Category Archives: Touch Technologies

Booming demand for low-priced 7.x-inch products helped shipments of panels used in media tablets to more than double in in the first quarter, according to an the new report entitled “Tablet PC Touch Panel Shipment Database” from information and analytics provider IHS.

Global shipments of capacitive touch screen displays for media tablets amounted to 45.2 million units in the first quarter. This represented a remarkable 111.9 percent increase compared to the same period last year, more than doubling the 21.3 million total in the first quarter of 2012. While shipments were down 13 percent compared to the fourth quarter, such a seasonal decline is typical for electronics in the first quarter.

Read more: IHS boost tablet panel shipments forecast

“Sales of smaller-sized tablets are rising at a rapid rate, driving shipments of capacitive touch screen displays ranking in size from 7- to 8-inches,” said Duke Yi, senior manager for display components and materials research at IHS. “These tablets are inexpensive, with pricing at $199, making them popular among consumers. With the level of competition increasing in both the tablet and panel markets, pricing is expected to continue to decline, boosting shipments of displays and end products in this size range.”

With the increasing number of panel makers, the average selling price (ASP) of tablet PC touch panel modules is falling at a fast rate. In the first quarter of 2013, average pricing of 7.0-inch tablet touch panels fell to $15.60, down a sharp 16 percent from $18.60 in the first quarter of 2012. Pricing for 7.0-inch touch panels dropped by 7.5 percent from $15.60 in the fourth quarter, the largest sequential percentage decrease of any size.

At the end of the first quarter of 2013, display supplier TPK achieved a 29 percent market share in the tablet touch screen market because of its strong cadre of leading stable clients, such as Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Microsoft and Asus—including the Nexus 7. This gave the company the leading position in the tablet touch panel market in terms of unit shipments.

The runner up was Iljin Display, the biggest supplier of tablet PC touch panels for Samsung Electronics, which accounted for 15.5 percent of market shipments in the first quarter of 2013, up from 7.5 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

GIS, the touch panel subsidiary of Foxconn Technology Group, is steadily increasing its supply of touch panels for Apple Inc.’s iPad and iPad mini. At the same time, GIS is supplying 8.9-inch touch panels for the Amazon Kindle Fire HD.

Read more: Global touch-screen panel shipments to double by 2016

On the strength of these deals, GIS in the first quarter attained a 13.3 percent share of shipments, up from 12.8 percent in the fourth quarter, and just 7.5 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

Wintek once held the second place in the market because it shared in supplying of touch displays for the Apple iPad with TPK. However, with the rise of GIS, Wintek’s share has fallen. The company’s market share plummeted to 8.5 percent in the first quarter of this year.

Meanwhile, China’s O-Film quickly reacted to the low-priced 7-inch tablet PC touch market, resulting in the company making great strides quarter after quarter. The company at the end of the first quarter in 2013.arrived in Top 5 with an 8.5 percent market share.

Rolith, Inc., a developer of advanced nanostructured devices, yesterday announced the successful demonstration of Transparent Metal Grid Electrode technology based on its disruptive nanolithography method (Rolling Mask Lithography – RMLTM).

Read more: Researchers extend thermal nanolithography process

We see an explosive growth of touch screen displays in consumer electronics market. ITO (Indium Titanium Oxide) material is a standard solution for transparent electrodes so far. Apart from a considerable cost and limited supply of this material, it has additional problems: high reflectance of this materials reduces contrast ratio, optical properties degrade rapidly below 50 Ω/☐, which limits the size of display produced using ITO without degradation of performance.

The only viable alternative to ITO (and the only solution for large touchscreen displays) is a metal wire grid. The requirement for a metal wire grid to be invisible to human eye means that width of the wire should be < 2 micron. Moreover, narrow wires are helpful to fight Moiré effects, which caused by superposition of the metal wire grid and the pixel structure of a display.

