Category Archives: Touch Technologies

SMiT Holdings Limited, a CAM supplier and a major mPOS supplier in China has announced that on 9 November 2018, SMiT Holdings (HK) Limited (“SMiT HK”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company completed a further USD 5 million investment by way of preferred stock purchase (the “Stock Purchase”) in Sensel, Inc. pursuant to a stock purchase agreement. Upon completion of the Stock Purchase, SMiT HK held approximately 9.22% interest in Sensel on fully diluted basis.

Simultaneously, the USD 2 million convertible promissory note issued by Sensel and previously subscribed by SMiT HK in February 2018 was deemed converted into preferred shares in Sensel at completion of the Stock Purchase, and the entire amount owed to SMiT HK under such convertible promissory note was tendered to Sensel in exchange for preferred stock pursuant to the Stock Purchase Agreement.

Sensel is a startup company based in the United States that is developing a next-generation touch technology. Their new touch technology, PressureGrid, can sense both high-resolution position and high-resolution force data with a single sensor. This best-in-class technology is positioned to revolutionize interfaces in consumer electronics, robotics, automotive, and medical industries. Sensel is currently working on bringing PressureGrid to market in smartphones and laptops, where they are using this technology to enable new cutting edge user interfaces and experiences.

Mr Shuai Hongyu, President of SMiT, said, “This further investment is expected to consolidate the Group’s leading position in the in the IC-based security industry. We believe that the advanced and innovative technology bought by Sensel is in line with the Group’s development and expansion strategy, and will result in significant benefits in the long term, thereby further strengthening the Group’s competitive position in the market.”

The global demand for automotive display systems is expected to continue a strong growth path in 2018, according to recent analysis from business information provider IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

According to the latest Automotive Display Systems Forecasts , OEM production of the three primary automotive display systems — instrument cluster, center stack and head-up display systems — is expected to reach 118.5 million units globally by the end of 2018, representing a 9 percent growth in volume over 2017. While the volume is growing significantly, the value of the market is growing even faster. In 2018, IHS Markit estimates just these three display systems to bring in $13.5 billion in tier-one supplier revenue, representing a 17 percent growth over 2017.

“In the quest for differentiation, automakers are using displays to transform vehicle interiors into a futuristic digital user experience with more pixels in front of consumers than ever before,” said Brian Rhodes, automotive user experience analyst at IHS Markit. “While high resolution, large displays previously were reserved for luxury applications only, declining average selling prices and increasing consumer demand and production volumes are enabling mass-market car brands to standardize displays that were optional only a few years ago.”

Demand for more displays in automotive applications is strong, but a major enabler to this growth comes from the supply chain. Large global display panel manufacturers in Asia have recently invested heavily in automotive display panel production in order to continue sales growth as display markets in other areas have slowed, such as smartphones and tablet PCs.

According to the latest Automotive Display Market Tracker by IHS Markit, global shipments of automotive display panels are set to increase by 11 percent reaching 164 million units in 2018, following an equally strong 9 percent growth in 2017, which had reached 148 million units.

These two IHS Markit forecasts are fundamentally linked, but also differ in that the shipment forecasts include additional volumes, applications and factors that the current OEM production-side forecasts do not.

“As vehicles adopt more technology, more new display use-cases become viable and new display applications are born,” said Hiroshi Hayase, senior director of small and medium displays at IHS Markit. “In addition to the strong growth in the primary display market, we also expect strong growth in display mirrors, rear seat entertainment and even in aftermarket systems as buyers clamor for more digital interfaces.”

As an example, global display shipments for rearview mirror applications are forecast to soar 52 percent in 2018 to 1.6 million units, beyond the 1.0-million-unit mark set just last year. While automakers are keenly aware of the growing demand in this sector, the aftermarket mirror manufacturers are responding quicker to the trend and represent a majority of today’s global production.

The IHS Markit Automotive Display Systems Forecasts provide customers with demand-side monthly updates to automotive instrument cluster, center stack display and head-up display system forecasts, tracked globally to the segment, OEM, brand, model, platform, and program. Coverage of tier-one suppliers and key technical characteristics like display system size, type, touch, orientation and more enabling a precise view of the volumes, technology and revenue market shares in the industry are also included. Meanwhile, the Automotive Display Market Tracker by IHS Markit contains supply-side quarterly updates of automotive display shipments and revenues by application, size, resolution and technology. It also provides supply chain information between tier-two display suppliers and the rest of the supply chain.

