Category Archives: Displays

May 30, 2012 — Touchscreen displays were popularized by Apple Inc.’s iPhone, and respond to user behavior on a system of multi-touch and soft-touch technologies. Next-generation touch technology is developing for tablet PCs, smart TVs, and other applications.

Figure 1. Capacitive touch sensor case (Pattern Image). SOURCE: Displaybank.

Smartphones typically use projected capacitance (PROCAP, PCAP) touchscreens: a tempered window, touch sensor, and flexible printed circuit board. However, various touch sensor technologies exist, and each company uses a different method to detect touch input. Apple’s glass/glass (GG) method forms an X-axis sensing electrode on the upper surface of a glass substrate and Y-axis sensing electrode on the lower surface of glass substrate. Other phone makers use glass/film/film (GFF) and new methods are under development — G1F and G2 — that improve permeability and display thickness.

The technology development results of capacitive touch sensor-related leading companies and new players are being published every day through patent applications (patent information). If patent information is well used, the flow of related technologies, prior art and the issues of prior art, and new ideas can be found, and patent dispute can also be prevented by identifying claim of issue-expected patent.

Displaybank’s “Capacitive Touch Sensor Key Patents Analysis – Pattern Design, Patterning, Sensing, Etc.” examines overall patent application trends of capacitive touch sensor related technology and analyzes touch sensor related key patents of major controller IC companies in-depth.

Figure 2. Top 20 patent applicants for capacitive touch sensors. SOURCE: Displaybank.

In quantitative analysis, 677 Korea, Japan, U.S., and Europe patents were selected and examined, such as annual/regional patent applications and applicant trends, and company-specific key patent status and the main points of patents, technology development, and key patent cases are analyzed in in-depth analysis by eliciting 74 patents of major controller IC companies: Synaptics, Atmel, Cypress, Melfas, Hitachi Display, LG Display, Samsung Mobile Display.

Access Capacitive Touch Sensor Key Patents Analysis – Pattern Design, Patterning, Sensing, Etc” at http://www.displaybank.com/_eng/research/report_view.html?id=868&cate=

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May 30, 2012 – BUSINESS WIRE — AGC (TOKYO:5201), glass, chemicals and high-tech materials manufacturer, has developed 0.5mm carrier glass for handling and transport of its 0.1mm-thick ultra-thin glass during display manufacturing processes. The carrier glass enables display manufacturers to use ultra-thin AGC glass without altering their existing production facilities.

Ultra-thin glass offers excellent transparency, heat resistance, and electrical insulation. It is laminated to the carrier glass during processing. The thin form enables flexible displays, lighting applications, and other end products. It is designed to be processed in roll-to-roll (R2R) production lines.

To use ultra-thin glass in traditional sheet-to-sheet display manufacturing lines, substantial alteration is required to equipment and handling tooling. With carrier glass, the same tools and equipment can be used, enabling low-risk adoption.

The 0.5mm carrier glass is bonded to the 0.1mm glass via a special layer that protects the substrate from heat and chemicals. The carrier glass prevents the ultra-thin glass from coming into direct contact with processing equipment, avoiding scratches and other defects. The materials are easily delaminated after processing.

A sample of carrier glass technology will be exhibited at AGC’s booth at the Society for Information Display (SID) exhibition in Boston, MA, June 3-7.

The AGC Group, with Tokyo-based Asahi Glass Co. Ltd. at its core, supplies flat, automotive and display glass, chemicals and other high-tech materials and components. For more information, please visit www.agc-group.com/en.

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May 30, 2012 – Marketwire — The Flexible Display Center (FDC) at Arizona State University (ASU), in conjunction with Army Research Labs scientists, manufactured what it is reporting as the world’s largest flexible, full-color organic light emitting display (OLED) display prototype. FDC used advanced mixed-oxide thin film transistors (TFTs) to build the 7.4” device.

The U.S. Department of Defense needs thin, lightweight, bendable, and highly rugged display devices for video and other uses. This prototype represents “a realistic path forward for the production of high-performance, flexible, full-color OLED displays,” said Nick Colaneri, director of the FDC.

Mixed-oxide TFTs are lower-cost than low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) and high performance, with vibrant colors, high switching speeds for video, and reduced power consumption from conventional displays. Mixed oxide TFTs offer a better ability to drive currents and improve the lifetime and stability of transistors used for OLED displays, ASU says. Mixed-oxide TFTs can be manufactured on existing amorphous silicon (a-Si) production lines, which was a major consideration for the FDC. The display production makes use of FDC’s proprietary bond/de-bond technology.

