Panasonic El Works : Acquires All Shares of U.S.-Based Industrial Laser Start-up TeraDiode, Inc.

Osaka, Japan - Panasonic Corporation today announced that it has signed a contract to acquire all shares of TeraDiode, Inc. (Headquarters: Massachusetts, U.S., CEO: Parviz Tayebati, 'TDI'), a global laser supplier of high brightness direct diode lasers ('DDL') for industrial use, on January 2nd, 2017 (U.S. time).

Recently, high-precision and high-quality laser processing technology has become increasingly important to meet the demand for light-weight and high-rigidity characteristics along with high design flexibility and high productivity in the automobile and other industries. TDI's high brightness DDL with its proprietary wavelength beam combining ('WBC') technology has attracted attention as a next generation laser that realizes such demand from a wide range of industrial markets.

Panasonic and TDI began a strategic alliance in 2013 to quickly meet such market needs and succeeded in launching 'LAPRISS' in 2014, the world's first laser welding robot system with TDI's high brightness DDL technology. That same year, Panasonic obtained from TDI exclusive sales rights for DDL used for welding in major countries in the Asian region, and both companies have been closely collaborating in product development, manufacturing, sales, and service in order to expand the use of DDL technology worldwide. Panasonic and TDI have agreed to make TDI a 100% subsidiary of Panasonic so that Panasonic will be able to drive the further growth of both companies' laser processing business by integrating TDI's cutting-edge DDL technology and know-how with its own.

Panasonic and TDI will further develop DDL technology jointly and strengthen the laser processing business as a new core business of Panasonic in the factory solutions field, thereby accelerating the growth of Panasonic's B2B business.