Rolith, Inc. has used its proprietary nanolithography technology called Rolling Mask Lithography (RMLTM) for fabrication of transparent metal wire grid electrodes on large areas of substrate materials. RML is based on near-field continuous optical lithography, which is implemented using cylindrical phase masks.

Transparent metal electrodes on glass substrates were fabricated in the form of submicron width nanowires, lithographically placed in a regular 2-dimentional grid pattern with a period of tens of microns, and thickness of a few hundreds of nanometers. Such metal structure is evaluated as completely invisible to the human eye, highly transparent (>94 percent transmission) with a very low haze (~two percent), and low resistivity (<14 Ohm/☐). This set of parameters places Rolith technology above all major competition for ITO-alternative technologies.

Gen-2 RML tool capable of patterning substrates up to 1 m long and built earlier this year has been used to demonstrate this technology.

Read more: ITO film market undergoing a sea of changes

“Rolith has launched Transparent Metal Grid Electrodes application development just few months ago, and we are very excited with the extraordinary results already achieved. We believe RMLTM technology will enable high quality cost effective touch screen sensors for mobile devices and large format displays, monitors and TVs. Currently Rolith is negotiating partnerships with a few touch screen display manufacturers and hope to move fast with commercialization of our technology next year. Our roadmap also calls for expansion into OLED lighting and flexible substrates in 2014-2015,” said Dr Boris Kobrin, founder and CEO, Rolith.

 

Boosted by orders from unbranded, white-box Chinese manufacturers, global demand for tablet panels is exceeding expectations, spurring IHS to increase its forecast for displays by six percent for 2013.

A total of 262 million displays for tablets are forecast to be shipped in 2013, compared to the previous forecast of 246 million, according to the May Edition of the “LCD Industry Tracker—Tablet” report from information and analytics provider IHS. This will represent 69 percent growth from 155 million in 2012.

“Competitive dynamics in the tablet market have changed dramatically this year as Chinese white-box smartphone makers have entered the tablet market in droves,” said Ricky Park, senior manager for large-area displays at IHS. “These companies are producing massive quantities of low-end tablets that appeal to consumers in China and other developing economies. Because of this, the white-box manufacturers are driving up demand for tablet panels, particularly smaller displays using the older twisted nematic (TN) technology, rather than the newer screens using in-plane switching (IPS).”

Unbranded tablet makers purchased 40 percent of all tablet panels in April, up from just 17 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

Partly because of the rise of white-box makers, shipments of smaller 8- and 9-inch tablet displays will rise by nearly 200 percent in 2013. In contrast, larger displays in the 9-, 10- and 11-inch range will suffer a five percent decline.

The boom in white-box tablets is being driven the introduction of turnkey designs offered by processor makers. The designs make it easy for new, inexperienced market entrants to offer tablet products.

The Chinese white-box manufacturers hold certain advantages over the major incumbent tablet manufacturers. The white-box manufacturers are able to produce tablets at lower cost, more quickly and with greater flexibility in production. These companies also have the capability to manufacture both unbranded tablets, and make products for the major brands on a contract manufacturing basis.

Such white-box players also have been agile enough to take advantage of the current high availability and low-cost of tablet panels. Makers of displays for the shrinking PC market have switched over to the tablet market, spurring a glut that has depressed pricing. As prices have fallen, the white-box makers have demonstrated enough flexibility to boost production of low-cost tablets.

“Playing to their strengths, the white-box manufacturers are set to continue to increase their presence in tablets and propel the expansion of the overall tablet market,” Park said.

IHS believes the strong growth of tablet panel demand continued in the second quarter. The arrival of more turnkey tablet design solutions will drive up demand for 7- and 8-inch panels throughout the year.

The 8-inch panels are becoming an increasingly large segment of the tablet market, with a display area more appealing to users than the 7-inch size. In all, the 8-inch panels accounted for 11 percent of panel shipments in April, with Samsung and Acer having recently launched new tablets in that size. With more introductions likely coming in the third quarter, IHS expects a substantial market share for the 8-inch by the end of this year.

