Microtek International Inc. () is a
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
-based
multinational manufacturer of
digital imaging
Digital imaging or digital image acquisition is the creation of a digital representation of the visual characteristics of an object, such as a physical scene or the interior structure of an object. The term is often assumed to imply or include ...
products and other
consumer
A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. T ...
electronics
The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
. It produces imaging equipment for medical, biological and industrial fields. It occupies 20 percent of the global imaging market and holds 450 patents worldwide.
It is known for its scanner brands ScanMaker and ArtixScan. The company launched the world's first
halftone
Halftone is the reprographic
Reprography (a portmanteau of ''reproduction'' and ''photography'') is the reproduction of graphics through mechanical or electrical means, such as photography or xerography. Reprography is commonly used in catal ...
optical
film scanner
A film scanner is a device made for scanning photographic film directly into a computer without the use of any intermediate printmaking. It provides several benefits over using a flatbed scanner to scan in a print of any size: the photographe ...
in 1984, the world's first desktop halftone scanner in 1986, and the world's first color scanner in 1989. It has subsidiaries in
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
,
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
,
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
and
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
. It expanded its product lines into the manufacturing of LCD monitors, LCD projectors and digital cameras.
History
1980-1985: Founding and incorporation
In 1979, the
Taiwanese government launched the
Hsinchu Science and Industrial Park
The Hsinchu Science Park (HSP; ) is an industrial park established by the government of Taiwan on 15 December 1980. It straddles Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County in Taiwan.
History
The idea of the establishment of the Hsinchu Science Park was f ...
(HSIP) as a vision of
Shu Shien-Siu
Shu Shien-Siu (; 1912–2001), also known as S. S. Shu, was a Chinese/Taiwanese people, Taiwanese mathematician, engineer and educator.
Biography
Shu was born in Yongjia, Wenzhou, Zhejiang on 12 Sep 1912. Shu studied at Wenzhou High School. In ...
to emulate
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
and to lure back overseas Taiwanese with their experience and knowledge in engineering and technology fields. Initially there were 14 companies, the first was Wang Computer (王氏電腦), by 2010 only six of the original pioneers remained:
United Microelectronics Corporation
United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC; ) is a Taiwanese company based in Hsinchu, Taiwan. It was founded as Taiwan's first semiconductor company in 1980 as a spin-off of the government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) ...
(聯電), Microtek International, Inc. (全友), Quartz Frequency Technology (頻率),
Tecom
The Marine Corps Training and Education Command (TECOM) is the primary training command of the United States Marine Corps.
Commands within TECOM
There are two major commands that fall under TECOM – Training Command and Education Command.
Tr ...
(東訊), Sino-American Silicon Products Inc. (中美矽晶) and Flow Asia Corporation (福祿遠東).
Microtek (Microelectronics Technology) was co-founded in HSIP in 1980
by five Californian Taiwanese, three were colleagues who had worked at
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...
Bobo Wang (王渤渤), Robert Hsieh (謝志鴻), Carter Tseng (曾憲章) and two were colleagues from the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
, Benny Hsu (許正勳) and Hu Chung-hsing (胡忠信).
They decided to set up root after Hsu was invited by HSIP Manager Dr.
Irving Ho (何宜慈). In September 1983, the Allied Association for Science Parks Industries (台灣科學園區同業公會 abbr. 竹科) was established and Hsu was elected to be its first Chairman.
Microtek first entered the industry in 1983, when scanners were little more than expensive tools for hobbyists. In 1984, it introduced the MS-300A, a desktop halftone scanner. At about the same time, the company realized a need for scanning software for mainstream users and developed EyeStar, the world’s first scanning software application. EyeStar made desktop scanning a functional reality, serving as the de facto standard for image format for importing graphics before
TIFF
Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word processin ...
came to fruition. Microtek proceeded to develop the first
OCR, or Optical Character Recognition, program for text scanning, once more successfully integrating a core function of scanning with its machines.
