Seiko Instruments Inc. (SII) announced today plans to develop, manufacture and market Varioptic's Liquid Lens products, offering a cost advantage for auto-focus.

Photo: Liquid Camera Lenses Coming for Cell Phones Photo 1

Varioptic's liquid lens feature many advantages over competing technologies in terms of cost, size, robustness, power consumption, silent operation and speed. These advantages position liquid lenses particularly well for the emerging camcorder phone market where continuous auto-focus for video is a "must-have" feature.

Commenting on this agreement, Christian Dupont, CEO of Varioptic said: "We are delighted to have signed this agreement with SII. SII's unique position as the number one Backup button battery and Capacitor supplier to the leaders in the cellular phone market meets perfectly Varioptic's objective to become the leading supplier of high quality image solutions for mobile devices. SII's proven expertise in the production of low cost miniature mechanical assemblies make them an ideal partner of Varioptic."

SII production capacity plan is expected to reach 0.5 million units per month by 3Q of 2008 and will expand mass production capacity according to market needs. This agreement builds on an existing production capacity for Arctic 314 and Arctic 416 liquid lenses designed for 5.0-megapixel, 1/3-inch and 1/4-inch format camera modules.