The market for larger-sized, 10-inch and bigger tablet panels may begin to enjoy a recovery in shipments with the launch of the new Intel Corp. Atom microprocessor, code-named Bay Trail. This new device could help reduce the cost of x86 microprocessor-based tablets and improve battery life. Bay Trail also could generate opportunities for hybrid-form tablets that include keyboards.

The x86 tablets, with Microsoft Corp.’s new Windows 8 operating system, would have functionality better suited to the needs of the commercial and business worlds than either the Google Android- or the Apple  iOS-based tablets, which are designed with the consumer in mind.

 

Ongoing weakness in notebook personal computers will be offset by stronger unit growth of touch-screen tablets—especially smaller “mini” systems with 7- and 8-inch displays—resulting in a four percent increase in integrated circuit sales for all types of personal computing products this year, says a new update of IC Insights’ 2013 edition of IC Market Drivers—A Study of Emerging and Major End-Use Applications Fueling Demand for Integrated Circuits.  Combined IC sales for standard PCs, tablets, and new cloud-computing portables are forecast to reach $77.6 billion in 2013 compared to $74.9 billion in 2012, when the total fell six percent from $79.6 billion in 2011, according to the 2Q13 update to the IC Market Drivers report.

IC Insights is now forecasting a two percent decline in integrated circuit sales for keyboard-equipped standard PCs (desktops and notebooks) to $62.5 billion in 2013, following drops of 12 percent in 2012 and seven percent in 2011.  IC sales for standard PCs are slumping primarily due to slowing shipments of notebook computers, which are being superseded by tablets in consumer computing markets worldwide.  IC sales for tablet computers are forecast to rise 37 percent to $14.7 billion in 2013 after climbing 77 percent in 2012 and 190 percent in 2011.

In the new update to the IC Market Drivers report, IC Insights is raising its forecast for tablet unit shipments to 190 million systems worldwide in 2013, which would be a 62 percent increase from 117 million in 2012.  The forecast for standard PC shipments has been lowered to 347 million units in 2013, which is slightly less than a 1 percent increase from 344 million units in 2012.  IC Insights’ new forecast continues to show tablet unit shipments surpassing desktop PCs in 2013 (190 million tablets versus 150 million desktop PCs).  The updated forecast also continues to show tablet shipments exceeding notebook unit volumes in 2014, but the gap has been increased—253 million tablets versus 210 million notebook PCs next year.

IC Insights believes it now takes the sale of nearly 2.3 tablets to roughly equal the IC dollar value of one notebook PC.  The average IC content of a tablet computer is estimated at $77.50.  Nearly all tablets today are made with 32-bit microprocessors, which are often similar to application processors found in smartphones.  The vast majority of tablet processors are built with RISC cores licensed from ARM in the U.K. instead of the x86 MPU architecture used in microprocessors sold by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices for standard PCs.  ARM-based tablet microprocessors have much lower average selling prices (ASPs) than x86 MPUs—often 20 percent or less than the ASPs of PC processors.  Most tablet processors are also system-on-chip (SoC) designs with integrated graphics and many system-level functions, which reduce the need for a number of ICs and chipsets that have populated notebook PC motherboards.  Tablets also contain less DRAM memory than standard PCs, but they use NAND flash for internal storage instead of hard-disk drives.

The outlook for tablet IC sales has been increased with revenues projected to rise by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 25 percent between 2012 and 2016, reaching $26.6 billion in the final forecast year.  IC sales for standard PCs are now expected to grow by a CAGR of nearly 2 percent in the four-year period to $68.5 billion in 2016.  IC sales for new cloud-computing portable systems—such as Google’s Chromebook platform—are forecast to increase by a CAGR of 41 percent percent from about $500 million in 2012 to $1.8 billion in 2016.  These Internet-centric portables must be connected online to the web to fully function.   Low-cost cloud-computing portables are expected to be a small-but-fast growing market niche, reaching 27 million systems in 2016 compared to 5 million in 2012, according to IC Insights’ new market update report.