Memory devices employ a wide range of packaging technology from wire-bond leadframe and BGA to TSV.

BY SANTOSH KUMAR, Yole Développement, Lyon-Villeurbanne, France

The memory market is going through a strong growth phase. The total memory market grew by >50% YoY to more than US$125 billion in 2017 from US$79.4 billion in 2016. [1] RAM and NAND dominate the market, representing almost 95 % of standalone memory sales. There is a supply/demand mismatch in the market which is impacting on the ASP of memory devices, and as a result the large memory IDMs are reaping record profits. The memory industry has consolidated with the top five players – Samsung, SKHynix, Micron, Toshiba and Western Digital – accounting for 90% of the market.

The demand for memory is coming from all sectors but the mobile and computing (mainly servers) market is showing particularly strong growth. On average, the DRAM memory capacity per smartphone will rise more than threefold to reach around 6GB by 2022. DRAM cost per smartphone represents >10% of the bill of materials of the phone and is expected to increase further. The NAND capacity per smartphone will increase more than fivefold to reach >150GB by 2022. For servers, the DRAM capacity per unit will increase to a whopping 0.5TB by 2022, and the NAND capacity per SSD for the enterprise market will be in excess of 5TB by 2022. The growth in these markets is led by applications like deep learning, big-data, networking, AR/ VR, and autonomous driving. The automotive market, which traditionally used low density (low-MB) memory, will see the adoption of DRAM memory led by the emerging trend of autonomous driving and in-vehicle infotainment. The NOR flash memory market also saw a resurgence and is expected to grow at an impressive 16% CAGR to reach ~US$4.4 billion by 2022, due to its application in new areas such as AMOLED displays, touch display driver ICs and industrial IoTs.

On the supply side, the consolidation of players, the difficulty in migrating to advanced nodes due to technical challenges, and the need for higher investment to migrate from 2D to 3D NAND, has led to shortfall in both DRAM & NAND flash supply. DRAM players want to retain high ASPs (& high profitability) to justify the huge capex investment for advanced node migration and as such are not inclined to increase capacity. Entry of Chinese memory players will ease the supply side constraint, but it’ll not happen before 2020.

Memory device packaging

There are many variations of memory device packaging. This implies a wide range of packaging technology from the low pin count SOP package to the high pin-count TSV, all depending upon the specific product requirements such as density, performance, cost, etc. We have broadly identified five packaging platforms for memory devices: viz lead frame, wire-bond BGA, flip-chip BGA, WLCSP and TSV, even though in each platform there are many varia- tions and different nomenclature in industry.

The total memory package market is expected to grow at 4.6% CAGR2016-2022 to reach ~US$26 billion by 2022. [1] Wire-bond BGA accounted for more than 80% of the packaging market in dollar terms in 2016. Flip-chips, however, started making inroads in the DRAM memory packaging market and is expected to grow at ~20% CAGR in the next five years to account for more than 10% of the memorypackagingmarket.Currentlytheflip-chipmarket is only around 6% of the total memory packaging market. Flip-chip growth is led by its increased adoption in the DRAM PC/server segment fueled by a high bandwidth requirement.

Currently Samsung has already converted >90% of its DRAM packaging line. SK Hynix have started the conversion and other players will also adopt it in future. At Yole Développement (Yole), we believe that all DDR5 memory for PC/servers will move to flip-chip.

TSV is employed in high bandwidth memory devices requiring high bandwidth with low latency memory chips for high performance computing in various applications. In 2016 the TSV market was <1% of the total memory market. However, it is expected to grow by >30% CAGR to reach ~8% of memory packaging in dollar terms. WLSCP packaging is used in NOR flash and niche memory devices (EEPROMs/EPROM/ROM). It is expected to grow at >10% CAGR, but in terms of value will remain <1% of the market by 2022.

In mobile applications, memory packaging will mainly remain on the wire-bond BGA platform but will start to move into the multi-chip package (ePoP) for high end smartphones.

The main requirement of NAND flash devices is high storage density at low cost. NANDs are stacked using wire bonding to provide high density in a single package. The NAND packaging market is expected to reach ~ US$ 10 billion by 2022. NAND flash packaging will remain on the wire bond BGA platform and will not migrate to flip-chip. Toshiba, however, will start using TSV packaging in NAND devices to increase the data transfer rate for high end applications. Following Toshiba, we believe Samsung and SKHynix will also bring TSV packaged NAND devices into the market.

