. Users can correct the text and accent information easily on a web browser. The system is designed for librarians, volunteers and teachers to help them make and edit content for the visually impaired.