Category Archives: Advanced Packaging

The smartphone is a subset of the total cellphone handset marketplace. One basic difference between an enhanced cellphone and a smartphone is the ability of the smartphone to incorporate third-party applications. Smartphones also typically connect to leading-edge cellular network services and are at the forefront of the convergence of data, telecom, and consumer-oriented functions (such as video games, camera, music player, mobile TV, etc.) in a single handheld device.  Most smartphones include touchscreens with built-in wireless modems and GPS/GNSS, and are capable of Web browsing, sending and receiving e-mail, voice recognition, video and audio streaming, running office applications, and over-the-air synching with a PC.

Many in the cellphone industry believe new smartphone designs are reaching the point where they have enough performance to become the primary computing device for many consumers.  If so, the market could be on the verge of entering into “the post-PC era,” as previously identified by the late Steve Jobs, who stirred up controversy with his provocative prediction in June 2010.

The new consumer/Web emphasis in the cellphone market has been a challenge for a number of top-ranked smartphone suppliers (e.g., RIM, Nokia, etc.), which have struggled to refocus their handset designs, software platforms, and business strategies to address the current phase of the fast-growing smartphone segment.

Figure 1 shows that total smartphone shipments grew 47% in 2012 to 712 million units, after surging by 67% to 485 million in 2011.  Moreover, smartphone shipments are forecast to grow by another 37% in 2013 and fall only 25 million units shy of 1.0 billion.  Smartphones are expected to account for over 50% of quarterly shipments for the first time ever in 2Q13.  In fact, smartphone shipments are forecast to reach 300 million units in 4Q13 and represent 60% of total cellphones shipped that quarter.  Smartphones are expected to surpass the 50% penetration level on an annual basis this year and hold 85% of total cellphone shipments in 2016.

In contrast to smartphones, total cellphone unit shipments grew only 1% in 2012 and are forecast to grow only 3% in 2013 (Figure 2).  As shown, non-smartphone cellphone sales were flat in 2011 but showed a 17% decline in 2012.  Moreover, IC Insights expects another 20% drop in non-smartphone handset sales in 2013.

 

Between 2011 and 2016, smartphone shipments are expected to rise at a very strong CAGR of 29% to 1,760 million units in the final year of the forecast period (the 2011-2016 CAGR for non-smartphone unit shipments is -24%).  Overall, the smartphone 2011-2016 unit shipment CAGR is greater than 7x the expected CAGR for total cellphone unit shipments in that same five-year timeframe (4%).

Competition in smartphones intensified in 2012 as suppliers rolled out new handset designs with larger touch-screen displays, more powerful processors, better operating systems, higher-resolution cameras, and new radio-modem connections to the faster “4G” cellular networks, which were quickly spreading in the U.S., South Korea, Europe, and Japan.  In the next few years, new high-speed “4G” networks are planned for China, India, Brazil, the Middle East, and other fast-growing developing markets.

Samsung and Apple dominated the smartphone market in 2012 and are expected to do so again in 2013.  In total, these two companies shipped 354 million smartphones (218 million for Samsung and 136 million for Apple) and held a combined 50% share of the total smartphone market last year.  For 2013, these two companies are forecast to ship 480 million smartphones (300 million for Samsung and 180 million for Apple) and see their combined smartphone unit marketshare slip only one percentage point to 49%.

In 2012, smartphone sales from China-based ZTE, Lenovo, and Huawei surged.  Combined, the three top-10 China-based smartphone suppliers shipped about 80 million smartphones in 2012, more than a 3x increase from the 24 million smartphones these three companies shipped in 2011.  Moreover, these three companies are forecast to ship 142 million smartphones in 2013 and together hold a 15% share of the worldwide smartphone market.  In contrast to the success of the large China-based smartphone suppliers, IC Insights expects RIM and HTC to continue to struggle in the smartphone marketplace in 2013 with both companies forecast to show a double-digit decline in smartphone unit shipments as compared to 2012.

Smartphone suppliers under pressure include Nokia, RIM, and HTC, each of which registered steep double-digit year-over-year declines in smartphone sales in 2012.  Until several years ago, Nokia held a 50% marketshare in smartphones, but in 2008 and 2009, the company saw its share fall below 40% due to increased competition from suppliers targeting consumers with interactive touch-screen handsets that are capable of running multimedia applications.  In 2012, Nokia’s smartphone shipments declined by 55% (to only 35 million units) and represented only a 5% share of the total smartphone market.  Other smartphone producers that have fallen on hard times recently include RIM and HTC.  While each of these companies had about a 10% share of the 2011 smartphone market, IC Insights forecasts that each of them will have only about a 3% share of the 2013 smartphone market.

