Group Headed by MHI, ROHM, Toppan Printing and Mitsui & Co.,
Establish Joint Venture to Assess Business Viability
Of Lighting-use Organic EL Panel

The establishment of Lumiotec Inc., which will actively promote the realization of the OEL panel business for lighting applications, was made possible by bringing together the technologies and resources of each of the founding companies of the joint venture. Specifically, through provision of the sample panels, the venture will pursue new applications for OEL panels and explore the potential for new demand in addition to replacing conventional lighting devices while accelerating enhancements of the panel's performance. Initially, the venture will focus primarily on the assessment of the OEL lighting panel business viability. The company is the first in the world dedicated to the OEL lighting panels business.

The joint venture is capitalized at 1,400 million yen (common stock and capital reserve). MHI furnished 51% of the requisite capital, and the remaining equity investment was shared by ROHM (34.0%), Toppan Printing (9.9%), Mitsui & Co. (5.0%) and Junji Kido (0.1%). Hisao Shigenaga, Deputy General Manager of MHI's Machinery and Steel Structures Headquarters, concurrently serves as the president of the venture, which has its head office in Yonezawa City in Yamagata Prefecture. The company will begin operations with 20 employees.

The OEL panel has advantageous features that neither conventional light sources, such as electric light bulbs and fluorescent tubes, nor light-emitting diodes (LED) provide, and therefore is expected to be a promising next generation lighting source. The advantageous features of OEL panels include:

• 1. OEL panels are light and thin and can create a new living environment through new, previously unavailable lighting designs and displays in residential houses, offices, stores and transporting vehicles, such as aircraft and trains.
• 2. The OEL panels emit an even and uniform soft light free of ultraviolet rays. It is not only easy on the skin and eyes but also has the good color rendering property and is capable of providing safe and high-value-added lighting in museums, product display cases and dressers.
• 3. Free of harmful substances such as mercury, the OEL panels are expected to outperform fluorescent tubes in power efficiency, ultimately contributing to the reduction of CO2 emission through energy savings.

The decision to establish the joint venture was based on the clearer prospects for commercially viable OEL development and production, which was spurred by the development of a new device structure that enabled the simultaneous achievement of increased brightness and longer operating life, which, in the past, were considered performance trade-offs. The realization of a high-speed, large-size production system (in-line deposition equipment with linear evaporation source for large scale substrate) will also significantly enhance material utilization efficiency. Lumiotec will aggressively promote the realization of the OEL panel business for lighting-applications.

About ROHM
ROHM was established in Kyoto Japan in 1958 and designs, manufactures and sells various types of semiconductors in consumer electronics, mobile phone and network industries and other applications. ROHM’s design and manufacture teams provide high quality products to customers through its global design centers and sales networks world wide. ROHM involves over 20,000 employees world wide and achieved 373Billion yen sales in FY 2008(year ended March 31, 2008).

For additional information, please visit the web site at http://www.rohm.com

About Toppan Printing
Founded in 1900, Toppan Printing has branched into diverse business fields, including security cards, commercial printing, publications printing, packaging, industrial materials, electronics and semiconductor solutions. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007, Toppan posted revenues of ¥1,557.8 billion (more than US$13 billion), and ended the year with approximately 36,000 employees.

For more information visit www.toppan.co.jp/english/

About Mitsui & Co.
MITSUI & CO., LTD. (Mitsui) is one of the world’s most diversified and comprehensive trading, investment, and service enterprises. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Mitsui maintains a global network of 159 offices in 67 countries, and has 479 subsidiaries and associated companies worldwide.
The Company’s main businesses include sales, manufacturing, export / import, international trade and services in the following fields: metal products and minerals, machinery, electronics and information, chemicals, energy, consumer products and services such as retail, foods, textiles & fashion, general merchandise and various other areas, along with financial markets and logistics & transportation.
Mitsui is engaged in diversifying services, as it explores and develops natural resources, while making commercial investments in the development of technologies for new businesses, and much more.

For additional information, please visit the web site at http://www.mitsui.co.jp/en/