OSATs account for <20% of the memory packaging business

The total memory packaging market is estimated to have been ~US$20 billion in 2016. There are many OSATs involved in the memory packaging business, and >80% of the packaging (by value) is still done internally by OSATs. The majority of these are small OSATs and have only low-end packaging capability. Global memory IDMs have much experience in packaging, accumulated over years, and have their own internal large capacity. Therefore, there is limited opportunity for OSATs to make inroads into the packaging activity of IDMs. Many Chinese players, however, are entering the memory market with more than US$50 billion investment committed. [1] These new entrants do not have experience in memory assembly / packaging, unlike global IDMs, and they will outsource major packaging activities to OSATs. The flip-chip business for memory packaging will increase to 13% of the total market to reach US$3.5 billion in 2022. This is an opportunity for low-end memory OSATs to invest in flip-chip bumping and assembly capacity. Otherwise they will lose business to the big OSATs with advanced packaging capability.

Conclusion

The memory industry is going through a golden phase with strong demand coming from all sectors, particularly from the mobile and computing (mainly servers) markets.

Memory devices employ a wide range of packaging technology from wire-bond leadframe and BGA to TSV. Wire-bond BGA still accounts for the bulk of the memory packaging market. However, flip-chip technology will start making inroads in DRAM memory packaging and will grow at 20% CAGR (by revenue) over the next five years, accounting for ~13% of the total memory packaging market by 2022. The memory packaging market is mainly controlled by IDMs. OSATs have limited opportunity to impact IDM packaging activity. Many Chinese players, however, are entering the memory business and, unlike global IDMs, these new players lack experience in memory assembly/packaging and they outsource most of their packaging activity to OSATs.

SANTOSH KUMAR is a Senior Technology and Market Research Analyst at Yole Développement in France.

References

1. Memory Packaging Market and Technology Report 2017, Yole Développement

Although flexible active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) panel shipments for smartphones are expected to continue growing in 2018, the pace will be much slower than expected, according to a latest report from business information provider IHS Markit(Nasdaq: INFO).

With the adoption by Apple’s iPhone X, shipments of film-based, flexible AMOLED panels for smartphones more than tripled in 2017 to 125 million units from 40 million units in 2016, and it was expected to see continued strong growth in 2018. However, sales of the iPhone X have not met market expectations, mainly because of the $1,000-plus price tag, which is partially attributed by a more pricey display panel.

“The weak demand for the iPhone X has made smartphone brands revisit their AMOLED panel purchasing plans,” said Hiroshi Hayase, senior director at IHS Markit. Now, flexible AMOLED panel shipments for smartphones are expected to reach 167 million units in 2018, up 34 percent from 2017, much slower than the expected almost double growth.

Apple seems to reexamine the percentage of its iPhone models using AMOLED panels and those using low-temperature-poly-silicon (LTPS) thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT LCD) panels for 2018. Major Chinese smartphone brands, such as Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi, also appear to continue applying LTPS TFT LCD panels instead of switching to AMOLED for their 2018 models, while Samsung Electronics plans to keep using flexible AMOLED panels for the Galaxy S9 this year.

As a result, demand for AMOLED smartphone panels by switching from TFT LCD panels is expected to slow down. According to the latest Smartphone Display Intelligent Service report by IHS Markit, shipments of total AMOLED panel shipments for smartphones are forecast to grow 14 percent to 453 million units in 2018, from 397 million units in 2017. Glass-based, rigid AMOLED panel shipments are expected to grow at a single digit pace to 285 million units in 2018.

On the other hand, as demand for high-resolution smartphone displays is increasing in the mid-to-high-end smartphone market, demand for LTPS TFT LCD panels is forecast to keep growing in 2018 to 785 million units, up 19 percent from 656 million units in 2017. Shipments of LTPS TFT LCD panels are expected to grow stronger than AMOLED panels in the mid-high-end smartphone panel market in 2018.

Shipments of amorphous silicon (a-Si) TFT LCD panels used for low-end smartphones and feature phones are forecast to reach 807 million units in 2018, down 16 percent form 965 million units in 2017, offsetting the growth in AMOLED and LTPS TFT LCD panel demand.