The prototype OLED display will be on the FDC booth #643 at SID Display Week, June 5-7, 2012 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston, MA.

The FDC is a government/industry/academia partnership for advancing full-color flexible display technology and fostering development of a manufacturing ecosystem to support flexible electronic devices. More information on the FDC can be found at flexdisplay.asu.edu.

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May 29, 2012 — Barclays Capital reports on liquid crystal display (LCD) demand and display fab equipment and materials at the company’s BarCap 2012 Global TMT Conference.

LCD TV sell-through trends remain mixed, with relative strength in the US, in-line in China, and weakness in Europe and Japan.

The top glassmakers for displays are seeing a stabilization in the competitive landscape/market share split, with limited progress from LG Chem. At the conference, Corning’s management was hopeful about continued moderate glass average selling price (ASP) declines through Q3 2012.

Capacity investments by the LCD panel makers remain at trough levels, despite relatively strong current utilization rates. Look for some equipment spending recovery in H2 2012, tempered by still very limited visibility. Display makers continue to funnel capex dollars into retrofitting fabs for low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS)/organic light emitting diode (OLED) display production.

Also read: Top 10 LCD manufacturing trends of 2012

Read more from Barclays Capital’s BarCap 2012 TMT conference in 90%+ utilization rates at LED makers in Taiwan: A short-term phenomenon

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May 28, 2012 — Transparent displays will hit the market this year, and create an $87.2 billion market by 2025, according to Displaybank.

The displays show a background through a degree of transparency in the display panel. They are made with transparent organic light emitting diode (OLEDs), liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and plasma display panel (PDP) technologies.

Transparent displays will help grow the overall display market size as they grow new display applications: windows, automobile panels, building-integrated advertising, etc. It offers huge opportunities for information sharing.

Figure. Display Market Forecast – Revenue Base ($B). SOURCE: Displaybank, Transparent Display Technology and Market Forecast.

Design and functional performance must be elevated to create transparent displays, which will have an effect on traditional displays as well.

Displaybank’s "Transparent Display Technology and Market Forecast" report addresses the industry trend and product feasibility in future applications through already launched transparent display products and also addresses trends in makers, technical issues, and the market forecast. Access “Transparent Display Technology and Market Forecast” at http://www.displaybank.com/_eng/research/report_view.html?id=768&cate=

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In an exclusive series of blogs, imec’s science writers report from the International Technology Forum (ITF) in Brussels. This year, ITF’s theme was “It’s a changing world. Let’s make a sustainable change together”. More info: www.itf2012.com

At the recent mobile world congress (MWC) the newest models of smartphones and tablets were showcased. Most probably, you too are the proud owner of a smartphone and tablet. The next big thing according to Charlotte Soens, manager mm-wave communication program at imec, is that people will start using these mobile devices to watch high-quality photos and videos, stored in the cloud. First smartphones with integrated projectors are appearing, so it won’t be long before we will project our holiday videos or professional marketing videos at home or in the office, using our smartphones.

However, this scenario implies huge technological challenges for services, networks and wireless devices. “Research focuses on enabling the scenario in which the user can access the gigabytes of photo and video material in an instantaneous way, wherever the user may be. Moreover, we have to achieve this at low cost and without significantly impacting the battery lifetime, “ says Charlotte Soens.

But let first focus on how this scenario will be put in practice. “Videos and photos are stored in the cloud. When you are outdoors, you will rely on wireless technology such as LTE advanced to stream videos immediatly to your tablet. When you go indoors, you will connect to a small domestic cell with a gigabit per second connection, through for example IEEE802.11ac or IEEE802.11ad,” explains Soens.

An important technology enabling this scenario is a multistandard radio. “You need a tablet or smartphone that can support e.g. LTE and WiFi-like standards. And that’s exactly what imec is working on: reconfigurable radio architectures that can support connectivity standards, cellular standards and broadcasting standards, “ says Soens. “The challenge is to do develop such a radio module with a low power consumption and at a low cost.”

The user will also demand for very high data rates. Knowing that the spectrum below 10GHz is really crowded, it seems obvious to turn to higher frequency bands such as the unlicensed band around 60GHz. However, developing a low-cost compact 60GHz radio for mobile consumer devices is a real technological challenge. “To achieve a low-cost solution, we work with digital CMOS. But it is very difficult to the good performance at mm-wave out of digital CMOS. Especially if you want to go for a low power consumption. It’s certainly not business as usual,” states Soens. But that it’s possible demonstrates the latest achievement of imec researchers: a 7Gbps 60GHz transceiver implemented in 40nm low-power digital CMOS targeting low-cost volume production.

