Spectrometry

Advancing alongside multi-channel photo detectors (MCPD)

In the early 1980s, the mainstream in recording spectrophotometers essential to spectrometry was a system that used sine bars to move diffraction gratings. Specializing in supplying unique products to world markets, Union Giken (now Otsuka Electronics) opened up a new era for the scientific measurement instrument industry when it created the multichannel photo detector (MCPD), a revolutionary spectral analyzer that incorporated as a sensor a state-of-the-art photodiode array, optical fibers in its optical system, and computer controls. Due to these radical technologies, the MCPD detector tended to be found only in universities and cutting-edge R&D sections. Since then, we’ve established new technologies by developing software and applications that meet customer needs and by introducing digital technologies to analog-based measurement instruments. With time, there came a wider understanding of the value of these new concepts, and our new technology entered use across numerous industries, including electronics. As such, we began supplying systems suitable for use in fields ranging from R&D and production lines to quality control. Today, MCPD represents one of Otsuka Electronics’ core optical measurement instrument product lines.
Our spectrometer business advances by embracing new measurement applications and business fields, adapting spectrometric technologies and analytical methods based on this MCPD technology, and addressing one customer requirement after another.
Products developed based on MCPD technology include equipment used to measure film thickness. These products are used to handle and measure films formed on semiconductor wafers and to measure the thickness of films used for wrapping food products on production lines. Examples from other fields include equipment used to evaluate the light sources themselves (e.g., LEDs and headlights), evaluation equipment for the parts and materials used in LCD televisions and tablets, and evaluation equipment used in display device production lines.
By adding various component technologies to small detectors, our efforts in the spectrometer business will continue to target the delivery of high-precision, high-sensitivity, easy-touse equipment that meets needs across various fields. These efforts will also address the challenge of developing new component technologies for this purpose.