Total shipments of mobile phone displays, including both TFT LCD and AMOLED panels, are forecast to increase by 1 percent to 2.02 billion units in 2018 compared to the previous year.

“As AMOLED panels allow more options in terms of form factors, demand for AMOLED for smartphones will continue to grow. However, it will start to outpace LTPS TFT LCD only after 2020,” Hayase said. “In order to compete with LTPS TFT LCD, production cost of both rigid and flexible AMOLED panels still need to be slashed, to close the price gap with LTPS TFT LCD.”

What makes the Vivo X20 Plus UD smartphone so important is that it is the first smartphone to use Synaptics’ under-display fingerprint sensor, and it has the potential to bite into Apple’s face recognition technology, announced the Teardowns service of ABI Research, a market-foresight advisory firm providing strategic guidance on the most compelling transformative technologies.

(PRNewsfoto/ABI Research)

(PRNewsfoto/ABI Research)

Traditional fingerprint sensors are either embedded under the home key on the front of the mobile phone or on the back of the phone. Placing the fingerprint sensor under the display on the front of the mobile phone should allow for a borderless display on three sides of the display. The top still requires room for the front camera, proximity sensor, and receiver, etc. However, Vivo did not take full advantage of the new fingerprint technology from Synaptics. Vivo retained a significant border below the display along the bottom of the phone.

“Vivo may have been cautious to fully commit to the new technology and left room to fall back to a traditional sensor below the display,” said Jim Mielke, ABI Research’s vice president of the Teardowns service. “The performance of this first implementation does warrant some caution as the sensor seemed less responsive and required increased pressure to unlock the phone.”

Smartphone manufacturers are continually trying to achieve the truly borderless phone, and currently there are only three ways to achieve and still maintain biometric security: fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone, fingerprint sensor under the display, and facial/retina-based recognition. Despite the non-optimal capabilities, the Vivo X20 Plus UD is well ahead of Apple’s face recognition technology.

“Face recognition on smartphones is five times easier to spoof than fingerprint recognition,” stated ABI Research Industry Analyst Dimitrios Pavlakis (“Executive Foresights: Did Apple Miss the Bus – The Display – Integrated Fingerprint Sensor Gives the Industry a Much-Needed Push“). “Despite the decision to forgo its trademark sapphire sensor in the iPhone X in favor of face recognition (FaceID,) Apple may be now forced to return to fingerprints in the next iPhone,” added Pavlakis.

Fingerprint sensors are increasingly becoming more relevant with a host of new banking, financial institution and payment service providers getting behind the technology.

Vivo, a 9-year-old company based in China, was smart to partner with California-based Synaptics, which has 30-plus years of experience in the “human interface revolution” by offering touch, display and biometrics products.

ABI Research’s Teardowns reports feature ultra-high-resolution imaging, pinpoint power measurements, detailed parts list with fully costed BOMs (bill of materials), block diagrams and x-rays. ABI Research performs the highest resolution imagery in the teardown industry, providing unprecedented competitive analysis on components, cost, and chip system functionality.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced more value added 8-inch (200mm) technology solutions for its foundry customers. On top of its existing eFlash, Power, display driver IC (DDI) and CMOS image sensor (CIS) offerings, RF/IoT and fingerprint technology solutions are now available through Samsung’s 8-inch foundry services.

Currently, customers are working closely with Samsung to utilize the company’s cutting-edge 8-inch technology offerings in various applications. All 8-inch offerings, ranging from 180nm to 65nm, are processed at Line 6, a highly automated facility in Giheung, Korea.

“Customers’ interests are very high given the industry’s needs for alternative 8-inch solutions,” said Ryan Lee, Vice President of Foundry Marketing at Samsung Electronics. “By expanding our technology offerings into the RF/IoT and fingerprint segments, we will enable our customers to take advantage of Samsung’s state-of-the-art 8-inch solutions in a broader range of applications.”

Samsung’s 8-inch process technology offerings now include the following solutions:

  • eFlash : 130nm, 65nm
  • Power: 130nm, 90nm (BCD+eFlash)
  • Display Driver IC : 180nm, 130nm, 90nm, 70nm
  • CMOS Image Sensor: 90nm
  • RF/IoT : 90nm (Ultra low leakage device)
  • Fingerprint Sensor: 180nm

The 8-inch foundry market has been one of the focal points since Samsung Foundry became a separate business last May. In this regard, Samsung has firmly established customer centric 8-inch service capabilities with great multi project wafer (MPW) programs as well as intellectual property (IP), and launched the Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem (SAFE™) program this year.