 Report Details:  IC Market Drivers 2013

IC Market Drivers 2013—A Study of Emerging and Major End-Use Applications Fueling Demand for Integrated Circuits examines the largest, existing system opportunities for ICs and evaluates the potential for new applications that are expected to help fuel the market for ICs.

IC Market Drivers is divided into two parts.  Part 1 provides a detailed forecast of the IC industry by system type, by region, and by IC product type through 2016.  In Part 2, the IC Market Drivers report examines and evaluates key existing and emerging end-use applications that will support and propel the IC industry through 2016.  Some of these applications include the automotive market, cellular phones (including smartphones), personal/mobile computing (including tablets and Ultrabooks), wireless networks, digital imaging, and a review of many applications to watch—those that may potentially provide significant opportunity for IC suppliers later this decade.  The 2013 IC Market Drivers report is priced at $3,190 for an individual-user license and $6,290 for a multi-user corporate license.

Bosch has reached a significant manufacturing milestone. Since the start of production in 1995, the company has manufactured well in excess of three billion MEMS sensors. It took Bosch 13 years to manufacture the first billion, another three years to reach two billion, and only a further 18 months to cross the three-billion mark. In 2012, some 600 million sensors emerged from its wafer fab in Reutlingen, Germany – or 2.4 million each working day.

Bosch supplies sensors for a wide range of applications in the consumer electronics and automotive industries. These sensors measure pressure, acceleration, rotary motion, mass flow, and the earth’s magnetic field. Bosch has been at the forefront of MEMS technology since it first emerged, and today it generates more sales in the extremely dynamic MEMS sensor market than any other supplier.

“It’s no longer possible to imagine automotive or consumer electronics without MEMS sensors. In the future, they will act as the eyes and ears for systems and objects connected via the internet of things and services,” says Klaus Meder, president of the Bosch Automotive Electronics division.

The first application for MEMS sensors was in automotive electronics and Bosch has been producing these precision sensors for use in vehicles since 1995. A yaw-rate sensor that records the rotary movements of the car around its vertical axis is at the heart of ESP, for example, and today each modern vehicle is home to up to 50 MEMS sensors. In an automotive context, the key considerations for MEMS are their reliability and robustness, as the sensors have a direct impact on the safety of road users. Size and energy consumption are much less important factors.

But the picture is quite different when it comes to smartphones or games consoles, which is why Bosch shrunk its sensors over the years to just one fiftieth of their former size. The latest generation of these sensors unites a host of functions in a casing measuring just a few square millimeters. Meanwhile the sensors’ energy consumption has been reduced by a factor of 100. Of all the suppliers in the market, Bosch claims to be the only one producing sensor types for so many different applications. The company holds or has applied for a total of well over 1,000 patents.

Bosch Sensortec GmbH in Reutlingen was founded in 2005. This Bosch subsidiary recently brought the world’s first 9-axis sensor to market. The BMX055 is capable of measuring acceleration, yaw rate, and the earth’s magnetic field in all three spatial directions at the same time, which makes it suitable for a whole range of potential applications. The sensor can be put to work wherever there is a need to pinpoint a mobile device’s spatial location and position – or its orientation relative to the earth’s magnetic field – and can be integrated into even the smallest devices.

Shipments in March of large-sized liquid crystal displays (LCD) exceeded total production when measured in terms of area, the result of a deliberate move by panel manufacturers to digest accumulated inventory, according to an LCD Fab and Inventory Management Tracker from information and analytics provider IHS.

Large-sized LCD displays in March reached a total shipment area of 11.3 million square meters, a metric showing the expanse of shipped panels during the period and distributed among the panels’ four major applications for TVs, notebooks, monitors and tablets. In comparison, production area measuring the spread and breadth of manufactured panels equated to 11.0 million square meters—approximately 340,000 square meters less than the total shipment area.

“March represented the first time in four months that shipments outpaced production for large-sized LCD panels,” said Ricky Park, senior manager for large-area displays at IHS. “The last time the same phenomenon took place—when shipment was higher than production—occurred in November 2012, an understandable occurrence as manufacturers raced to pump out more displays in time for the December holiday season and Lunar New Year holiday season in China. In March, panel suppliers applied the same tactic to chip away at creeping inventory, the upshot of shipments falling below production levels from December 2012 to February 2013.”

