Category Archives: Displays

3M announced today it is in the final stages of scale-up for its new 3M Quantum Dot Enhancement Film (QDEF). The new film allows up to 50 percent more color than current levels in liquid crystal display (LCD) devices.  3M has teamed with Nanosys, Inc., to produce the 3M QDEF solution specifically to deliver more color, and to make devices such as smart phones, tablets and televisions, lighter, brighter and more energy efficient.

QDEF to bring 50% more color to LCD devices

Current LCDs typically are limited to displaying 35 percent or less of the visible color spectrum. This means the viewing experience on an LCD can be vastly different than what a person sees in the real world.  Wide color gamut displays will allow consumers to enjoy more visceral, more immersive and truer-to-life color.

“One of the many advantages of the new 3M QDEF solution is the film’s ability to deliver richly-saturated colors, while minimizing power consumption – a difference you can clearly see,” said Ty Silberhorn, vice president and general manager, 3M Optical Systems Division. “We will have qualification material available to customers for design cycles starting late second quarter this year.”

Over the years, 3M light management technologies have made LCDs thinner, lighter and more energy efficient. Color performance of LCDs industry-wide has gone largely unchanged until now.  3M research data shows that devices with 3M QDEF-enabled wide color gamut will be noticeably different from other standard LCD devices, prompting the human eye to dwell on the display longer than less-saturated displays.

QDEF utilizes the light emitting properties of quantum dots to create an ideal backlight for LCDs, which is one of the most critical factors in the color and efficiency performance of LCDs. A quantum dot, which is 10,000 times narrower than a human hair, can be tuned to emit light at very precise wavelengths. This means display makers can create a highly-optimized backlight that only produces the exact wavelengths of red, green and blue light needed by an LCD for optimal color and energy performance. Trillions of these quantum dots protected by barrier film fit inside an LCD backlight unit. The new film replaces one already found inside LCD backlights, which means the manufacturing process requires no new equipment or process changes for the LCD manufacturer.

“Improving color performance for LCDs with simple, drop-in manufacturing solutions will create a stunning new visual experience for consumers,” said Jason Hartlove, president and CEO, Nanosys, Inc. “Working together with 3M and utilizing their outstanding design and supply chain capabilities will allow our quantum dot technology to be widely deployed across all product segments, ensuring availability to all customers.”

Both 3M and Nanosys, Inc., will attend Society of Information Display’s DisplayWeek, May 21 – 23, 2013, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Jon Peddie Research (JPR) announced estimated graphics chip shipments and suppliers’ market share for 2013 Q1. The news was disappointing for Intel, but encouraging for Nvidia and for AMD on the desktop.

AMD lost 0.3 percent, quarter-to-quarter, Intel slipped 5.3 percent, and Nvidia increased by 3.6 percent.

The overall PC market declined 13.7 percent quarter-to-quarter while the graphics market only declined 3.2 percent reflecting an interest on the part of consumers for double-attach—the adding of a discrete GPU to a system with integrated processor graphics.

On a year-to-year basis, JPR found that total graphics shipments during Q1’13 dropped 12.9 percent similar to PCs shipments declined by 12.6 percent overall. GPUs are traditionally a leading indicator of the market, since a GPU goes into every system before it is shipped and most of the PC vendors are guiding down to flat for Q2’13.

The popularity of tablets and the persistent economic malaise are the most often mentioned reasons for the altered nature of the PC market. Nonetheless, the CAGR for PC graphics from 2012 to 2016 is 2.6 percent, and we expect the total shipments of graphics chips in 2016 to be 394 million units.

The ten-year average change for graphics shipments for quarter-to-quarter is a growth of -2.2 percent. This quarter is below the average with a 3.2 percent decrease.

JPR’s findings include discrete and integrated graphics (CPU and chipset) for desktops, notebooks (and netbooks), and PC-based commercial (i.e., POS) and industrial/scientific and embedded. The JPR report does not include handhelds (i.e., mobile phones), x86 Servers or ARM-based tablets (i.e. iPad and Android-based Tablets), smartbooks, or ARM-based servers. It does include x86-based tablets.