Immersion Corporation (NASDAQ:IMMR), a developer and licensor of touch feedback technology, today announced that it has filed a second complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against Samsung Electronics America, Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. alleging that certain Samsung touchscreen phones, including the Galaxy S8, infringe Immersion’s U.S. Patent No. 8,619,051, “Haptic Feedback System with Stored Effects” (the ’051 patent) The complaint seeks to stop further infringement by Samsung and to recover damages. The ‘051 patent is one of the patents that Immersion asserted against Apple, Inc. which litigation has since terminated in a settlement and license agreement.

In the third quarter of 2017, Immersion filed a complaint against Samsung Electronics America, Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging that certain Samsung touchscreen phones, including the Galaxy S8, infringe certain Immersion patents covering haptic feedback systems and methods in electronic devices. The Court has scheduled a claim construction hearing for August 15, 2018 and a trial date of February 19, 2019.

In addition, Immersion also announced today that it has filed a complaint in the Fuzhou Intermediate Court in Fuzhou, China against Samsung (China) Investment Co., Ltd., Huizhou Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd and Fujian Province Min Xin Household Electrical Appliances Technology Service Co., Ltd. alleging that certain Samsung touchscreen phones, including the Galaxy S8, infringe three Immersion Chinese patents covering haptic feedback systems and methods in electronic devices.

The Chinese patents being asserted are:

Chinese Patent No. ZL02821854.X “Input device and mobile telephone comprising the input device;”

Chinese Patent No. ZL201210005785.2 “Method and apparatus for providing tactile sensations;” and

Chinese Patent No. ZL201310253562.2 “Methods and apparatus for providing tactile sensations.”

These patents are related to the patents that were asserted against Apple, Inc. which litigation has since terminated in a settlement and license agreement.

 

Despite slower demand from end market and panel price erosion, the large thin-film transistor (TFT) display market expanded in 2017 in all three aspects — unit shipments, area shipments and revenue. According to a new report from business information provider IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), unit shipments of larger than 9-inch TFT displays increased by 4 percent in 2017 compared to a year ago, while area shipments rose 6 percent and revenues up 13 percent during the same period.

“Revenue growth was higher than that of area shipments, which was again bigger than that of unit shipments. This indicates that the display market is moving to larger screens in all applications, and the penetration of high specification products with a higher price tag, such as high resolution, wide viewing angle and slim design panels, has increased,” said Robin Wu, principal analyst at IHS Markit. Large TFT display revenues reached $63.7 billion in 2017, according to the latest Large Area Display Market Tracker by IHS Markit.

02.13.18_large_display_area_shipments 02.13.18_large_display_unit_shipments

By area shipments, TV displays, which grew 6 percent year over year, accounted for 78 percent of total large TFT display market, leading the overall market growth. Despite ongoing decline in TV panel prices, which started in the middle of 2017, revenue continued to grow by a double digit as panel makers have focused on high-end products, such as 4K TVs and 55-inch-and-larger TVs. Shipments of 4K TV panels amounted to 92 million units in 2017, up 46 percent year over year, making up 35 percent of the entire TV display market. OLED TV panels also continued its growth, marking unit shipments of 1.8 million with a 102 percent growth from 2016.

BOE led the large TFT display market with a 21 percent share in 2017 in terms of unit shipments, followed by LG Display with 20 percent and Innolux with 16 percent. It was the first time that a Chinese panel maker took the top position in an annual base result. However, in the TV panel market by unit shipments, LG Display retained its lead with a 19 percent share, followed by BOE with 17 percent. In terms of area shipments, South Korean panel makers remained strong, with LG Display accounting for 23 percent and Samsung Display for 17 percent.

The Large Area Display Market Tracker by IHS Markit provides information about the entire range of large display panels shipped worldwide and regionally, including monthly and quarterly revenues and shipments by display area, application, size and aspect ratio for each supplier.

Engineers at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and Oregon State University are developing a new method of processing nanomaterials that could lead to faster and cheaper manufacturing of flexible thin film devices – from touch screens to window coatings, according to a new study.

