Researchers at the Optical Function Device Workshop at the National Institute of Technology, Sendai College, demonstrated unique screens using micro-optical elements for projection displays. The screen is a combination of directional diffused light-control film (DLC) with a micro-structured optical film. The screen directs the environment-scattered light to a direction that is different from that of the screen viewer. One is a directive screen using an array of CCR with diverted and curved surfaces (D-CCR), which reflects and scatters the light toward a certain angle: the viewer’s face. The screen has a gain of 16 and reflects extremely bright images even with small and low-power projections.
Filmed at the I-Zone demo and prototype area at SID Display Week, the world’s largest and best exhibition for electronic information display technology.
Display Week’s I-Zone, sponsored by E Ink, is a unique exhibition-within-the-exhibition filled with demos and prototypes from around the world. Every year, dozens of applicants submit their pre-market and emerging products to compete for a free booth where they can share their inventions with buyers, manufacturers, potential partners, industry leaders and thousands of attendees.
Start-up Jetcomm Technologies, Ltd. demonstrated its LiPHY web browser app, which can receive Li-Fi visible light communication signals with high speed and accuracy. Using the LiPHY app, users simply point their smartphones at objects or points of interest in the physical world to instantly access the corresponding online contents. This helps uses save time by avoiding online searches or QR code scans while they shop, travel or browse in the real world. Venue operators use LiPHY’s platform for providing user-friendly O2O interaction, augmented reality and indoor positioning.
Filmed at the I-Zone demo and prototype area at SID Display Week, the world’s largest and best exhibition for electronic information display technology.
The Best Prototype at I-Zone 2018 award winner at SID Display Week 2018 is Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. They present a solution to lower the power consumption of LCD by 3x by removing the color filter, their 250ppi active-matrix field-sequential color-display panel based on electrically suppressed helix ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC). FLC’s fast response time of 10 microseconds under low voltage of 6.67V/micron enables field sequential color display operation with a 60-Hz frame rate and 360-Hz FLC driving frequency.
Founded in 1986, Silvaco, Inc. is an electronic design automation (EDA) provider of software tools used for process and device development and for analog/mixed-signal, power IC and memory design. During Display Week 2018, representatives discussed and shared demos of its technology computer-aided design (TCAD) solutions with emphasis on enabling the designing of the next generation of TFT, LCD, LED & OLED products, including flat-panel displays. Their products help analyze behavior of materials, what kind of impacts they have on light emissions, test reliability and signal variation; and provide electrical analysis, among other important metrics.
Filmed at SID Display Week 2018, the world’s largest and best exhibition for electronic information display technology.
Radiant Vision Systems provides visual test and measurement systems that characterize, and inspect light and color for quality in display design and automated production. Their inspecting processes and tools are used in LCDs, LEDs, microLEDs and OLED for flat panel displays, head-up displays, AR/VR, near to eye display. During Display Week 2018 they demonstrated light and color measurement solutions, new assembly and surface inspection systems, and photometry-based imaging systems and specialized lenses for evaluating the unique characteristics of displays used in flexible devices, automotive integrations, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), and other emerging applications.
Filmed at SID Display Week 2018, the world’s largest and best exhibition for electronic information display technology.
South China Normal University (SCNU) has been developing reflective displays based on the “electrowetting” effect since 2012. A key point in their technology is the improvement of the aperture of display pixels, which for typical electrowetting displays is approximately 70 percent. SCNU displays include apertures of 85 percent, and if these cells are used in stacked cyan, magenta and yellow cells, the displayed colors are markedly more bright and saturated than in 70 percent aperture cells. As part of this key development, the contrast ratio must be maintained or increased, which is achieved by minimizing the stray light transmitted. Contrast ratios up to 20:1 can be shown.
Filmed at the I-Zone demo and prototype area at SID Display Week, the world’s largest and best exhibition for electronic information display technology.
Taiwan’s PlayNitride, Inc. received an honorable mention for utilizing its PixeLED display technology to build a transparent display with an innovative and unique process to transfer RGB microLEDs onto a pixel.
During Display Week 2018, PlayNitride demonstrated two microLED prototypes. One is a small 0.89″ 64×64 (105 PPI) panel with a brightness of 800 nits. All of the LED chips in this display were transferred in three shots (one shot per color). The pixel size in this display is 0.243 mm.
The second display is a larger panel – 3.12″ 256×256 (116 PPI). Due to the larger number of LEDs (total of 786K LEDs) PlayNitride had to use 24 shots to transfer all three colored chips. The pixel size in this larger display is 0.219 mm.
Filmed at the I-Zone demo and prototype area at SID Display Week, the world’s largest and best exhibition for electronic information display technology.
