Basic Patents Granted for Hitachi Chemical's Fluid Circuit Sheet ''microARTs''

Hitachi Chemical Co., Ltd. (TOKYO:4217)(Head Office: Tokyo;
President and CEO: Yasuji Nagase; paid-in capital: 15.4 billion yen)
has obtained basic patents of its fluid circuit sheet of micro
arranged tubes technology (microARTs), which is a sheet with wiring of
the fine-diameter tubes in freely-moving configurations similar to
printed wiring boards. This sheet can be used in the fields of
analytical chemistry as well as medical.

In recent years, there has been an increase of demand of
fine-diameter and high-integration in handling small amount of fluids
(nanoliter to microliter). This increase in demand is attributed to
the progress in analytical and synthetic chemical research, as well as
to the trends of miniaturization and high-accuracy of the equipment in
industrial and analytical fields. However, the development of the
technology for the fine-diameter tubes used in numerous fields has
been slow when compared with the progress of wiring technology with
the high-integration of the printed wiring boards. Up to now, simple
bundling of the tubes has been the primary method of the usage of the
fine-diameter tubes.

Hitachi Chemical has successfully developed "microARTs", a fluid
circuit sheet utilizing fine processing technology, which is perfected
through the development of various electrical components. microARTs
realizes freely-moving wiring of multiple fine-diameter tubes
(internal diameter of approximately 50 micrometer to 1 millimeter),
which are secured into the form of a sheet. Plastic, glass and various
other materials can be selected for use as the tubes, making it
possible to support a variety of customer needs, such as pressure and
chemical resistance. Furthermore, since the tubes are used as the
channels, multiple-level crossing and layering of the channels within
the sheet is easily achieved, allowing for the formation of
high-density channels. When using this sheet, the replacement of
multiple tubes can be performed simply by replacing a single sheet,
and new function such as temperature control can easily be added. As a
result, multiple tubes can be handled as a single component, and the
difficulty that has been experienced until now in handling multiple
tubes has been eliminated. The development of microARTs is based on
this revolutionary concept, and has led to the acquisition of basic
patents.

Hitachi Chemical intends to enhance the patent network, including
acquisition of international patent rights, and develop microARTs into
products to meet the needs of the market and our customers in a near
future. We aim to apply microARTs to various areas, such as the market
for environmental analysis that requires precision in operation, as
well as the market for home medical care that requires abbreviated
analysis.