Taiwan-based STN LCD makers Emerging Display Technologies (EDT) and United Radiant Technology (URT) are gearing up the development of touch panels to tap a market that is expected to have strong growth.

Both EDT and URT have set up teams to develop touch panels, with some of their products already in the process of being validated by clients.

EDT said STN LCD makers usually have in-house color filter (CF) production, the process of making which is similar to that of touch panels. Therefore, EDT has long been developing both capacitive and resistive touch panels, according to the company.

EDT said the development of resistive touch panels is easier, but market prices for these panels are relatively lower. Although there is a higher technological barrier to the development of capacitive touch panels, EDT said the higher prices are giving it incentives to develop them.

URT said it already restarted its touch panel production lines in 2007. Currently URT's resistive touch panels are being validated by clients, while its capacitive touch panels are still being developed.