TAINAN, Taiwan, Jan. 29, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Himax Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:HIMX) (“Himax” or “Company”), a leading supplier and fabless manufacturer of display drivers and other semiconductor products, today announced the acquisition of certain advanced nano 3D masters manufacturing assets and related intellectual property and business from a US-based technology company. The transaction is expected to be closed in February 2018. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The advanced nano 3D manufacturing masters are primarily used in imprinting or stamping replication process to fabricate devices such as diffractive optical element (DOE), diffuser, collimator lens and micro lens array. The acquisition brings Himax the very upstream master tooling capability to supplement the company’s world leading wafer level optics (WLO) technology, which is critical in its efforts to offer 3D sensing total solutions. In addition, certain intellectual properties such as those related to true grey scale image and micro lens arrays will enable Himax to enter into new markets such as biomedical, computational camera and niche displays, and develop more sophisticated DOE and diffuser for future generation 3D sensing solutions.

Himax IGI Precision Ltd. (“Himax IGI”), a wholly owned subsidiary, has been established for the said acquisition. Himax IGI, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, will continue to invest in the development of state-of-the-art nano 3D mastering technology and solutions. The fact that the operation is US-based will be an additional advantage for many of Himax’s US customers who are leading technology breakthroughs and would appreciate a strong local-based, early-stage R&D collaboration partner.

Jordan Wu, President and CEO of Himax, said, “The team that are joining us along with the acquisition are true experts in what they do and are arguably the best talents in the world in the small but very technically challenging field of nano 3D mastering. We sometimes got frustrated by the less than satisfactory result in our WLO product development, unsure whether the issue was caused by the quality of the master or our own product design or manufacturing. By adding mastering know-how into our family, we can surely enhance the overall WLO product quality and shorten our development cycle. I am sure many of our innovation driven customers will be thrilled to hear that finally someone has taken the right move to bring nano 3D mastering, design and manufacturing of high precision optical structure product all under the same roof.”


About Himax Technologies, Inc.

Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:HIMX) is a fabless semiconductor solution provider dedicated to display imaging processing technologies. Himax is a worldwide market leader in display driver ICs and timing controllers used in TVs, laptops, monitors, mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, car navigation, virtual reality (VR) devices and many other consumer electronics devices. Additionally, Himax designs and provides controllers for touch sensor displays, in-cell Touch and Display Driver Integration (TDDI) single-chip solutions, LED driver ICs, power management ICs, scaler products for monitors and projectors, tailor-made video processing IC solutions, silicon IPs and LCOS micro-displays for augmented reality (AR) devices and head-up displays (HUD) for automotive. The Company also offers digital camera solutions, including CMOS image sensors and wafer level optics for AR devices, 3D sensing and machine vision, which are used in a wide variety of applications such as mobile phone, tablet, laptop, TV, PC camera, automobile, security, medical devices and Internet of Things. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Tainan, Taiwan, Himax currently employs around 2,150 people from three Taiwan-based offices in Tainan, Hsinchu and Taipei and country offices in China, Korea, Japan and the US. Himax has 3,032 patents granted and 424 patents pending approval worldwide as of December 31st, 2017. Himax has retained its position as the leading display imaging processing semiconductor solution provider to consumer electronics brands worldwide.

http://www.himax.com.tw

Forward Looking Statements

Factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially include, but not limited to, general business and economic conditions and the state of the semiconductor industry; market acceptance and competitiveness of the driver and non-driver products developed by the Company; demand for end-use applications products; reliance on a small group of principal customers; the uncertainty of continued success in technological innovations; our ability to develop and protect our intellectual property; pricing pressures including declines in average selling prices; changes in customer order patterns; changes in estimated full-year effective tax rate; shortages in supply of key components; changes in environmental laws and regulations; exchange rate fluctuations; regulatory approvals for further investments in our subsidiaries; our ability to collect accounts receivable and manage inventory and other risks described from time to time in the Company's SEC filings, including those risks identified in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in its Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2016 filed with the SEC, as may be amended.


Company Contacts:

Jackie Chang, CFO

Himax Technologies, Inc.

Tel: +886-2-2370-3999 Ext.22300

Or

US Tel: +1-949-585-9838 Ext.252

Fax: +886-2-2314-0877

Email: jackie_chang@himax.com.tw

www.himax.com.tw

Ophelia Lin, Investor Relations

Himax Technologies, Inc.

Tel: +886-2-2370-3999 Ext.22202

Fax: +886-2-2314-0877

Email: ophelia_lin@himax.com.tw

www.himax.com.tw

Ken Liu, Investor Relations

Himax Technologies, Inc.

Tel: +886-2-2370-3999 Ext.22513

Fax: +886-2-2314-0877

Email: ken_liu@himax.com.tw

www.himax.com.tw

Investor Relations – US Representative

Greg Falesnik, Managing Director

MZ North America

Tel: +1-212-301-7130

Email: greg.falesnik@mzgroup.us

www.mzgroup.us

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