After March, however, the current dynamic took a different turn. Pending final figures, forecasts show that production would catch up to shipments starting in April as both indices reach 11.0 million square meters, with production then exceeding shipments beginning in May, as shown in the figure below. The new movement starts as the industry ramps up for the higher demand anticipated in the second half of this year.

shipments of large-sized LCD display panels

Calculated efforts pay off

For all the vicissitudes of the market, panel manufacturers need to continually negotiate a delicate balancing act—between making sure there is enough inventory, and preventing the inventory at hand from ballooning and crossing into dangerous oversupply. A potent weapon in their arsenal is to turn the screws on production, intentionally limiting manufacturing capacity in fabs, while continually shipping out panels taken from both current assembly and leftover inventory in their possession. Constant vigilance is required in an industry where oversupply is usually the norm, with panel manufacturers always striving to perfect their game.

Utilization rates are also adjusted to achieve targets. In March, utilization rose to 80 percent from 72 percent in February, but the pace of fabrication remained lower than was originally intended, estimated at 82 percent and consistent with the plan to keep production lower than shipments. Fab utilization rates were expected to remain unchanged in April and then jump to 83 percent in May—again in keeping with plans for production to start growing and overtake shipments.

Even so, panel manufacturers are not expected to exceed 85 percent utilization and risk producing more than the channel can swallow. Inventory has been particularly problematic because of slow demand, but manufacturers are also careful that pricing doesn’t drop further even with anemic demand plaguing the system.

Tablet panels continue to reign

Overall, shipments for large-area LCD displays during the first quarter this year compared to year-ago levels fell for monitors and notebooks, but rose for TVs and tablets. Monitor panel shipments were down 17 percent to 38.7 million units, while notebooks suffered an even larger 20 percent contraction to 43.2 million units. Shipments for TV panels, however, climbed 10 percent to 55.9 million units, while tablets posted an outsized 175 percent increase to 60.3 million units.

The reason for such disparate movements is not hard to guess. Monitors and notebooks have been under a cloud for some time, overshadowed among consumers by more appealing devices like smartphones and tablets. TVs, while a mature commodity in advanced markets like the United States, Europe and other highly industrialized countries, continue to enjoy increasing demand in the vast China market, compensating for any losses that may occur elsewhere.

Tablets are in even more fortunate circumstances. The devices continue to shine with blockbuster sales, their powerful status also demonstrated in unbeatable panel shipment numbers.

OMRON Corporation today announced that they have finished development work on the world’s first infrared sensor manufactured with wafer-level vacuum packaging technology to create a 16×16 element MEMS non-contact infrared thermal sensor capable of highly precise 90-degree area detection. OMRON says it will ship test samples beginning in October 2013.

In recent years, the demand for human presence sensors has been growing in tandem with the demand for energy-efficient "smart home" and "smart office" environments, in which lighting, heating, etc. is automatically controlled according to where people are positioned. Since conventional pyroelectric human presence sensors (motion sensors) are only able to detect people when they are in motion, they are not as suitable for detecting the number of people in a certain space or their relative positions as Omron’s new thermal sensor.

MEMS non-contact thermal sensors measure temperature by converting infrared energy radiated from target objects into heat with MEMS thermopiles and then measuring the thermoelectromotive force resulting from temperature differences that occur across the contact points of two different types of metal. However, up till now it has not been possible to create large temperature differences across the metal contact points because much of the heat generated by the thermopiles dissipates into the surrounding air, meaning that the resulting thermoelectromotive force is reduced thereby limiting sensitivity. Omron believes they solved this heat dissipation problem by vacuum sealing the thermopiles inside the chip – the first time this has been achieved. The reduction in heat dissipation leads to a greater temperature difference across the metal contacts thereby increasing sensitivity.

How non-contact thermal sensors work

MEMS thermal sensor wafer level packaging

Thermal sensors utilize the Seebeck effect in which thermoelectric force is generated due to the temperature difference at the contact points between two different kinds of metal. Thermopiles are created by serially connecting thermocouples consisting of N+ poly Si, P+ poly Si, and Al. By creating hot junctions on highly heat-resistant dielectric membranes, and cold junctions on highly heat-conductive silicon, it is possible to achieve high-energy conversion efficiency. Sealing thermopiles in a vacuum prevents the heat they create from dissipating into the air thereby increasing sensitivity. 

Omron will now also work on commercializing stand-alone human presence sensor modules by combining non-contact thermal sensors with algorithms that can accurately distinguish the number of people and their positions within a detected space.

Model versions of Omron’s new human presence sensors will be displayed at the "Nanomicro Biz" Exhibition at Tokyo Big Sight on July 3, 4, and 5.

The development of this new sensor was the result of research carried out in collaboration with Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization.

