Category Archives: Displays

Most current displays do not always accurately represent the world’s colors as we perceive them by eye, instead only representing roughly 70% of them. To make better displays with true colors commonly available, researchers have focused their efforts on light-emitting nanoparticles. Such nanoparticles can also be used in medical research to light up and keep track of drugs when developing and testing new medicines in the body. However, the metal these light-emitting nanoparticles are based on, namely cadmium, is highly toxic, which limits its applications in medical research and in consumer products–many countries may soon introduce bans on toxic nanoparticles.

These are structures of silver indium sulfide/gallium sulfide core/shell quantum dots and pictures of the core/shell quantum dots under room light. Credit: Osaka University

It is therefore vital to create non-toxic versions of these nanoparticles that have similar properties: they must produce very clean colors and must do so in a very energy-efficient way. So far researchers have succeeded in creating non-toxic nanoparticles that emit light in an efficient manner by creating semiconductors with three types of elements in them, for example, silver, indium, and sulfur (in the form of silver indium disulfide (AgInS2)). However, the colors they emit are not pure enough–and many researchers declared that it would be impossible for such nanoparticles to ever emit pure colors.

Now, researchers from Osaka University have proven that it is possible by fabricating semiconductor nanoparticles containing silver indium disulfide and adding a shell around them consisting of a semiconductor material made of two different elements, gallium and sulfur. The team was able to reproducibly create these shell-covered nanoparticles that are both energy efficient and emit vivid, clean colors. The team have recently published their research in the Nature journal NPG Asia Materials.

“We synthesized non-toxic nanoparticles in the normal way: mix all ingredients together and heat them up. The results were not fantastic, but by tweaking the synthesis conditions and modifying the nanoparticle cores and the shells we enclosed them in, we were able to achieve fantastic efficiencies and very pure colors,” study coauthor Susumu Kuwabata says.

Enclosing nanoparticles in semiconductor shells in nothing new, but the shells that are currently used have rigidly arranged atoms inside them, whereas the new particles are made of a more chaotic material without such a rigid structure.

“The silver indium disulfide particles emitted purer colors after the coating with gallium sulfide. On top of that, the shell parts in microscopic images were totally amorphous. We think the less rigid nature of the shell material played an important part in that–it was more adaptable and therefore able to take on more energetically favorable conformations,” first author Taro Uematsu says.

The team’s results demonstrate that it is possible to create cadmium-free, non-toxic nanoparticles with very good color-emitting properties by using amorphous shells around the nanoparticle cores.

Avegant Corp. (“Avegant”) announced today that the company closed $12M in Series AA funding from new investors Walden SKT Venture Fund and China Walden Venture Investments III, L.P., as well as previous investors.

Ed Tang, CEO of Avegant, said, “The consumer AR industry faces significant challenges developing displays that are high resolution, small form factor, large field-of-view, light field, and low power. The industry is excited about our unique solutions to these technical challenges, which will enable previously impossible AR experiences.”

Earlier this year, Avegant focused its operations on its next generation display technologies which are targeted for the consumer market. Avegant’s current research builds on its industry-first light field technologies and the high resolution, low latency, and high brightness retinal displays first used in Avegant’s Video Headset.

According to Dr. Om Nalamasu, President of Applied Ventures and Chief Technology Officer of Applied Materials, “Applied is excited to use its materials engineering technologies to enable new inflections like AR/VR, which require advanced displays, high-performance computing and lots of memory. We are working with Avegant to accelerate the development of their light field technology to create compelling AR applications.”

“Many companies are trying to solve multiple, very difficult technical problems to bring AR experiences to consumers,” said Andrew Kau, Managing Director of Walden International. “We chose to invest in Avegant because their solutions elegantly tackle these problems in creative ways that consider human factors without losing sight of manufacturability.”

