NDK
FASTECH represents NDK in the interior of Mexico
Nihon Dempa Kogyo Co., Ltd. (NDK) was established in 1948 with a founding philosophy of “contributing to the prosperity of society and world peace through our service to customers.” This philosophy is founded on a belief that providing reliable, high-quality and attractive products at an appropriate price can be useful to customers and can, by extension, help society prosper. Moreover, the founder believed that enhancing communication among people through accurate information would promote international understanding as a cornerstone of lasting peace. This belief was generated by the founder, Masamichi Takeuchi, from his experiences of the war. Since its foundation, as a company specializing in the manufacturing of quartz crystal devices for frequency control, selection, and detection, NDK has created various frequencies and has helped electronics develop from inside the devices.
Quartz crystal devices primarily had applications in clocks and in the communications equipment field. However, given that microcontrollers have come to be used for so many applications, crystal devices are now used across a wide range of fields, in digital appliances, automobiles, mobile phones and smartphones. Subsequently, as the smartphone market reaches maturity and the scale of the global quartz crystal device market has currently hit a plateau, NDK has been taking the helm under severe environment.
Automobile applications
For automobile applications, however, the rise of vehicle electrification, such as with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), has driven year-on-year increases in crystal device demand in the automotive field, and crystal devices for automobiles will account for close to 50% of our overall net sales. NDK anticipates that demand for crystal devices for automotive electronics will steadily increase going forward and positions this market as a pillar of our business.
NDK is working to provide the high-accuracy products which are required in the 5G era and with a capital investment into autoclaves NDK has commenced manufacture of high-quality synthetic quartz crystals vastly different from previous products. NDK is also moving away from our standard machining techniques and expanding manufacturing using photolithography processing, which incorporates semiconductor manufacturing technology.Through the integration of production, from high-quality synthetic quartz crystals to quartz crystal oscillator products, NDK will continue to contribute to the creation of societies that are safe, secure, and comfortable.
NDK expects that mobile phone base stations, the infrastructure for 5G wireless communications systems (next-generation high-speed communication standard), will go into full-scale operations from fiscal 2021. It means that NDK is on the verge of a huge business chance. With 5G systems taking off, applications for quartz crystal devices will surge, from 5G smartphone terminals to IoT, including for automated driving. The advent of 5G will spur demand for high-accuracy crystal device products capable of high frequency with low-phase noise features greater than what is currently available.