Quantum Solutions is a start-up based in Saudi Arabia, focused on nanotechnology, developing and manufacturing Quantum Dots (QDs) for optoelectronic applications: LCD displays, LEDs, solar cells and photo detectors.
At the I-Zone, they demonstrated their high-efficiency green for LCD applications that replaces the current LCD white with quantum dots using a special film, which ensures a wider color gamete. What makes their technology unique is its 15-nanometer emission for quantum dots. According to Quantum Solutions, current market efficiency is high but the emission width is broad at 30-40 nanometers. Quantum Solutions’ product is much narrower at 15 nanometers, which provides a wider color gamete that can produce an exact green to mix with other RGB colors to create more vibrant and accurate color combinations.
Filmed at the I-Zone demo and prototype area at SID Display Week, the world’s largest and best exhibition for electronic information display technology.
Jeff Yurek, Nanosys Director of Marketing at SID DisplayWeek 2018 in Los Angeles talks about the Quantum Dots which Nanosys has been developing since its founding in 2001. Jeff walks me through the company’s technology roadmap to explain how Quantum Dots can be used in displays of all types from LCDs to OLEDs to microLEDs and even emissive Quantum Dot displays of the future.
Quantum dots are tiny man-made crystals. They are so small that you can’t see them with a typical microscope. In fact, they’re 10,000 times narrower than a human hair. Quantum dots are actually very powerful devices and it’s their size that gives them a unique ability: to convert light into nearly any color in the visible spectrum with very high efficiency.
Each quantum dot is actually a tiny semiconductor — which means it can convert incoming energy. The electronic characteristics of quantum dots are determined by their size and shape. This means they can control the color of light given off by a quantum dot just by changing its size. Bigger dots emit longer wavelengths like red, while smaller dots emit shorter wavelengths like green. Think of a guitar string. When a guitar string is shortened, it produces a higher pitch and when it is lengthened, it creates a lower pitch. The tune of a quantum dot – the wavelength of the light it emits – behaves in a similar way.
Today, Quantum Dot displays are built just like LED displays. The quantum dots are added to the backlight of the display in the form of a translucent plastic film that’s loaded with dots. Each TV contains literally trillions of Quantum Dots. In this mode, the Quantum Dots are improving existing LED displays by enabling them to be more power efficient and deliver better color.
The film itself is made using a roll-to-roll coating process. Nanosys manufactures Quantum Dots in Silicon Valley, California and partners with companies like Hitachi Chemical to create Quantum Dot films used by display makers.
Unlike OLED materials, Quantum Dots are inorganic. This means they’re really stable and can be handled more easily in manufacturing. That makes for a tougher, longer lasting display that doesn’t exhibit burn-in issues.
According to Nanosys, Quantum Dot technology is not limited to LCDs. It can improve displays of all types from LCDs to OLEDs to microLEDs to pure, emissive QDEL displays.
Paul Travers, President and CEO at Vuzix talks about how Vuzix is about to ship the Vuzix Blade Developer Kit to developers, providing a wearable smart display with a see-through viewing experience utilizing Vuzix’s proprietary waveguide optics and Cobra II display engine, to be able to see overlaid information, indoors or out, such as patient data, mapping directions, restaurant menus, weather information, alerts and more without picking up a smartphone. Vuzix Blade (see my previous videos about the Vuzix Blade here) can also synchronize and interact with a smartphone, allowing users to keep their phone in their pockets for almost everything where fashion meets technology in the wearable display arena. Vuzix also recently announced partnership to use the new Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 Platform and also working with Plessey microLED Microdisplay Technology.
A video interview with Ron Mertens, CEO at OLED-Info, a knowledge hub launched in 2004 to focus on OLED technologies. Ron discusses his work at OLEDs, his views on the display market and various emerging technologies, and the DisplayWeek event, the largest gathering of display professionals. See more at https://www.oled-info.com
At SID DisplayWeek 2018, China-based OLED maker Visionox demonstrated a wide range of AMOLED and PMOLED solutions. This video focuses on Visionox’s Passive-Matrix OLEDs (PMOLEDs), which are relatively simple displays used in a wide arrange of devices – wearables, industrial, commercial and others. Joining us in this video is Ron Mertens, the OLED expert behind http://OLED-Info.com, a knowledge hub that focuses on the OLED market and industry. Ron explains the difference between PMOLEDs and AMOLEDs, the use cases of PMOLEDs and walks us through Visionox’s PMOLED devices on display. See more at https://www.oled-info.com/pmoled
Ross Young is the Founder and CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC). Prior to DSCC, Ross was SVP of Displays, LEDs, Lighting and PV at IMS Research after the firm acquired his market research business Young Market Research (YMR). Prior to YMR, Ross was VP of New Market Creation at Samsung LCD where he reported to the CEO.