Avegant is a well-funded, venture-backed technology company developing next-generation display technology to enable previously impossible augmented reality experiences. The company uses its deep scientific understanding of human sight and head-mounted display ergonomics together with its consumer electronics manufacturing experience to develop displays that enable realistic AR experiences for consumers. Avegant’s Light Field Technology enables a compelling, up-close, hands-on AR experience, and its Consumer AR Display Technology makes these experiences possible in a consumer wearable AR device. For more information visit avegant.com or follow Avegant on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The Trump administration’s consideration of tariffs on Chinese printed circuit assemblies and connected devices would cost the economy $520.8 million and $2.4 billion annually for the 10 percent and 25 percent tariffs, respectively, according to a new study commissioned by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).

“With the economy thriving under President Trump – we’ve seen remarkably low unemployment and a booming stock market – the administration shouldn’t jeopardize America’s global standing with tariffs,” said Gary Shapiro, CEO and president, CTA. “Foreign governments don’t pay the cost of tariffs, Americans do – and for that reason, U.S. trade policy needs to steer clear of tariffs that act like taxes on American manufacturers and consumers. The danger we face – the unintended consequence – is that tariffs mean Americans will pay more for all the devices they use every day to access the internet.”

The economic impact study shows American shoppers will have to pay between $1.6 billion and $3.2 billion more for connected devices such as gateways, modems, routers, smart speakers, smartwatches and other Bluetooth enabled products. The price of connected devices from China will increase by between 8.5 and 22 percent. And prices for these products from all sources will rise between 3.2 and 6.2 percent.

Similarly, the price of printed circuit assemblies from China –– will increase by between nine and 23 percent, while an alternative supply from U.S. manufacturers will cost two to three percent higher. As a result of higher input costs, totaling an additional $900 million to $1.8 billion, American manufacturers of products that contain printed circuit assemblies will purchase between six and 12 percent less from suppliers overall.

“When our government begins to charge its own companies and people with more taxes in the form of tariffs, we have put in jeopardy not just the American Dream of many small and mid-size businesses, but you put in jeopardy the people that work for them too,” said Win Cramer, CEO, JLab Audio, a California based company and CTA member. “These people support a growing economy, support a growing business and, most importantly, pay taxes. Pre-tariffs, JLab Audio was planning to scale up with new hires and programs to push our company’s growth to another level, but now we’ve put all of that on hold as we need to see how everything shakes out.”

Based on CTA’s most recent U.S. Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts report, if the administration enacts tariffs of 10 and 25 percent, CTA projects 2019 U.S. unit shipments of connected devices such as fitness trackers, smartwatches, wireless headphones, modems/broadband gateways, wireless earbuds and smart speakers would decline by as much as 12 percent. Also, U.S. shipment revenues for these devices would decrease by as much as 6.5 percent in 2019.

Amid growing demand for active matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) panels for smartphones, shipments of flexible AMOLED panels are expected to account for more than 50 percent of total AMOLED panel shipments by 2020.

According to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions, shipments of flexible AMOLED panels are expected to reach 335.7 million units by 2020, topping those of rigid AMOLED panels at 315.9 million units. Flexible AMOLED panels are predicted to make up 52.0 percent of total AMOLED panel shipments, up from 38.9 percent in 2018.

“Growth in demand for smartphones with flexible AMOLED panels has accelerated since 2016 as demand increased for curved form or full screen displays,” said Jerry Kang, senior principal analyst of display research at IHS Markit. “Major smartphone brands have been promoting flexible AMOLED screens for their premium products, which allow a differentiated form factor from ones with rigid AMOLED and low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) liquid crystal display (LCD) panels.”

Apple has applied flexible AMOLED panels first in 2017 to the iPhone X. It is expected to launch its second phone with a flexible AMOLED panel, slightly larger than the first one, in 2018. Demand for the new iPhone is expected to contribute to boost the shipments of flexible AMOLED panels.

“Another factor is that high-end smartphone brands are now planning to launch foldable applications using flexible AMOLED panels, which is not possible using rigid AMOLED or LTPS LCD panels. Foldable AMOLED panels will be key in changing the demand situation from mobile devices in the foreseeable future,” Kang said.

