Nippon Mining & Metals to Expand Stainless Sales for Electronics

Nippon Mining & Metals expands high performance stainless steel materials for electronic parts. The firm shifts to growing application segments including cell phone and liquid crystal panel while the firm sells the materials mainly for electron beam gun of cathode ray tube. The firm targets monthly 250 tonnes of sales for electronic parts in fiscal 2010 ending March 2011 from 100 tonnes in April-September 2007. The firm tries to increase the sales by using high level technology for rolled copper operation along with the integrated production system to plating processing. The firm targets electronic parts including metal dome switch of cell phone and back light reflector and connector shell of liquid crystal panel. The firm expects the demand of cell phone and liquid crystal panel will grow by near 10% per year and the application will use more sophisticated high performance materials. The firm developed hyper stainless steel with better fatigue strength through precise control of the process. The firm tries to market the material with around 10 times longer durability than traditional stainless steel for switch and other applications. The firm can make the new stainless sheet to minimum 20 micrometers thick and up to 900 millimeters width. The firm appeals the product can improve the productivity for the users.