When completed, the new product will be capable of deicing, defrosting and demisting the windshield, thus improving cold start visibility and reducing the need to scrape ice from the windshield.

   The joint development agreement (JDA) provides for the cooperative development of a heatable windshield product by joining Southwall's XIR technology with Visteon's glass making and electrical component manufacturing experience to create a "smart windshield" that will become fully integrated into the vehicle's automatic climate control system.

   "Car buyers have been asking for faster and more convenient ways to clear ice, mist and frost from their windshields. This teaming responds to that need by fast-tracking the development of the required windshield and electrical component systems," said Southwall's president and CEO, Thomas G. Hood. "We have demonstrated the use of our conductive XIR film to electrically heat a windshield to the desired temperature in less than two minutes. Today's high efficiency engines generate insufficient heat to speed up the deicing and defrosting of the windshield. An electrically heated glass also offers tremendous potential to reduce the space requirements of the current bulky instrument panel duct work that routes hot air to the windshield. Scraping ice from the windshield on a cold winter morning may be a thing of the past once we commercialize the heatable windshield."

   "Visteon evaluated a number of technologies that could be used to supply an electrically heatable windshield product," commented Eric Buonassisi, Southwall's senior vice president of Sales & Marketing. "Our XIR film technology was selected for joint development because of its advantages over competing technologies and its fast growth in the European auto market. A heatable, infrared reflecting windshield certainly has multiple advantages to offer future car buyers in the U.S."

   "This is a very important development for Southwall," said Buonassisi. "This agreement marks the entry of our automotive XIR film into the U.S. automotive glass market. With Visteon as our development partner, automakers around the world are in an excellent position to capitalize on the heatable glass technology of the future. Through our cooperation with Visteon, we hope to have access to Ford's 5 million new vehicles produced yearly, as well as the cars manufactured by others who are supplied by Visteon around the world."

   Laminated between two pieces of glass to make an infrared reflecting, UV absorbing barrier, Southwall's XIR film is used in more than 1,000,000 new cars a year to keep occupants safer, more comfortable and to protect the car interior from extreme degradation due to ultraviolet light. In Europe, there are more than 16 models currently using the XIR technology. Southwall's new XIR film plant in Dresden, Germany is scheduled to start production soon with the first of several new sputtering machines coming on stream this summer.

   "We are pleased that Visteon has selected Southwall to co-develop the heatable windshield," commented Dr. Sicco Westra, Southwall's senior VP Engineering and chief technical officer. "This joint development agreement combines Southwall's 20 years of experience in the design and manufacture of thin film sputter coatings with Visteon's vast expertise in manufacturing automotive glass systems for a diverse range of automobile designs. The XIR film technology is proving to be extremely versatile. It is able to provide a number of added value benefits to the auto consumer -- a more comfortable /safer / quieter ride, a potential antenna in the windshield, and, now, a convenient means of deicing/defogging/demisting the windshield."