Shipments of flexible AMOLED panels are expected to reach 157.6 million units in 2018, more than triple compared to 46.5 million units in 2015, with a compound annual growth rate of 50 percent.

By Jay Chittooran, Public Policy Manager, SEMI 

Two months after opposing $34 billion in U.S. trade tariffs on behalf of the U.S. semiconductor manufacturing industry, Jonathan Davis, global vice president of industry advocacy at SEMI, this week spoke out against an additional $16 billion duties on Chinese goods. Testifying before the same U.S. interagency panel mulling the merits of the tariffs, Davis called for the removal of 29 tariff lines covering items critical to semiconductor manufacturing including machines and spare parts used to make, wafers, flat panel displays and masks.

In his testimony to the panel, Davis stressed that while SEMI supports stronger protections against the theft of valuable intellectual property (IP), tariffs do little to address U.S. concerns over IP loss. Over the past month, SEMI has also submitted written comments and opposed the tariffs in public testimony. The panel includes representatives from the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), Departments of Treasury, Commerce, State and Defense, and the Council of Economic Advisers.

Also testifying, Joe Pon, corporate vice president at Applied Materials, explained that the proposed tariffs will harm small and midsized companies and other U.S. business interests. Describing the tariffs as a tax on exports of high-value U.S. goods, Pon said the duties give non-U.S. firms an unfair competitive advantage.

In a parallel push to Davis’s testimony, SEMI, with more than 10 representatives from six member companies, met with 16 congressional offices this week to underscore the damage the tariffs would wreak on the U.S. semiconductor industry. The fallout would include higher operating costs, fewer exports and slower innovation. The tariffs would also curb industry growth and put thousands of high-paying, high-skill jobs at risk. SEMI pressed congressional leaders to reject the tariffs and support a push for congress to re-assert itself on trade policy.

Tariffs to cost U.S. SEMI members more than $500 million

SEMI estimates that the second list of proposed tariffs, covering about $16 billion in Chinese goods, will cost its 400 U.S. members more than $500 million annually in additional duties.

The tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese goods, which took effect July 6, impact products such as test and inspection equipment as well as spare parts that enter the U.S. from China. That round of tariffs will cost SEMI member companies and estimated tens of millions of dollars annually.

SEMI public policy team asks members to review tariff list

Looking ahead, SEMI encourages members to review the newly released $200 billion tariff list, determine any impact to their businesses and share their findings with SEMI’s public policy team.

The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has published the exclusion process for products subject to the China 301 tariffs. If your company’s products are subject to tariffs, you can request an exclusion.

In evaluating product exclusion requests, the USTR will consider whether a product is available from a source outside of China, whether the additional duties would cause severe economic harm to the requestor or other U.S. interests, and whether the product is strategically important or related to Chinese industrial programs (such as “Made in China 2025”).

The deadline for submitting product exclusion requests to USTR is October 9, 2018. Approved exclusions will be effective for one year upon approval and retroactive to July 6, 2018.

More information including the process for submitting the product exclusion request can be found here.

Any SEMI members with questions should contact Jay Chittooran, Public Policy Manager at SEMI, at [email protected].

Each issue of the journal Nature Electronics contains a column called “Reverse Engineering,” which examines the development of an electronic device now in widespread use from the viewpoint of the main inventor. So far, it has featured creations such as the DRAM, DVD, CD, and Li-ion rechargeable battery. The July 2018 column tells the story of the IGZO thin film transistor (TFT) through the eyes of Professor Hideo Hosono of Tokyo Tech’s Institute of Innovative Research (IIR), who is also director of the Materials Research Center for Element Strategy.

TFTs using oxides including indium (In), gallium (Ga), and zinc (Zn), or IGZO, made possible high-resolution energy-efficient displays that had not been seen before. IGZO electron mobility is 10 times that of hydrogenated amorphous silicon, which was used exclusively for displays in the past. Additionally, its off current is extremely low and it is transparent, allowing light to pass through. IGZO has been applied to drive liquid crystal displays, such as those on smartphones and tablets. Three years ago, it was also used to drive large OLED televisions, which was considered a major breakthrough. This market is rapidly expanding, as can be seen from the products being released by South Korean and Japanese electronics manufacturers, which now dominate store shelves.