Transparent electrodes refer to oxide degenerate semiconductor electrodes that possess a high level of light transmittance (more than 85 percent) in the visible light spectrum, and low resistivity (less than 1×10-3 Ω-㎝) at the same time. Transparent electrodes are key materials in the IT industry, used in flat displays, photovoltaics, touch panels, and transparent transistors, which need light transmission and current injection/output simultaneously. Up until now, sputtered ITOs (SnO2-doped In2O3) have been widely used.

Recently with the remarkable development in flexible photoelectronic technologies, such as flexible displays, photovoltaics and electric devices, more attention is being put on flexible transparent electrode technology, which can be produced on a flexible substrate rather than the conventional glass substrate. ITO tends to be vulnerable to the substrate’s bending, and thus CNT-, graphene-, and silver-based transparent electrodes as well as polymer transparent electrodes are suggested to replace the ITO.

The usage of transparent electrodes vary: they are used as electrode materials for LCDs, OLEDs, PDPs and transparent displays, while they are used as touch sensors for resistive and capacitive touch panels. They are also used as electrodes for a-Si, CIGS, CdTe, and DSSC photovoltaics.

Displaybank published the “Transparent Electrode Technology Trends and Market Forecast 2013” report. It covers the technological developments related to transparent electrodes and business activities as well as its market forecast up to 2020.

The overall transparent electrode market is forecast to grow to $5.1 billion by 2020, from $1.9 billion in 2012. By market size, display and touch sensor markets are deemed to be the largest. In the display segment, the flexible display will expand to make up 11 percent in 2019, thereby making way for transparent electrodes to replace the ITO and oxide transparent electrodes. In 2020, the oxide transparent electrode is forecast to make up 8 percent of the total market, and silver-based materials or carbon nanotubes will most likely be the strong candidates.

In terms of production cost, the touch sensor market is the best for the transparent electrode to enter, particularly compared to the display market. But the next generation transparent electrode applied to touch sensors will not reach 10 percent of the total market until 2020. It is because the alternative to the ITO must have the same level of properties as the ITO at low production cost. Strategic collaboration with major brands will be inevitably required. Currently, there is no next generation electrode that can perform on a similar level as the ITO and that is able to be mass produced. But if the flexible display market opens up earlier than expected, next generation transparent electrodes will likely replace ITOs at a faster rate.

Worldwide shipments of touch-screen panels are set to double from 2012 to 2016, reaching nearly 3 billion units as a wide variety of products beyond smartphones and tablets adopt the technology, particularly notebook PCs.

A total of 2.8 billion touch-screen panels will ship in 2016, up from 1.3 billion in 2012, according to the IHS DisplayBank “Touch Panel Issue and Cost/Industry Analysis Report,” from information and analytics provider IHS. Shipments this year will surge 34 percent to reach 1.8 billion units.

“Growth in the touchscreen market will be driven by increasing penetration in markets beyond the smartphone and tablet businesses,” said Duke Yi, senior manager for display components and materials research at IHS. “Demand so far has largely been limited to these two markets. However, touch-screen sales are increasing dramatically across a broad range of products, particularly notebook PCs.”

Yi addressed his remarks to a large audience at the SID/IHS Touch Gesture Motion Focus Conference here on Wednesday.

Yi presented 14 different products that all will see growth in penetration of touch-screen technology through the year 2016. In addition to smartphones, tablets, notebooks and PCs, Yi said opportunities exist in the markets for liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors, digital still cameras, portable navigation devices, portable media players, portable game devices, automobiles, ebook readers, camcorders, digital photo frames, and portable DVD players. While the size of these markets varies widely and some are quite small, their aggregate growth will propel the rapid expansion and massive volumes of the touch-screen market in the coming years.

