IC design house Egalax_empia Technology (EETI) has seen its shipments of touch panel ICs continue to expand in the first quarter 2011 thanks to strong demand from brand-name tablet PC vendors.

With orders for touch panel ICs including those for 10.1-inch tablet PCs, the company expects its first-quarter 2011 results will be better than that recorded in fourth-quarter 2010.

Clients for 10.1-inch touch panel ICs include Acer, Asustek Computer and First International Computer (FIC), according to industry sources.

Although sales for the white-box handset sector in China were affected by the Chinese New Year holidays, the overall white-box handset market remains steady and the company has begun shipping its five-point touch panel ICs to the segment, EETI indicated.

In addition to launching capacitive multi-touch solutions supporting two- four- and five-point touch, EETI plans to release multi-touch products supporting 10 points this quarter and enter volume production a quarter later, the company noted.