The electron conductivity of transition metal oxides has long been known, but electric current modulation using electric fields has not. In the 1960s, it was reported that modulating the electric current was possible when zinc oxide, tin oxide, and indium oxide were formed into TFT structures. Their performance, however, was poor, and reports of research on organic TFTs were mostly nonexistent until around 2000. A new field called oxide electronics came into existence in the early noughties, examining oxides as electronic materials. A hub for this research was the present-day Laboratory for Materials and Structures within IIR, and research into zinc oxide TFTs soon spread worldwide. However, since the thin film was polycrystalline, there were problems with its characteristics and stability, and no practical applications were achieved.

Application in displays, unlike CPUs, requires the ability to form a thin, homogenous film on a large-sizedsubstrate — like amorphous materials — and a dramatic increase in electric current at a low gate voltage when the thin film is subjected to an electric field. However, while amorphous materials were the optimal choice for forming thin, homogeneous film, high carrier concentration and other issues due to structural disorder arose, for the most part preventing electric current modulation by electric fields. The only exception was amorphous silicon containing a large amount of hydrogen, reported in 1975. TFTs made of this material were applied to drive liquid crystal displays, which grew into a giant 10 trillion-yen industry. However, electron mobility was still lower by two to three orders of magnitude compared to that of crystalline silicon — no better than 0.5 to 1 cm2 V-1 s-1. Amorphous semiconductors, therefore, were easy to produce, but were seen to have much inferior electronic properties.

Hosono focused his attention on oxides with highly ionic bonding nature, the series made up of non-transition metals belonging to the p-block of the periodic table. In this material series, the bottom of the conduction band, which works as the path for electron, is made up mainly of spherically symmetrical metal s-orbitals with a large spatial spread. Because of this, the degree of overlap of the orbitals, which govern how easily electrons can move, is not sensitive to bond angle variation which is an intrinsic nature of amorphous materials.

The professor realized that this characteristic might allow for mobility in amorphous materials that is comparable to that of polycrystalline thin films. He experimented accordingly, and was able to find some examples. In 1995, he presented his idea and examples at the 16th International Conference on Amorphous Semiconductors, and had the paper on its proceedings published the following year. After proving this hypothesis through experiments and calculations, he started test-producing TFTs. Many combinations of elements fulfilled the conditions of the hypothesis. IGZO was selected because it had a stable crystalline phase that is easy to prepare, and its specific local structure around Ga suggested that carrier concentration could be suppressed. In 2003, Hosono and his collaborators reported in Science that crystalline epitaxial thin film could produce mobility of around 80 cm2 V-1 s-1. In the following year, they published in Nature that amorphous thin film could also produce mobility of around 10 cm2 V-1 s-1.

Following these findings, research on amorphous oxide semiconductors and their TFTs began increasing rapidly around the world — not just among the Society for Information Display (SID) and the International Conference on Amorphous Semiconductors. This activity has continued, and Hosono’s two papers have now been cited over 2,000 and 5,000 times respectively. The total citations of the patents associated with these inventions now exceed 9,000. Products with displays incorporating these TFTs have been available to the general consumers since 2012. In particular, large OLED televisions, which appeared around 2015, became possible only due to the unique characteristics of amorphous IGZO TFTs — their high mobility and ability to easily form a thin, homogenous film over a large area. Such displays are installed on the first floor of the Materials Research Center for Element Strategy and the foyer of the Laboratory for Materials and Structures at Tokyo Tech. Application of IGZO TFTs to high-definition large LCD televisions are expected to start soon.

A new manufacturing technique uses a process similar to newspaper printing to form smoother and more flexible metals for making ultrafast electronic devices.