From 1996 – 2008, Young started, ran and sold DisplaySearch, the leading source of market intelligence, events and consulting to the flat panel display supply chain. At DisplaySearch, Young launched most of the categories for the company including FPD equipment, FPD materials, TFT LCD shipments and technology, notebook PCs, desktop monitors, TVs, sell-through and more. Ross pioneered coverage in each layer of the display supply chain and was the only analyst to cover the entire display supply chain at DisplaySearch. He also launched their US events business, which included the broadcasting of their HDTV Conference on HDNet. In addition, he led DisplaySearch’s global consulting business. With less than $500 in capital, he grew the company to over $10M in revenues during his tenure. Young sold DisplaySearch to The NPD Group in 2005 matching DisplaySearch’s sell-in business with NPD’s sell through and consumer data providing new insights to customers. While at NPD, Young received their prestigious John Byington Award for outstanding creativity and innovation. Young also received a Presidential Citation Award from the Society for Information Display (SID) in 2012 “for his sustained service in promoting the Market Focus Conference Series from concept to successful completion”.
Prior to DisplaySearch, Young served in senior marketing positions at OWL Displays, Brooks Automation, Fusion Semiconductor and GCA in the driver IC, flat panel automation, etch and strip and lithography markets. In his first job at GCA, Young was named to the VLSI Research Executive All Star team in his attempts to help save the company, which had received extensive support from SEMATECH. Ross graduated from the University of California at San Diego with a degree in Economics and completed their Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies where he conducted extensive research on the relationships between semiconductor manufacturers and semiconductor equipment suppliers which led to the publication of his book – Silicon Sumo: US-Japan Competition and Industrial Policy in the Semincoductor Equipment Industry published by the University of Texas.
Japan Display Inc (JDI) is an LCD technology joint venture by Sony, Toshiba, and Hitachi since 2012. In this video they are showing their in-cell pixelize technology in a 16,7″ automotive display with no eternal touch panel, local dimming back light, high contrast, curved conformed styles, 4x 12.3″ bonded curved displays from pillar to pillar in the car, JDI has the top share of the automotive display market. JDI shows their industrial line of display products with long life support of 7, 10, 12 years of support, mostly built very rugged in their design, some outdoor viewable, zero bright dot deffect, touch screens, 6.4″ XGA 1024×768 suitable for avionics, 7″ 1280×720 700nits suitable for example for broadcast applications, 13.3″ 4K with a small bezel in an industrial package. JDI also shows some of their future tech demos such as a 80% transparent display without a color filter or polarizer using sequential RGD LED lighting, 17.3″ light field holographic 8K display allowing for an amazing holographic like effect for specially created holographic stills and even video where it appears that you are moving around the person in the video with wider viewing angles than other Light Field displays shown previously. JDI shows their 17,3″ 8K display used for 8K broadcasting, they also have a new version of this 17.3″ 8K display with BT2020 enhanced color support using red, green and blue lasers for backlighting. JDI does 11.45″ E Ink shelf labels with some bright saturated red or yellow available. Ultra narrow bezel IPS-Nano LTPS LCD displays with wide viewing angles where the color uniformity is the same at any viewing angle for the medical market. JDI is the largest color LTPS LCD smartphone display provider. LTPS allows for the high pixel density. Full Active bezel-less LCD display like the 5.99″ 18:9 with narrow borders on all 4 sides used in the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2. Full active LCD with straight corners as used in the HTC U11+. JDI shows 15Hz to 60Hz variable refresh rate showing that even running UI animations at 15Hz there wouldn’t be any image degradation which could save significant amount of power. JDI also works on Flexible OLED.
In 1970, Dr. Shunpei Yamazaki invented the basic element of flash memory, now widely used for storage everywhere. Shunpei Yamazaki holds the Guinness World Record for the most patents credited as inventor, at 11,353 as of 30 June 2016. At present, he is the president of Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) and is energetically doing R&D on many different advanced technologies with his team. His present R&D theme is the crystalline Indium-gallium-zinc (IGZO) oxide semiconductor, namely, C-axis aligned crystalline (CAAC)-IGZO. Displays using CAAC-IGZO are already being manufactured by companies such as Sharp. You can see my videos of Sharp IGZO displays here. CAAC-IGZO can be used not only in displays but also is CPUs and memories. If silicon LSI is replaced with IGZO LSI, the power consumption for processors may become less than 1%. Silicon used mainly at present will be replaced with CAAC-IGZO in the near future. In the coming AI age, it is indispensable to develop IGZO LSI. Dr. Yamazaki and the researchers of SEL are concentrating on R&D of IGZO LSI.