Notebooks get touchy

“The notebook represents the key near-term growth generator for touch-screen displays,” Yi told the SID audience.

As IHS noted this week, global shipments of touch-screen-equipped notebook PCs will rise to 78 million units in 2016, up from just 4.6 million in 2012. By 2016, notebooks will account for 12.3 percent of global touch-screen shipments by area, up from less than 2 percent in 2012.

Prices for touch-enabled notebooks are declining, with a popular model from Asustek Computer Inc. falling to a $700 price in China, Yi noted. This is making the touch screens more affordable for mainstream consumer notebook PC buyers.

The form factor of notebooks is evolving to suit touch technology, with new alternatives to the traditional clamshell arising, including detachable, slide, foldable, flip and twist.

Touch leaders

Projected capacitive is expanding its dominance of the market with 96 percent of touch screens expected to use the technology in 2016, up from 79 percent in 2012.

Asustek of Taiwan took an early lead in the touch notebook market, taking the No. 1 rank in the first quarter.

Atmel Corp. of the United States was the top touch controller integrated circuit (IC) chip supplier in in the first quarter.

Among touch-screen panel suppliers in China and Taiwan, the dominant suppliers in 2012 were No. 1 TPK and No. 2 Wintek, which are far ahead of the other suppliers in terms of revenue. In Korea, Iljin Display was the top touch panel supplier.

The diffusion of roll-to-roll technologies is expected to have a marked effect in lowering the unit prices of flexible devices. Consequently, while consumption in terms of volume is forecast to rise very rapidly, revenues will increase somewhat more moderately. As a result, the total market for roll-to-roll flexible devices is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 16.1 percent from 2012 to 2017, reaching global revenues of nearly $22.7 billion by 2017.

The global market for flexible devices manufactured by roll-to-roll technologies increased from $8.5 billion in 2010 to nearly $10 billion in 2011, and was valued at nearly $10.8 billion in 2012, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3 percent during the two-year period.

Circuit devices currently account for a nearly 96.9 percent share of all revenues in 2012. Sales within this segment are primarily associated with flexible printed circuits.

Displays and other optoelectronic devices account for a 2.5 percent share of the roll-to-roll flexible devices market, with total 2012 revenues of $264 million, while solar cells, sensors, and other emerging applications currently represent a combined share of only 0.7 percent of the total.

There are several reasons why flexible devices are gaining increasing importance. First, flexible devices are being created with the same functionalities as traditional (rigid) integrated circuits, yet are produced with low-cost materials and processes with the intent to make them commercially available at lower unit prices than their rigid counterparts.

Printed circuit boards include rigid and flexible circuits. In recent years, flexible circuits have gained increased market share driven by their growing use in popular consumer electronics such as tablet PCs, notebooks, cell phones, and other wireless devices. Flexible circuits are also gaining acceptance for the fabrication of RFIDs and smart cards.

Flexible circuits offer several advantages compared to rigid circuits, including reduced package dimensions, reduced weight, and optimization of component real estate. Flexible circuits currently represent approximately one-fifth of the entire PCB market, but are forecast to continue growing at a faster pace than the overall PCB market during the next five years, with a CAGR of 8.4 percent.

As the flexible printed circuit (FPC) market continues to expand, driven by mass-market applications, the need will grow for high-volume, automated processes that maintain consistent quality (i.e., roll-to-roll technologies) to satisfy the increasing demand for these products.

Researchers have created a new type of transparent electrode that might find uses in solar cells, flexible displays for computers and consumer electronics and future "optoelectronic" circuits for sensors and information processing.

The electrode is made of silver nanowires covered with a material called graphene, an extremely thin layer of carbon. The hybrid material shows promise as a possible replacement for indium tin oxide, or ITO, used in transparent electrodes for touch-screen monitors, cell-phone displays and flat-screen televisions. Industry is seeking alternatives to ITO because of drawbacks: It is relatively expensive due to limited abundance of indium, and it is inflexible and degrades over time, becoming brittle and hindering performance.