The low-cost process, developed by Purdue University researchers, combines tools already used in industry for manufacturing metals on a large scale, but uses the speed and precision of roll-to-roll newspaper printing to remove a couple of fabrication barriers in making electronics faster than they are today.

Roll-to-roll laser-induced superplasticity, a new fabrication method, prints metals at the nanoscale needed for making electronic devices ultrafast. Credit: Purdue University image/Ramses Martinez

Cellphones, laptops, tablets, and many other electronics rely on their internal metallic circuits to process information at high speed. Current metal fabrication techniques tend to make these circuits by getting a thin rain of liquid metal drops to pass through a stencil mask in the shape of a circuit, kind of like spraying graffiti on walls.

“Unfortunately, this fabrication technique generates metallic circuits with rough surfaces, causing our electronic devices to heat up and drain their batteries faster,” said Ramses Martinez, assistant professor of industrial engineering and biomedical engineering.

Future ultrafast devices also will require much smaller metal components, which calls for a higher resolution to make them at these nanoscale sizes.

“Forming metals with increasingly smaller shapes requires molds with higher and higher definition, until you reach the nanoscale size,” Martinez said. “Adding the latest advances in nanotechnology requires us to pattern metals in sizes that are even smaller than the grains they are made of. It’s like making a sand castle smaller than a grain of sand.”

This so-called “formability limit” hampers the ability to manufacture materials with nanoscale resolution at high speed.

Purdue researchers have addressed both of these issues – roughness and low resolution – with a new large-scale fabrication method that enables the forming of smooth metallic circuits at the nanoscale using conventional carbon dioxide lasers, which are already common for industrial cutting and engraving.

“Printing tiny metal components like newspapers makes them much smoother. This allows an electric current to travel better with less risk of overheating,” Martinez said.

The fabrication method, called roll-to-roll laser-induced superplasticity, uses a rolling stamp like the ones used to print newspapers at high speed. The technique can induce, for a brief period of time, “superelastic” behavior to different metals by applying high-energy laser shots, which enables the metal to flow into the nanoscale features of the rolling stamp – circumventing the formability limit.

“In the future, the roll-to-roll fabrication of devices using our technique could enable the creation of touch screens covered with nanostructures capable of interacting with light and generating 3D images, as well as the cost-effective fabrication of more sensitive biosensors,” Martinez said.

Large thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT LCD) panel makers are expected to reduce production of comparatively smaller sized 32-, 40- and 43-inch panels, helping to stabilize panel prices in the third quarter of 2018. In the longer term, however, the oversupply issue still remains, eventually causing older TFT LCD fabs to be restructured, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

According to the latest AMOLED and LCD Supply Demand & Equipment Tracker by IHS Markit, currently planned new factories will increase large display panel production capacity by 31 percent or 77.7M square meters from 2018 to 2021. However, based on the current demand forecast, there will be about 49 million square meters of capacity in the pipeline more than the market requires in 2021. The supply/demand glut level is expected to continue to increase from 12 percent in 2018 to 23 percent in 2021, remaining well above 10 percent or what is modeled to be a balanced market.

Between 2019 and 2021, there will be a great amount of LCD TV panel capacity built, mainly from generation Gen10.5/11 factories in China, according to IHS Markit.

“Some panel makers may be forced to reduce utilization rates, while some planned capacity may never be built,” said David Hsieh, senior director of displays at IHS Markit. “Furthermore, in the next few years, legacy factory restructuring will likely accelerate. For the TFT LCD industry to return to a balanced supply/demand level, multiple Gen 5, Gen 6 and even Gen 8 factories will likely need to be shut down.”

For example, shutting down half of all Gen 5 and Gen 6 amorphous silicon (a-Si) capacity in Taiwan would remove about 18 million square meters of production capacity, according to IHS Markit. Larger glass substrate capacity, such as Gen 8, will also likely need to be closed to bring the market back toward balance.

Possible restructuring of legacy factories may include fab shutdown, facility consolidation, or conversion to other technologies, such as active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) panels, ePaper backplanes and sensors.