 

UPDATE: Intel has been revealed as the purchaser of the GNSS business unit of ST-Ericsson. The deal extends Intel’s position in the mobile chip business, an area that it is eager to penetrate.

PREVIOUSLY: ST-Ericsson, a joint venture of STMicroelectronics and Ericsson, today announced the signature of a definitive agreement to sell the assets and intellectual property rights associated with its mobile connectivity Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) business to a semiconductor company. At the time of release, ST had not released the name of the purchasing company.

The sale of these assets represents another step in the execution of Ericsson’s and ST’s announcement of March 18, 2013. In addition to the assets and IPR associated with this business, a team of 130 industry veterans located in Daventry (UK), Bangalore (India) and Singapore are anticipated to join the buyer at closing of the transaction.

The closing of the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and standard conditions and is expected to be completed in August 2013. ST-Ericsson estimates the proceeds from the sale, combined with the avoidance of employee restructuring charges and other related restructuring costs, will reduce the joint venture’s cash needs by approximately $90 million.

"Today’s transaction validates the leading innovation developed by ST-Ericsson in mobile navigation systems and marks a further important step towards the execution of our shareholders’ decision to exit from ST-Ericsson" commented Carlo Ferro, president and CEO of ST-Ericsson. "I am pleased that this organization will continue to develop leading-edge technologies and delighted that the team found a new home at a leading player in the semiconductor industry."

ATIC logoThe Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) and the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) today launched the ATIC-SRC Center of Excellence for Energy Efficient Electronic Systems (ACE4S), to be hosted jointly in Abu Dhabi by Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research, and Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. ATIC will dedicate over AED 17.5 million to the project over the next three years, which will be matched collectively by Masdar Institute and Khalifa University for a total budget of more than AED 35 million. This funding will drive innovation in next-generation electronic systems ranging in applications from smart phones and medical devices to the Internet of Things.

“This center is a significant research milestone for Abu Dhabi, the UAE and the region,” said Sami Issa, Executive Director at ATIC. “ACE4S is a critical building block of our ecosystem strategy to help enable the development of homegrown talent in key areas of science and technology. Such talent development is essential as Abu Dhabi transitions into an innovation-based society as per the 2030 vision.”

SRC logo“Over the past 30 years, SRC has successfully helped establish numerous university research centers and distributed more than $2 billion dollars in research funds in the United States; ACE4S role as our first international center reflects significantly on the quality of research we pursue,” said SRC President Larry Sumney. “The ACE4S Center has been established with valuable industry guidance from companies such as GLOBALFOUNDRIES, AMD, Applied Materials, Freescale, IBM, Intel, Mentor Graphics, Texas Instruments and Tokyo Electron (TEL) and will build on SRC-sponsored university research supporting 15 individual researchers in the UAE. Top semiconductor industry experts will oversee and serve as liaisons for each research task, and SRC will productively guide the overall research while also promoting strong student engagement—enabling us to identify areas of greatest need and foster the move of innovations from lab to market.”

The center will be overseen by a steering committee of high-level ATIC, SRC, Khalifa University and Masdar Institute representatives and will be directed jointly by Professors Mohammed Ismail of Khalifa University, and Ibrahim Elfadel of Masdar Institute. The directors will oversee research across five targeted areas and work closely with a Technology Advisory Board (TAB) of representatives from industry-leading companies.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES will serve a special role on the TAB, assigning Mohamed Lakehal as an Abu Dhabi-based industrial liaison to oversee design tape-outs to fabrication in GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ facilities worldwide. The liaison will also support design enablement, deploying design-for-manufacture tools and raising the level of local semiconductor expertise.

“As a research-oriented institution, we are proud to be part of the ACE4S leadership and offer our expertise and research capabilities,” said Dr. Fred Moavenzadeh, President, Masdar Institute. “Our faculty will aim to develop microelectronic technologies with healthcare applications individually and in collaboration with their peers within the initial period of the center’s operation. These innovative products will include biosensor applications, wearable devices and self-powered wireless body area networks (WBAN). We believe these applications will have a wide impact because of their energy efficiency and novel designs.”

“This partnership will transform the way we conduct research in nano-scale energy efficient systems-on-chips as it will help us educate and train a highly skilled workforce with relevant skills. This is a key element in driving innovation and entrepreneurship in the UAE’s semiconductor sector in line with the Abu Dhabi 2030 vision,” said Dr. Tod A. Larsen, President of Khalifa University. “The involvement of the SRC and its member companies in center development will help create a world-leading institution with a sustainable university/industry collaborative research environment conducive to high-tech job creation and direct local and foreign investment.”