The quarter in general

  • AMD’s quarter-to-quarter total shipments of desktop heterogeneous GPU/CPUs, i.e., APUs jumped 30 percent from Q4 and declined 7.3 percent in notebooks. The company’s overall PC graphics shipments slipped 0.3 percent.
  • Intel’s quarter-to-quarter desktop processor-graphics EPG shipments decreased from last quarter by 3 percent, and Notebooks fell by 6.3 percent. The company’s overall PC graphics shipments dropped 5.3 percent.
  • Nvidia’s quarter-to-quarter desktop discrete shipments were flat from last quarter; and, the company’s mobile discrete shipments increased 7.6 percent. The company’s overall PC graphics shipments increase 3.6 percent.
  • Year to year this quarter AMD shipments declined 29.4 percent, Intel dropped 8.8 percent, Nvidia increased 3.6 percent, and VIA fell 8.4 percent from last year.
  • Total discrete GPUs (desktop and notebook) were up 1.1 percent from the last quarter and were down 11 percent from last year for the same quarter due to the same problems plaguing the overall PC industry. Overall the trend for discrete GPUs is up with a CAGR to 2016 of 2.6 percent.
  • Ninety nine percent of Intel’s non-server processors have graphics, and over 67 percent of AMD’s non-server processors contain integrated graphics; AMD still ships IGPs.

Year-to-year for the quarter the graphics market decreased. Shipments were down 15.8 million units from this quarter last year.

Graphics chips (GPUs) and chips with graphics (IGPs, APUs, and EPGs) are a leading indicator for the PC market. At least one and often two GPUs are present in every PC shipped. It can take the form of a discrete chip, a GPU integrated in the chipset or embedded in the CPU. The average has grown from 1.2 GPUs per PC in 2001 to almost 1.4 GPUs per PC.

With Microsoft introducing Windows 8 operating system that provides the touch interface in the fourth quarter of 2012, notebook PCs with touch-screen panels were released. And this led to the opening of a new market, for projected capacitive touch panels of 10 inches or larger.

There have been issues with touch-screen notebooks in its initial market, and some may rush to call it a failure. But it’s been only less than a year since such laptops were released, and thus it is yet too early to make any decision. True. Looking at the business plans of major laptop makers for 2013, touch-screen notebooks should hold at least 10 percent of the total laptop shipments. In particular, brands from the great China region, including Lenovo, Acer and Asus, have set higher targets of achieving more than 20 percent. 

According to a research by Displaybank, acquired by IHS, total shipments of notebooks with touch screens were 4.57 million units in the first quarter of 2013, up 51.8 percent from a quarter earlier. The touch laptops made up almost 10 percent of the overall notebook market, whose shipments posted 46 million units. Considering that the market is at its initial stage, the penetration rate of touch-screen notebooks is quite high.

first quarter results of touch-screen notebook shipments
(Source: Displaybank, “Touch Panel Shipment Database – Notebook PC,” Q1-13)

With touch-screen notebooks released, manufacturing larger projected capacitive touch panels is accelerating and touch-screen panel related companies are trying hard to be the first to lead the market. Unfortunately, however, as there are no data on touch laptop market good enough to refer, it is not easy for the companies in the industry to set a business plan.

Displaybank published a quarterly “Touch Panel Shipment Database – Notebook PC” report to help them understanding the notebook-use projected capacitive touch panel industry quickly and accurately. The report provides quarterly shipments of touch-screen notebooks by unit/area/value; by inch; by brand; by form factor; by touch panel layer; by touch panel module and controller IC maker; and by cover window materials and bonding type, as well as top five models in terms of shipments.

Displaybank says the report should offer insight into the related market and industry to notebook set makers that are interested in notebook-use projected capacitive touch panels and companies related to touch panel modules, parts and raw materials.

TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry leader, today announced collaboration with TLi (Technology Leaders and Innovators), a fabless company that designs non-memory integrated circuits (ICs) focused on timing controllers and driver ICs on TFT-LCD panel modules. TLI says they have developed an acceleration sensor control IC and proximity illumination sensor IC based on TowerJazz’s 0.18um CMOS technology, which enables TLi to provide local offerings to mobile phone suppliers in Korea where the market leaders are located.