Els Parton, Scientific editor imec

In an exclusive series of blogs, imec’s science writers report from the International Technology Forum (ITF) in Brussels. This year, ITF’s theme was “It’s a changing world. Let’s make a sustainable change together”.

What would our smart world be without displays? That was the question posed by imec’s Paul Heremans, Fellow and Director Large Area Electronics, in a presentation titled “Towards flexible active matrix OLED displays.” On a daily basis, we run our eyes over dozens of displays for various purposes, he said. And this number might increase if we look at the innovations that the display industry has in mind. No more newspapers or paper novels, but digital e-readers on mobile displays. No more paper posters for advertisement, but digital posters on large flexible screens. It’s time for a new era where OLED displays and flexible displays on plastic substrates enter the market and gradually replace cathode ray tubes and liquid crystal displays. They will enable a new wave of products and an increase of the display market size in general.

Meanwhile, the first commercial OLED displays have appeared in consumer products. So, how can an R&D centre such as imec and Holst Centre contribute to such a promising and fast evolving industry? Flexible OLED displays can be extensively adopted, e.g. in flexible posters for advertisement, as rollable TV screens, or, in smaller format,  as an e-reader or on a smart card. And all these applications come with very different specifications. Therefore, says Heremans, it’s important to focus on just one, or on a very few, applications. And they chose the mobile tablet display as the point of focus of their new technology integration program, launched by imec and Holst Centre at the beginning of 2012. The mobile tablet will gather all functionalities of a mobile phone, e-reader, digital camera, MP3 player, tablet pc, netbook… in just one device. The screen must be comfortable enough to be read and touched, and small, thin and flexible enough to be mobile. Such a display must be low power, low cost and high resolution. A humidity barrier, new thin-film transistor technology to drive the pixels, innovative technologies for patterning… the list of required innovations is impressive.

According to Heremans, the prospects are good. The researchers involved in the program can rely on 6 years of experience in the various building blocks, obtained from collaboration within Holst Centre. As a result, only one quarter after the launch of the program, they have realized the first integrated display. It’s not yet the targeted 300ppi OLED display, but it’s good enough to study the pixel engines and to understand what improvements need to be done in order to get to the ultimate targeted mobile tablet display.

Mieke Van Bavel, science editor, imec, Belgium

May 24, 2012 — NLT Technologies and sales and marketing channels in the Americas and Europe, Renesas Electronics America, Inc. and Renesas Electronics Europe GmbH, developed new liquid crystal display (LCD) modules on projected capacitive (PCAP or PROCAP) touch panel technology, augmenting its existing touchscreen technology portfolio of original surface capacitive (ON-Cell) and resistive touch panels.

PCAP improves touchscreen durability, operator interface, multi-touch function and image quality for ruggedized applications like factory automation, medical instruments, etc. NLT Technologies is augmenting its PCAP offering with surface films, cover glass, and optical bonding to modify the technology.

NLT Technologies will continue promoting research and development of touch panel technology. The company aims to expand their touch panel production lineup as well as develop new applications for its primary markets.

The new LCD displays include a 10.4” XGA, 10.6” WXGA, and 12.1” WXGA. NLT and Renesas are supplying the LCD module with touch panel and touch panel controller as part of the PCAP LCD Module set, as well as support for customer set up.

Renesas Electronics America is the authorized representative in the Americas of NLT Technologies, Ltd. (established July 2011 as a joint venture between NEC Corporation and Shenzhen AVIC Optoelectronic Co., Ltd.), a supplier of LCD products for industrial applications.

Renesas Electronics America and NLT Technologies make high-performance, eco-friendly LCD products for industrial, medical and high-end monitor applications. Learn more at http://www.am.renesas.com/prod/displays.

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May 23, 2012 — SouthWest NanoTechnologies, Inc. (SWeNT), maker of high-quality, single-wall and specialty multi-wall carbon nanotubes (CNT) and printable CNT inks, will debut new display manufacturing materials at Display Week 2012 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (Booth 452) June 3-8.

The 50th SID International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition "Display Week," is the premier international gathering of scientists, engineers, manufactures and users in the electronic information displays field.