1985: Microtek Lab, Inc.
In 1985, Microtek set up its
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
subsidiary, Microtek Lab, Inc., in
Cerritos,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. The company went public in 1988. It was one of Taiwan's initial technology
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
s.
Microtek has
research and development
Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...
labs located in California and Taiwan dedicated to optics design,
mechanical
Mechanical may refer to:
Machine
* Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement
* Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations of ...
and
electronic engineering
Electronics engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current ...
,
software development
Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...
, product quality, and technological advancement. According to
AnnaLee Saxenian
AnnaLee Saxenian is a professor and the current Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Information, known widely for her work on technology clusters and social networks in Silicon Valley. She received her BA from Williams College in 1976 and her PhD f ...
's 2006 book ''The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy'', Microtek has produced more than 20% of the worldwide
image scanner
An image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner—is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting or an object and converts it to a digital image. Commonly used in offices are variations of the desktop ''flatbed scanner'' ...
market.
1989: Ulead Systems
In 1989, Microtek invested in
Ulead Systems
Ulead Systems () is a Taiwanese computer software company headquartered in Neihu district in Taipei, Taiwan. It is a subsidiary of Corel.
History
Ulead was founded on 5 August 1989 by Lotus Chen, Lewis Liaw and Way-Zen Chen. They founded Ul ...
(based in
Taipei
Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...
) which became the first publicly traded software company in Taiwan in 1999. Ulead System was founded by Lotus Chen, Lewis Liaw and Way-Zen Chen three colleagues from Taiwan's
Institute for Information Industry
The Institute for Information Industry (III; , abbreviated ) was established in 1979 as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) to support the communication sector in Taiwan under the supervision of the Republic of China Ministry of Economic Af ...
. Microtek helped Ulead by jointly purchasing
CCD sensors from
Kodak
The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
which benefited both companies as it was a component not yet locally produced at the time.
Products
Herbarium Specimen Digitization
* ObjectScan 1600
is an on-top scanner designed for capturing high resolution image of herbarium specimen. The device is bundled with ScanWizard Graphy which provides scanner setting and image correction tools. The maximum resolution is 1600 dpi.
* ScanWizard Botany is a workstation software for specimen image processing, electronic data capture software, and uploading metadata to database or server. The software has OCR (Optical Character Recognition) function which can automatically detect label information and read barcode information on botanical collections. The information will be saved as metadata. It also includes image processing tools such as brightness adjustment and contrast adjustment.
* MiVAPP Botany is a botanical database management system and web-server system. This system allows a botanical garden, university, and museum to share their collection online.
Operations
Taiwan
*Microtek International Inc.: Headquarters, Science-Based Industrial Park, Hsinchu City
*Taipei Office: Da-an District, Taipei City
Mainland China
*Shanghai Microtek Technology Co., Ltd: Shanghai
*Shanghai Microtek Medical Device Co., Ltd: Shanghai
*Shanghai Microtek Trading Co., Ltd: Shanghai
*Microtek Computer Technology (Wu Jiang) Co., Ltd: Jiangsu
See also
*
Ulead Systems
Ulead Systems () is a Taiwanese computer software company headquartered in Neihu district in Taipei, Taiwan. It is a subsidiary of Corel.
History
Ulead was founded on 5 August 1989 by Lotus Chen, Lewis Liaw and Way-Zen Chen. They founded Ul ...
*
List of companies in Taiwan
Taiwan maintains a stable industrial economy as a result of economic growth and industrialization during the late 20th century, being dubbed as one of the Four Asian Tigers along with Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea. It is a member of both ...
References
{{Electronics industry in Taiwan
1980 establishments in Taiwan
Computer peripheral companies
Display technology companies
Electronics companies of Taiwan
Manufacturing companies based in Hsinchu
Computer companies established in 1980
Manufacturing companies established in 1980
Companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange
Taiwanese brands