As of 2012, the worldwide mobile phone market was 1.7 billion dollar and 43 percent of this was attributed to smartphones with acceleration sensor control ICs and proximity and illumination sensor ICs. The portion of smartphones with these ICs is expected to grow steadily, and TLi is targeting this fast growing market with two of its products utilizing TowerJazz’s process. A mass production is expected to start in Q3, 2013.

The acceleration sensor market is mostly dominated by a few major foreign companies, however in January of this year, TLi succeeded in developing an acceleration sensor control IC and a proximity illumination sensor IC in Korea. These products are the first released from the very close collaboration between TowerJazz and TLi. By utilizing the advanced features of TowerJazz’s 0.18um CMOS process, TLi realized accurate modeling as well as flash memory without mask adder for its acceleration sensor control IC and succeeded in realizing the sensing block without expensive color filtering for its proximity illumination sensor IC.

"We have been very pleased with our collaboration on these exciting products which has enabled us to provide local offerings to Korean mobile phone suppliers that are expected to be the most cost effective solutions in this market. This is the result of our close discussions with TowerJazz to utilize the advanced features of their 0.18 CMOS process. Also, these products showed full functionality from first silicon," said Soonwon Hong, vice president of TLi.

"Korea is an important region for technical and manufacturing innovation and we are very excited to work with a leading-edge partner such as TLi to enable localization of their specialized sensor ICs," said Michael Song, VP of Sales and president of TowerJazz Korea. "TLi has trusted us to co-develop and bring to market their latest products and we are pleased with the progress we have made in this region which is home to many leading semiconductor companies."

Quantum dots are tiny nanocrystals with extraordinary optical and electrical properties with possible uses in dye production, bioimaging, and solar energy production. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have developed a way to introduce precisely four copper ions into each and every quantum dot.

The introduction of these "guest" ions, called doping, opens up possibilities for fine-tuning the optical properties of the quantum dots and producing spectacular colors.

"When the crystallinity is perfect, the quantum dots do something that no one expected–they become very emissive and end up being the world’s best dye," says Preston Snee, assistant professor of chemistry at UIC and principal investigator on the study.

The results are reported in the journal ACS Nano, available online in advance of print publication. Incorporating guest ions into the crystal lattice can be very challenging, says UIC graduate student Ali Jawaid, first author of the paper.

Controlling the number of ions in each quantum dot is tricky. Merely targeting an average number of guest ions will not produce quantum dots with optimal electrical and optical properties.

Jawaid developed a procedure that reliably produces perfect quantum dots, each doped with exactly four copper ions. Snee believes the method will enable them to substitute other guest ions with the same consistent results.

"This opens up the opportunity to study a wide array of doped quantum dot systems," he said.

Donald Wink and Leah Page of UIC and Soma Chattopadhyay of Argonne National Laboratory also contributed to the study.

Support for the research came from UIC and the UIC Chancellor’s Discovery Fund and the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund. The Materials Research Collaborative Access Team, a consortium for building and operating x-ray beamlines at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source, is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and the MRCAT member institutions. The use of the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences under contract DE-QC02-06CH11357.

UIC ranks among the nation’s leading research universities and is Chicago’s largest university with 27,500 students, 12,000 faculty and staff, 15 colleges and the state’s major public medical center. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate, foundation and government partners in hundreds of programs to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas around the world.

Will the enabling and investment strategy of Intel Corp. lead to low-cost touch-screen-enabled notebooks that drive new demand for PCs and yield innovation in the global display market?

Find out at the IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference, held May 20 in Vancouver, Canada. At the event, Zane Ball, Intel vice president and general manager, Global Ecosystem Development, will deliver a keynote address discussing the company’s plan to empower the PC industry to produce low-cost notebooks incorporating touch technology.

“Intel is making major investments in the display supply chain to bring low-cost touch and high-resolution displays to the PC market,” Ball said. “We believe these investments will set the stage for PC makers to deliver notebooks with advanced features at reduced price points year over year.” 

Ball also will discuss Intel’s Ultrabook effort and its impact on the touch-screen market.

Intel’s keynote will provide a perfect starting point for the IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference, which this year is focusing on the theme of “Paths to a Healthier Display Industry.”