SWeNT CEO Dave Arthur, joined by Bob Praino of Chasm Technologies, Inc. (Chasm), will also present at a workshop entitled "Carbon Nanotube Technology and Selected Applications" on Monday, June 4th from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. in room 105. SWeNT and Chasm are alliance partners.

At booth 452, SWeNT will highlight applications for its line of conductive and semi-conductive CNT inks for flexible printed electronics and displays. SWeNT inks are based on V2V Ink technology developed by Chasm. Using Single-Wall CNTs, these inks can be printed using commercial, high-volume printing methods and equipment, including flexographic, gravure and screen printing.

The breakthrough process eliminates the need for subtractive patterning, which results in a lower cost solution where patterning of the conductive or semiconducting ink is required. Additionally, V2V technology eliminates post-production processes needed to remove viscosity modifiers and surfactants that are present with other printable CNT inks and that degrade optoelectronic performance. Combined with SWeNT’s unique ability to tailor the synthesis of CNT materials for applications using its patented CoMoCAT process, customers are able to print large area, low-cost devices for a wide range of applications including affordable displays, photovoltaics and printed electronics.

Chasm Technologies, Inc. was established in March 2005 to commercialize new products using novel nanomaterials and to develop scalable manufacturing processes for coated and printed thin films. The company is located in Canton, Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.chasmtek.com.

 SouthWest NanoTechnologies (SWeNT) is a privately-held specialty chemical company that manufactures high quality Single-Wall and Specialty Multi-Wall carbon nanotubes and printable inks for a range of products and applications.  SWeNT was established in 2001 to spin off CNT research developed at the University of Oklahoma.  For more information, visit www.swentnano.com.

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May 23, 2012 — Active matrix small/medium displays, less than 9”, recorded 2 billion worldwide shipments (units) in 2011, up 6% over 2010, said NPD Displaysearch.

Mobile phones saw highest growth, from 1.4 billion to 1.5 billion, largely due to use of active-matrix small/medium displays in smartphones. Smartphones cannibalized digital still camera (DSC) and portable media player (PMP) demand, which tempered the by-unit growth rate of these displays to 6%. Smartphone demand also pushed displays into larger and wider screen form factors, higher resolutions, and wider viewing angles. More active-matrix small-medium displays are touchscreens because of smartphone requirements.

Active-matrix small/medium displays are made of active-matrix organic light-emitting diodes (AMOLED), electrophoretic (AMEPD), and thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT LCD) technologies — all had double-digit revenue growth in 2011. AMOLED had 182% Y/Y growth. AMEPD rode e-reader demand to 43% Y/Y growth. TFT LCD revenues grew 19%, with the low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) form of TFT LCD used in smart phones growing at 36% Y/Y.

For the whole active-matrix small/medium displays sector, revenue went up 29% to $28 billion in 2011, reflecting a shift to higher-performance/price displays. Consumers in general, and smartphone buyers in particular, will pay a premium for better displays, said Hiroshi Hayase, NPD DisplaySearch VP of small/medium display research.

Figure 1. Active-matrix small/medium displays, shipment by application. SOURCE: NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Small/Medium Shipment and Forecast Report.

 

As expected, Samsung Mobile Display (SMD) retained the top position for the second year in a row, claiming 17.2% of the market share for active-matrix small/medium displays in 2011, primarily due to increased AMOLED in smartphones. Following SMD, Sharp and Chimei Innolux kept the second and third positions in 2011, securing 13.5% and 9.5% of the market share, respectively.

Toshiba, Sony, and Hitachi all entered the small/medium AMFPD market, under a venture named Japan Display Inc. (JDI). Although the company started operations in April 2012, a review of 2011 figures indicates that a combination of Toshiba, Sony and Hitachi market shares total 17.2%, the exact same percentage as the 2011 share held by marketplace leader SMD. JDI could emerge as a new leading company in the small/medium FPD marketplace in 2012.

Figure 2. Revenue share of small/medium AMFPD by FPD maker in 2011. SOURCE: NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Small/Medium Shipment and Forecast Report.

The NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Small/Medium Shipment and Forecast Report covers the entire range of small/medium (<9.0”) displays shipped worldwide and regionally. The report analyzes historical shipments and projects forecasts. The Quarterly Small/Medium Shipment and Forecast Report now offers advanced features that allow users to track data by viewing-angle and 3D capabilities. NPD DisplaySearch is a global market research and consulting firm specializing in the display supply chain, as well as the emerging photovoltaic/solar cell industries.

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