The “intense pulsed light sintering” method uses high-energy light over an area nearly 7,000 times larger than a laser to fuse nanomaterials in seconds. Nanomaterials are materials characterized by their tiny size, measured in nanometers. A nanometer is one millionth of a millimeter, or about 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair.

The existing method of pulsed light fusion uses temperatures of around 250 degrees Celsius (482 degrees Fahrenheit) to fuse silver nanospheres into structures that conduct electricity. But the new study, published in RSC Advances and led by Rutgers School of Engineering doctoral student Michael Dexter, showed that fusion at 150 degrees Celsius (302 degrees Fahrenheit) works well while retaining the conductivity of the fused silver nanomaterials.

The engineers’ achievement started with silver nanomaterials of different shapes: long, thin rods called nanowires in addition to nanospheres. The sharp reduction in temperature needed for fusion makes it possible to use low-cost, temperature-sensitive plastic substrates like polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polycarbonate in flexible devices, without damaging them.

“Pulsed light sintering of nanomaterials enables really fast manufacturing of flexible devices for economies of scale,” said Rajiv Malhotra, the study’s senior author and assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Rutgers-New Brunswick. “Our innovation extends this capability by allowing cheaper temperature-sensitive substrates to be used.”

Fused silver nanomaterials are used to conduct electricity in devices such as radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, display devices and solar cells. Flexible forms of these products rely on fusion of conductive nanomaterials on flexible substrates, or platforms, such as plastics and other polymers.

“The next step is to see whether other nanomaterial shapes, including flat flakes and triangles, will drive fusion temperatures even lower,” Malhotra said.

In another study, published in Scientific Reports, the Rutgers and Oregon State engineers demonstrated pulsed light sintering of copper sulfide nanoparticles, a semiconductor, to make films less than 100 nanometers thick.

“We were able to perform this fusion in two to seven seconds compared with the minutes to hours it normally takes now,” said Malhotra, the study’s senior author. “We also showed how to use the pulsed light fusion process to control the electrical and optical properties of the film.”

Their discovery could speed up the manufacturing of copper sulfide thin films used in window coatings that control solar infrared light, transistors and switches, according to the study. This work was funded by the National Science Foundation and The Walmart Manufacturing Innovation Foundation.

Total shipments of mobile phone displays, including thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT LCD) and active matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) panels, reached 2.01 billion units in 2017, up 3 percent from 2016, according to preliminary estimate from business information provider IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

In the growing mobile phone display market, shipments of low-temperature-poly-silicon (LTPS) TFT LCD panels, which realize high-resolution images, increased by 21 percent to 620 million units in 2017 compared to the previous year. Shipments of amorphous silicon (a-Si) TFT LCD mobile phone panels declined 4 percent to 979 million units during the same period. Even though shipments of AMOLED panels jumped in the second half of 2017 thanks to the launch of the iPhone X, combined with the weak demand in the first half, its shipments were up just 3 percent to 402 million units in 2017.

In the smartphone-use LTPS TFT LCD market, Tianma, a leading small and medium panel supplier in China, has shown significant growth, expanding its shipments to Chinese smartphone set brands, such as Huawei and Xiaomi. In 2017, Tianma shipped 105 million LTPS TFT LCD panels for smartphones, almost double its shipments in 2016, with a market share of 17 percent, up 6 percentage points from 2016. It ranked the second largest LTPS TFT LCD supplier for smartphones in 2017, taking over LG Display with 16 percent, down 4 percentage points, and Sharp with 13 percent, down 1 percentage point. In 2017, Japan Display continued its market leader position but shed its share by 10 percentage points to 26 percent in 2017, according to the latest Smartphone Display Intelligent Service report by IHS Markit.

02.08.18_smartphone_panel_shipment_share

“LTPS TFT is a key technology to produce high-resolution displays for smartphones, and experience is required to optimize highly complex LTPS manufacturing process in each production fab. In terms of experience, Japanese and South Korean panel makers have a competitive advantage compared to Chinese makers,” said Hiroshi Hayase, senior director at IHS Markit. “However, Chinese LCD makers, such as Tianma and BOE, are catching up LTPS technology fast enough to support high demand from Chinese smartphone set makers.”

The Smartphone Display Intelligent Service by IHS Markit contains quarterly updates of smartphone display shipments and revenue by application, size, resolution and technology. It also provides supply chain information between display and set makers, as well as monthly smartphone display shipment and pricing information.