Drawing on our 80 years of innovative experience, we are continuing to contribute to the development of display materials.

Fujifilm is adapting the technologies it has perfected in the photographic field over the years to provide ‘highly-functional films’ which are used in a wide range of liquid crystal displays including LCD televisions and smart phones.

If the light from the backlight is unable to pass straight to a liquid crystal display, it is impossible to project clear and attractive pictures. This necessitates a polarizing plate. But the polarizing plate also requires a polarizing plate protection film (a cellulose triacetate, or TAC, film). Worldwide, Fujifilm is one of a handful of companies possessing the advanced technology required for manufacturing these films, and enables the company to produce the popular Fujitac film.

In the 1990s, Fujifilm developed its Wide View (WV) film, which is now widely used in liquid crystal displays. WV film enables viewers to almost double their viewing angle for liquid crystal displays, and see clear, beautiful pictures even when viewed diagonally.^*1 Today, our WV film is also in widespread use in monitors for personal computers.

We have also developed our EXCLEAR touch-panel sensor film that uses silver-halide photographic technology. Compared to the indium tin oxide (ITO) film that has been used to date, EXCLEAR film possesses properties that enable quick response time even on large size panels, strong resistance to folding or bending, and three-dimensional processing.

Our display technologies are opening the way to a clearer, brighter future. We are determined to continue producing new display materials, and this is why we will never stop transforming the ways we see the world.

^*1 When using TN mode liquid crystal displays

Our image analysis technology, which utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI), helps engineers detect cracks on bridges, tunnels and other vital infrastructure, saving them valuable time and energy.

Over time, Japan’s bridges, tunnels and other infrastructure have aged. To ensure safety, the national and municipal governments have mandated regular close visual inspections of all social infrastructure. However, there are just too many structures for the current number of engineers to inspect. To date, infrastructure inspections have required advanced technologies, experienced and skilled engineers to inspect each structure by eye, and indicate each crack by chalking a line by the side of it. They were then required to sketch each crack or fissure, trace the entire image, then make digital images and include them in reports.

As there is such a large number of sites to inspect, and given the amount of time required for inspections due to a lack of skilled engineers, making the process more efficient has become a pressing issue. To resolve this social issue, we developed an image analysis service that utilizes AI.

We have applied our existing medical image analysis technology, which automatically extracts parts of blood vessel from images, to the detection and visualization of cracks in structures. This development made it necessary to train a computer to learn from vast amounts of image data in order to accurately detect chalking and cracks in structures. So we traveled to sites across Japan, listened to the views of inspection companies and construction consulting companies, collected an enormous amount of images and data of cracks, and continued developing our technology.

This resulted in the creation of our Social Infrastructure Image Analysis Service, which can be used easily by anyone. This service has reduced the required amount of time for inspections by half, and is playing a vital role in supporting inspection engineers nationwide.

We will never stop developing and further evolving the technologies we originally created for the photographic field to make the world a safer place!

In the world such as inkjet printheads, inks, print system, where manufacturers jostle with each other for position, we leverage the many decades of experience and innovation we have accrued, and continue to lead the world in the development of inkjet technologies for products and industrial such as textile and packaging.

Inkjet technologies are technologies that have the potential to revolutionize and pioneer the futures of a wide range of industries.

With the ability to either leverage our individual or integrated capabilities, we are one of the few total manufacturers in the world.

This is because, along with having the ability to steadily and reliably supply advanced inkjet technologies, another of our strong points is being able to develop all aspects of our technologies in-house, from Fujifilm Group inkjet printheads through to inks and image processing systems.

There are many more things we want to accomplish in this field. That is why we will never stop pursuing further advancements to inkjet technologies and bringing positive changes to the world around us.

We have adapted the technologies we have accumulated in the photographic field to build porous yeast filters with holes one-millionth of an inch in diameter. This technology is assisting brewers to filter more yeast and bacteria to deliver tastier, high-quality beer.

We are continuing to take on the challenge of providing consumers with better-tasting beer.

Photographic film technologies have always been at the core of our business, and over many years, we have applied these technologies to a wide range of uses. In the case of beer, we found that the technology we use to create microscopic holes in photographic film works very well to create filters for yeast. Previously, in order to prevent a reduction in the quality of beer, the yeast was usually heat-treated. However, using micro filters guarantees the complete removal of yeast and bacteria from the beer without the need for heat treatment, and enables the production of draft beer. This has not only helped ensure that delicious draft-quality beer is available in cans and bottles, but also helped home brewers enjoy tasty craft beers.

Of course, we didn’t stop there. This technology, which has the ability to filter the minutest of particles, is currently being used in various industrial production plants to filter out foreign bodies in the water used in cleansing processes for liquid crystal displays and HDD (hard disk drives), as well as in chemical filtration for plating solutions.

We will never stop evolving our core technologies to help make the world a better place.