The center will focus on energy efficient devices with research in energy harvesting, power management, sensor technologies and wireless communications networks. The research will be conducted primarily at Khalifa University and Masdar Institute but with important involvement from UAE University, American University of Sharjah and New York University, Abu Dhabi.  Within the first three years, ACE4S will seek to produce integrated prototypes with healthcare applications as well as knowledge and research relevant to safety and security, aerospace, water quality and the environment.

Supporting the transition of innovations to market, the center will develop an aggressive Intellectual Property Management Plan (IPMP). The IPMP will include early identification of interconnected families of innovation arising from technical themes, placing special emphasis on the integrated systems selected for demonstration at the end of year three.

ACE4S is a continuation of ATIC’s broader focus on cultivating a technology research ecosystem within Abu Dhabi. Additional programs supported in this vein include: the Twin-Labs research center, a collaboration between Masdar Institute and Technical University of Dresden with support from the State of Saxony, ATIC and GLOBALFOUNDRIES; the ATIC professorship chairs at UAEU and Khalifa University;  the Masters in Microsystems degree in collaboration with Masdar Institute; and ongoing MEES research grants in collaboration with the SRC.

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.

CEA-Leti will host a workshop for industrial companies to present its latest advances in MEMS and an overview of the success of its recent MEMS startup, Wavelens, during Transducers’ 2013 and Eurosensors XXVII in Barcelona, Spain.

Workshop: 6:30-8 p.m., June 18, Rooms 118-119, CCIB Barcelona

The session features three brief presentations from 6:30-7:10 p.m.: 6:30-6:40 p.m.: Overview of CEA-Leti, from technologies to applications.  Jean-René Lèquepeys, head of Leti’s Silicon Components Division, which is involved in micro- and nanoelectronics, micro- and nanosystems, and 3Dstacking.

6:40-7 p.m.: Presentation of Leti’s most recent major achievements in the MEMS field, with a focus on advanced multi-purpose MEMS and NEMS platforms. Dr. Julien Arcamone, manager for MEMS business development in the Silicon Components Division.

7-7:10 p.m.: Update on Wavelens, a recent Leti startup that is focused on improving the performance of miniature cameras with innovative MEMS optical solutions. Dr. Arnaud Pouydebasque, Wavelens CTO.

A networking and cocktail event will follow the workshop from 7:10 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Leti is an institute of CEA, a French research-and-technology organization with activities in energy, IT, healthcare, defence and security. It specializes in nanotechnologies and their applications, from wireless devices and systems, to biology, healthcare and photonics. NEMS and MEMS are at the core of its activities. CEA-Leti operates 8,000-m² of clean room space on 200mm and 300mm wafer platforms. It employs 1,700 scientists and engineers including 320 Ph.D. students and 200 assignees from partner companies. CEA-Leti owns more than 2,200 patent families.

A new report from IHS Displaybank analyzes the scope of the flexible OLED patents issued. Of U.S patents published by July 2012, a patent containing flexible OLED structure-related technology was selected as the Issue Patent and through the prior art and citation analysis of the issue patent, key patents were extracted, and the flow of flexible OLED structure-related technology was analyzed.

Flexible OLED structure key patents analysis

patent analysis on flexible OLED structures

Flexible display is drawing attention because of its advantages that it is thin like a paper and can be bent and rolled without the damage through the substrate. As the display technology that can be integrated to the flexible display, OLED is being regarded as the one of the most likely candidates.

OLED is thin, bendable, cheap, self-luminance, and can implement clear picture quality. Thus, as OLED tries to widen the area up to large-area display market, the expectation for flexible OLED is growing.

The basic structure of flexible OLED consists of flexible substrate, which is needed to be the bendable or rollable form, TFT device that drives each pixel, light-emitting OLED, and thin-film encapsulation that blocks moisture and oxygen for the long lifetime of OLED.

Recently, the leading companies’ research on the core technology is accelerating and the patent barrier of the product structure (the basic concept) and the individual components of flexible OLED is strengthening, and it is not easy to find the source patent from many patents.

Thus, IHS Displaybank examined the source of flexible OLED structure patent through its report, “Flexible OLED Structure-related Key Patents Analysis.” 

Is the source patent of flexible OLED structure valid?

The report examined prior art that has been reviewed in the patent examination in details by selecting “issue patent,” and also traced the source of flexible OLED structure patents by encompassing 40 patents that have been cited in the “issue patent.”

In particular, main point analysis of flexible OLED structure-related key patents (16 patents), extracted from the citation analysis, and the presentation of yearly technology trend are configured to help setting the direction of R&D, patent application, and corresponding patent disputes.

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.