BOE presents their latest flexible AMOLED display solutions for the future of smartphones that can be bent, folded, and rolled and even flap in the wind. BOE’s flexible displays is demonstrated for robots with touch control, smart loudspeakers, an S-shaped in-car flexible AMOLED display. 8K displays, micro displays, QLED displays and other IoT solutions such as their TFT based AMOLED fingerprint recognition system that works in any spot of the display area
The foldable all-screen WQHD AMOLED display launched by BOE can achieve minimum dynamic bending with a radius of only 1mm. It can be bent more than 100,000 times and has an NTSC color gamut up to 118%. BOE is exhibiting a 5.99″ FHD+ 2160×1080 Flexible AMOLED foldable mobile phone and a 7.56″ foldable tablet. The display can be used for mobile phones when it is folded up and for tablets or monitors when it unfolds.
As one of the upcoming possibly revolutionizing OLED technical directions, BOE demonstrates their OLED printing technology to possibly just print the future of Smartphone displays showing their 5.5″ FHD (1920×1080) printing flexible OLED display.
UHD has become a keyword of SID 2018 for material and equipment suppliers and device manufacturers, signaling the advent of the 8K era. In addition to the 110-inch 8K, 75-inch 8K, and 65-inch 8K glasses-free 3D displays, BOE also presents 13.3-inch 8K display products, promoting the development of small and medium-sized 8K products.
BOE has gathered speed in building an 8K ecosystem ever since it launched the “8425 strategy” which means “promoting 8K, popularizing 4K, replacing 2K and making good use of 5G”. BOE has recently launched the 8K solution that incorporates BOE’s 4K/8K image service cloud, 8K decoder player, and 8K display device, making it possible to shoot, edit, transmit and broadcast 8K content. This helps to solve problems like the costliness and massive size of traditional decoder players, as well as the lack of 8K content, thus promoting the faster popularization of 8K.
Among several micro displays at BOE’s booth is a silicon-based OLED AR product which features monocrystalline silicon as the active drive backplane as well as high resolution, high level of integration, low power consumption, small size, and light weight. The AR product is backed by a 0.39-inch silicon-based OLED which has the world’s leading pixel density of 5644PPI, 17 times that of a Retina display, and a contrast ratio over 10000:1, which enables the overlapping and interaction between virtual 3D images and real scenes. All these secure an ultimate experience for users as well as bright prospect in the field of education and training, video games, home decoration, etc.
Moreover, BOE shows its cutting-edge technologies and products such as QLED, mini-LED displays, a number of new applications and products including curved in-car display instruments and BOE iGallery.
E Ink shows their new 10.3″ flexible display with digitizer, also on the Onyx Note, reMarkable, the 13.3″ Sony e-reader, the dual 13.3″ Guido music score reader and note taker. The latest generation 13.3″ and 32″ color E Ink with new optimized color gamuts, pigments, wave forms, electronics, starting with the signage market for advertising, transportatation and other. Autonomous E Ink tiles such as they have installed at the San Diego airport. The Sony watch where the whole band is an E Ink display. Organic TFT (OTFT) displays backplanes done with Flexterra. Battery-less smart shelf labels, other demos with Plastic Logic, video speed refresh rates, embedded into credit cards, electronic shelf labels with displaydata and JDI. Visionect, Epson smart watch, LTS Smart Patch, eManga, Yotaphone and more.
Samsung Displays showcases their 5.09″ and 5.77″ light field displays for advanced AR applications, the first of it’s kind to combine AR, 3D and light fields into one portable display. Sound integrated in display through a future AMOLED phone, aqua force sensor, their highest resolution VR display does 4K in a 2.43″ 1200ppi display, with 250nits. They have an unbreakable display, a rollable display, a curved conformed display. Transparent HUD displays to eventually integrate into the windows and windshield of a car. Samsung’s 4K 31.5″ QD Glass and their 8K 65″ QD Glass displays are also showcased to highlight their cutting edge Quantum Dot based LCD technology.
CLEARink demonstrates their improvements at SID Display Week 2018, doubled the resolution, increased the color gamut by 30%, increased contrast by 100%, brought down the operating voltage to 5V compared with the 10V that they were operating at last year, significantly lowering the power consumption towards possibly weeks of battery life, they are looking at a 90% reduction compared with LCD. CLEARink’s eSchoolBook project has been in trial manufacturing in China over the past several months aiming for a mass production release by Q2 in 2019. CLEARink is showing 202dpi with sub-pixel rendering made on their own backplanes made in China. They have customized a front light that is totally reflection based using little power.