According to the Display Production & Inventory Tracker by IHS Markit, fab restructuring can be attributed to multiple reasons, such as no longer competitive, old equipment, shifts in panel makers’ business focus, excessive overhead from under-utilized facilities and pressure on profitability.

“Oversupply is not the end of the crystal cycle. The industry has a long history of dynamically adjusting itself to balance supply and demand,” Hsieh said. “The process may create many challenges for supply chain companies. However, the delayed expansion of new factories, the restructuring of legacy fabs and the potential for faster demand growth spurred by lower panel prices will help the LCD industry to eventually return to equilibrium.”

With every smartphone brand applying the 18:9 and wider aspect ratio screens to its newer models, the rate of adoption is expected to quicken in the second half of 2018. Smartphones using 18:9 and wider aspect screens are forecast to increase to 66 percent of total smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2018, soaring up from 10 percent in the same period last year, according to business information provider IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

After Samsung Electronics and Apple released their phones last year with new wider aspect ratios of 18.5:9 and 19.5:9, respectively, most smartphone brands have similarly followed suit by applying wider aspect screens to their 2018 lineup to keep up with product differentiation.

Improvements in display technologies have hastened the expansion of the wider screen adoption in smartphones. Initially, flexible active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) technology was required to realize a full-screen display, and thus, 18:9 or wider screens were expected predominantly to be used in premium and high-end smartphones in 2018. However, with rapidly improving designs in liquid crystal display (LCD) cell structure, thin-film transistor (TFT) array and light-emitting diode (LED) backlight, TFT LCD can now be used in full-screen smartphones.

“With the improvement in TFT LCD technology, smartphone makers are now aggressively applying 18:9 aspect ratio of TFT LCD to their 2018 models even for mid-end and entry-level smartphones, instead of using high-priced flexible AMOLED panels,” said Hiroshi Hayase, senior director at IHS Markit.

“It would be correct to assume that smartphone displays are undergoing a quick generation change to TFT LCD-based full screens later this year,” Hayase said. “The new generation of smartphones will be expected to stimulate replacement demand in the 2019 smartphone market.”

Despite concerns about TV demand and falling profit margins, major South Korean and Chinese TV makers are expected to stock up on display panels in the third quarter to prepare for the seasonal year-end shopping spree by consumers. Already carrying inventories from prior stocking, these TV makers will have factored in the risk of a correction in panel demand in the fourth quarter, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions.

According to the latest TV Display & OEM Intelligence Service by IHS Markit, South Korean TV brands’ panel purchasing volume is forecast to increase to 20.4 million units in the third quarter of 2018, up 18 percent from the previous quarter or up 3 percent from a year ago. This is indicative of a recovery in panel purchasing from a decline of 3 percent in the second quarter on a quarter-to-quarter basis and down 1 percent year-over-year.

China’s top five TV brands, which bought more panels than expected in the first quarter, again increased their panel purchasing in the second quarter to meet their sales target by 0.4 percent quarter-on-quarter or 18 percent year-on-year to 19.8 million units. In the third quarter, these Chinese brands are likely to keep their purchasing volumes at a similar growth level of 1 percent quarter-on-quarter or 17 percent year-on-year.

“Although the panel demand outlook from South Korean and Chinese TV makers for the third quarter looks positive, the TV brands are still anxious about uncertainty in market demand in the second half of the year while carrying high inventories,” said Deborah Yang, director of display supply chain at IHS Markit. “The TV demand in Europe has particularly been weaker than expected, and the depreciation of local currencies in the emerging markets against the US Dollar has led to a higher price tag in local currencies.”

Another concern is the eroding profit margins caused by fast-falling average selling prices of TV sets. “As TV makers, particularly the Chinese brands, keep high inventories on hand, they end up cutting TV prices to manage their inventories, leading to lower margins – even for larger and premium TVs,” Yang said. “If their inventory clearance strategies and upcoming seasonal demand fall short of the expectations, these TV brands will eventually have to cut panel purchasing later in the year to lower the inventory burden.”