“From the keynote, to the presentations, to the panel sessions, the IHS/SID 2013Business Conference is completely focused on the products and strategies that can revive the health of the display business,” said Sweta Dash, senior director, display research and strategy, for IHS and also a speaker and organizer of the conference. “With the flat-panel TV replacement boom having concluded, the growth of the display business now must be driven by other product areas that companies can address through inventive form factors, features or pricing. This year’s conference will serve as a roadmap for suppliers and buyers who want to innovate their way to a healthier display business.”

Early-bird registration for the IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference, expiring May 2, is priced at $595; the standard fee is $650. Press registration is free. For more information, please visit the IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference registration page. The conference will be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

Spectra-Physics, a Newport Corporation brand, introduces Spirit ps 1040-10, an industrial-grade picosecond laser for precision micromachining applications. The new laser delivers high finesse with exceptional beam quality (M2< 1.2), high stability (<1% rms over 100 hours), and short pulse widths (13 ps). The laser is also highly flexible with user-adjustable repetition rates from single shot to 1 MHz and an integrated pulse picker for fast pulse selection and power control. With >10 W average power, the laser is ideal for precision picosecond micromachining applications such as semiconductor and LED manufacturing, flat panel display processing, thin film ablation, and nano structuring.

“The Spirit ps laser’s precise beam shape, pulse duration, and energy translate into high-precision application results,” says Herman Chui, senior director of product marketing for Spectra-Physics. “Combined with its flexibility in repetition rate and pulse energy, this rugged industrial laser is ideal for a wide range of critical picosecond micromachining applications.”

Spectra-Physics’ Spirit ps 1040-10 laser is based on the field-proven Spirit industrial ultrafast laser platform. With high quantities of deployed systems in demanding 24/7 applications, this rugged product platform has consistently demonstrated high reliability.

The new Spirit ps 1040-10 laser will be featured at LASER World of Photonics in Munich, Germany, May 13-16, 2013.

Newport Corporation is a global supplier of advanced-technology products and systems to customers in the scientific research, microelectronics manufacturing, aerospace and defense/security, life and health sciences and precision industrial manufacturing markets. 

Spirit picosecond industrial laser

In order to stave off the onslaught of popular media tablets and smartphones, notebook PCs need to evolve, adopting touch technology that has proved so popular among consumers.

Speaking at the upcoming Society for Information Displays (SID) 2013 Conference, Duke Yi, senior manager for display components and materials research at IHS, will present his vision for the future of touch notebooks. Yi will deliver his presentation at the SID Touch Gesture Motion Focus Conference on Wednesday May 22, 2013, in Vancouver, Canada.

“Touch screens are the hottest feature driving the near-term growth in the notebook market,” Yi said. “It’s true that it is impossible to use all the applications of a notebook perfectly just through a touch function. However, consumers will gain a greater familiarity with the touch system, allowing them to comfortably access many other functions on a notebook. In essence, the touch function is more of an assistant than the actual main interface in notebook PCs.”

But the incorporation of touch into notebooks does not just benefit consumers, as manufacturers also will find that adding this technology will be an effective way to keep the average selling price (ASP) of their notebooks from plunging. For this reason, touch will likely establish a solid foothold in the notebook market, IHS believes.

Tablet threat

It has only been three years since the Apple iPad came to market. Nonetheless, in that short time, media tablets have become firmly established and are on a strong growth path. Not surprisingly, tablets have become a huge threat to other products—including notebook PCs.

“Both the PC and the tablet markets want a piece of each other’s pie,” Yi said. “Tablet suppliers want some of the market share that notebooks have—and vice versa. So, while there is a clear intersection between the two applications, we see manufacturers and brands offering at least one or two crossover products that span the functions of both PCs and tablets.”

Yi’s session, entitled “Touch Gesture Motion Industry Analysis,” also will include the IHS outlook and growth opportunities for touch and interactive devices, with additional analysis from Geoff Walker, senior touch technologist for Intel Corp.

Early-bird registration for the IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference, expiring May 2, is priced at $595; the standard fee is $650. Press registration is free. For more information, please visit the IHS/SID 2013 Touch Gesture Motion Conference registration page.