"If you try to bend ITO it cracks and then stops functioning properly," said Purdue University doctoral student Suprem Das.

The hybrid material could represent a step toward innovations, including flexible solar cells and color monitors, flexible "heads-up" displays in car windshields and information displays on eyeglasses and visors.

"The key innovation is a material that is transparent, yet electrically conductive and flexible," said David Janes, a professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Research findings were detailed in a paper appearing online in April in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The hybrid concept was proposed in earlier publications by Purdue researchers, including a 2011 paper in the journal Nano Letters. The concept represents a general approach that could apply to many other materials, said Alam, who co-authored the Nano Letters paper.

"This is a beautiful illustration of how theory enables a fundamental new way to engineer material at the nanoscale and tailor its properties," he said.

Such hybrid structures could enable researchers to overcome the "electron-transport bottleneck" of extremely thin films, referred to as two-dimensional materials.

Combining graphene and silver nanowires in a hybrid material overcomes drawbacks of each material individually: the graphene and nanowires conduct electricity with too much resistance to be practical for transparent electrodes. Sheets of graphene are made of individual segments called grains, and resistance increases at the boundaries between these grains. Silver nanowires, on the other hand, have high resistance because they are randomly oriented like a jumble of toothpicks facing in different directions. This random orientation makes for poor contact between nanowires, resulting in high resistance.

"So neither is good for conducting electricity, but when you combine them in a hybrid structure, they are," Janes said.

The graphene is draped over the silver nanowires.

"It’s like putting a sheet of cellophane over a bowl of noodles," Janes said. "The graphene wraps around the silver nanowires and stretches around them."

Findings show the material has a low "sheet resistance," or the electrical resistance in very thin layers of material, which is measured in units called "squares." At 22 ohms per square, it is five times better than ITO, which has a sheet resistance of 100 ohms per square.

Moreover, the hybrid structure was found to have little resistance change when bent, whereas ITO shows dramatic increases in resistance when bent.

"The generality of the theoretical concept underlying this experimental demonstration – namely ‘percolation-doping’ — suggests that it is likely to apply to a broad range of other 2-D nanocrystaline material, including graphene," Alam said.

A patent application has been filed by Purdue’s Office of Technology Commercialization.

Driven by falling prices and a major initiative from Intel Corp., shipments of touch-enabled mobile PCs are expected to enjoy rapid growth in 2013 and the coming years, rising to about 25 percent of all notebooks by 2016.

Global shipments of touchscreen-equipped notebook PCs will rise to 78 million units in 2016, up from just 4.6 million in 2012, according to the Notebook Touch Panel Shipment Database from information and analytics provider IHS. By 2016, touch notebooks will represent 24.6 percent of all global PC notebook shipments, as presented in the figure below. This year is expected to represent a major threshold for market growth, with shipments expected to surge to 24 million, up more than 400 percent—the highest rate of growth the market is anticipated to achieve for the next four years.

touch notebook shipments

The year 2013 will be a banner year for touch notebooks because prices for low-end 14-inch capacitive touchscreen display panels fall to $35—down dramatically from $60 to $70 in 2012. The $35 price will help spur widespread market acceptance, enabling the production of more affordable touchscreen mobile PCs.

This pricing breakthrough, combined with Intel’s supply-chain muscle, will boost market growth this year and beyond.

“Touch displays are reinventing the PC market and there is a substantial growth opportunity in this area,” said Zane Ball, Intel vice president and general manager, Global Ecosystem Development. “At Intel, we have adopted a strategy that touch should be everywhere. We believe that as touch moves into the PC space, it will be a transformative product and will unlock new demand.”

Ball addressed his comments here Monday to a large audience at the Society for Information Display (SID) IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference.

Ball said that new mobile PC designs based on the company’s new Haswell processor are well underway in 2013. These designs combine touchscreen displays with innovative form factors.

In addition to Haswell, Intel is taking steps to ensure the stable supply of inexpensive touchscreens. The company also had to do some evangelizing to convince sometimes doubtful members of PC supply chain of the merits of touchscreen technology.

“We’re glad we’ve made this investment because now there’s little doubt there’s demand for touch in any number of PC form factors,” Ball said.

Ball noted that Intel’s touch ambitions are much larger than the mobile PC space. He outlined Intel’s vision for touch-enabled all-in-one PCs, including devices that are portable and battery powered.

“In the cloud computing era, AMOLED displays are most likely to have the greatest amount of influence on innovation in smart devices." Kinam Kim, CEO of Samsung Display, delivered this statement as part of a keynote speech on "Display and Innovation" to attendees at the Society for Information Display’s Display Week 2013 in the Vancouver Convention Centre today.

During the keynote speech, Kim said that the future of displays will change considerably, with special attention to be given for the virtually infinite number of imaging possibilities in AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) display technology.

Kim emphasized that three evolving “environments” are likely to make displays the central focus of the increasingly pervasive use of electronic devices.

The first environment is the spread of cloud computing. In the cloud environment, the capability of electronic networked devices for data processing and storage will be extended infinitely, allowing users everywhere to easily enjoy content that only highly advanced devices can fully process today, including ultra HD (3840 x 2160) images and 3D games. Higher levels of display technology will be required to support our increasing reliance on the cloud.

The second environment is the accelerating evolution of high-speed networks. By 2015, the velocity of 4G LTE will rise to 3 gigabits per second (Gbps), so the transmission time for a two-hour UHD-resolution movie will be under 35 seconds.

“As image quality of video content improves, larger and even more vibrant displays will emerge as a key differentiating point in mobile devices,” said Kim.

The third environment is the spread of connectivity among electronic devices. As the use of Wi-Fi networks explodes, the N-Screen era is on its way. A massive network environment will be established by connecting not only smartphones and tablet PCs but also automobiles, home appliances and wearable computing devices. Due to this explosion in “data flow,” there will be a huge surge of interest in touch-enabled displays.

Kim said that the innovative advantages of AMOLED technology will allow consumers to realize more possibilities in electronic convenience than we might have ever imagined.

AMOLED TV presented at CES 2013
AMOLED displays can embody true colors closest to natural colors with their color space 1.4 times broader than that of LCD displays.

The first innovative advantage of AMOLED, according to Kim, is the superiority of its color. AMOLED displays can embody true colors closest to natural colors with their color space 1.4 times broader than that of LCD displays. By offering the world’s broadest color gamut – supporting nearly 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color space, AMOLED will expand the range of displays well suited to printed media, where specialized color is frequently required.

The second innovative advantage of AMOLED is its flexibility and transparency. AMOLED displays can maximize portability by making devices foldable and rollable, and they can also lead innovation in product designs with advantages in curved forms, transparent panels, and lighter weight than other display technologies.

The third innovative advantage of AMOLED displays will be their responsiveness to touch and sensors for detecting all five human senses. Using Samsung’s new Diamond Pixel technology, which has been optimized for the human retina, AMOLED displays can now depict natural colors and images with super high resolution.

Kim went on to say that display applications, with advantages of AMOLED technology, will rapidly spread throughout other business sectors like the automotive, publishing, bio-genetic and building industries.

In the automotive business, AMOLED displays will replace conventional glass and mirrors that have been used for digital mirrors and head-up displays. Capitalizing on their advantages with flexibility, durability and high resistance to temperature changes, AMOLED display panels also will be used for watch displays and for products in the fashion and health care market sectors. Further, in publication and building, AMOLED displays will set the trend for the building market sector with AMOLED architectural displays in and outside buildings being used as highly desirable decorative and information-delivering products.

Kim expressed confidence that "the display market is unlimited in the amount of growth that it can achieve, as technical innovation continues to accelerate.”