The conference will be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

The 59th annual IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) has issued a Call for Papers seeking original work in microelectronics research and development. The paper submission deadline is Monday, June 24, 2013 at 23:59 p.m. Pacific Time.

Special Focus Sessions at the 2013 IEDM will include bioMEMS, analog devices and circuits, advanced semiconductor manufacturing, and terahertz devices. Overall, increased participation is sought this year in circuit and process technology interaction, energy harvesting, bio-sensors and bioMEMS, power devices, magnetics and spintronics.

The 2013 IEDM will take place at the Washington Hilton Hotel December 9-11, 2013, preceded by a full day of Short Courses on Sunday, Dec. 8 and 90-minute afternoon tutorial sessions on Saturday, Dec. 7. Also, building on the popularity of the inaugural Entrepreneurs Luncheon held at last year’s IEDM, the event will be held once again, on Wednesday, Dec. 11.

The world’s best scientists and engineers in the field of microelectronics from industry, academia and government will gather at the IEDM to enjoy a technical program of more than 220 presentations, along with panels, special sessions, Short Courses, IEEE/EDS award presentations and other events spotlighting more leading work in more areas of the field than any other conference. Papers in the following areas are encouraged:

  • Circuit and Device Interaction
  • Characterization, Reliability and Yield
  • Display and Imaging Systems
  • Memory Technology
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Nano Device Technology
  • Process and Manufacturing Technology
  • Power and Compound Semiconductor Devices
  • Sensors, MEMS and BioMEMS

 For registration and other information, interested persons should visit the IEDM 2013 home page at www.ieee-iedm.org.

Atmel Corporation, a developer of microcontroller and touch technology solutions, this week announced the maXTouch T Series, its next-generation family supporting touchscreens up to 23 inches for applications such as handsets, tablets, Ultrabooks, notebooks and all-in-one computers.

The first device in the family, the mXT2952T, is the world’s first ultra-low power single-chip device that supports Windows 8-certified touchscreens up to 15.6 inches and optimized to support touchscreen cover glass as thin as 0.4mm.

The new T Series delivers a revolutionary adaptive-sensing architecture featuring both mutual and self capacitance to optimize performance. The maXTouch T Series automatically selects the best sensing architecture, seamlessly switching to enable higher performance and lower power consumption. Mutual capacitance enables true multi-touch tracking while self capacitance offers benefits including idle power consumption, moisture immunity, glove tracking, and hover capability which detects a finger or an object not in contact with the screen. The new maXTouch T Series enhances noise immunity with an industry-first capacitive touch dual analog and digital filtering architecture to deliver the best signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio and power consumption. The new features in the maXTouch T Series deliver improved responsiveness and a more intuitive user interface with additions such as hover that allow users to pre-select icons, letters, links and other images without physically touching the screen.

With the increasing popularity of active stylus on touchscreens, the maXTouch T Series natively supports Atmel’s maXStylus, a solution that requires no additional sensor layer to enable thinner stack-ups and lower overall bill of materials (BOM). The award-winning maXStylus offers a Window 8-compatible solution with better touch performance, lower power consumption and lower overall system cost than other capacitive active stylus solutions on the market today.

"Flawless touch performance, longer battery life and thinner screens for mobile devices are key features for today’s touchscreen designs," said Jon Kiachian, Vice President of Touch Marketing, Atmel Corporation. "As a leader in touch technologies, the maXTouch T Series is Windows 8 compatible, Intel Ultrabook-ready, and supports both active stylus and sensor hub. We are a leader in this space, and excited to deliver the mXT2952T, the world’s first single-chip controller for Windows 8-certified touchscreens up to 15.6 inches."

To better support Ultrabook and notebook touch sensors, the mXT2952T has specific circuitry to take advantage of ITO (indium tin oxide) alternative sensor materials such as Atmel’s XSense flexible touch sensor. This allows system designers to build more innovative designs with faster operation, lower power, borderless and even flexible touchscreens.

The maXTouch T Series integrates Atmel’s proprietary maXFusion sensor hub management technology that enables designers to manage both the touch interface and all the sensor intelligence in a single chip. This technology enables lower bill of materials and higher performance.