Whom Do You Believe?

January 24th, 2012

It is difficult to know what set of AMOLED TV sales numbers to accept as real. For example, executives from OLED TV maker LG (via Forbes interview at CES) stated they hope to sell as many as 200K to 300K of their new 55-inch AMOLED TVs this year, and boost that number to the 2M mark by 2013. Not so, says the much more conservative estimates of iSuppli, the research group pegs AMOLED TV sales number total (not just LG’s) at just over one-tenth the LG goal (34K units) for 2012 and growing to perhaps 500K by 2013 and 2.1M units by 2015.

The big unknown and a powerful determinant of course, is at what price (assuming they can deliver)? The way-thin OLED display with knock out colors and razor thin bezel has been floating retail price numbers in the $10K range, with a precipitous drop to perhaps less than half that amount ($4K) by the end of 2012. But nothing official has come out of either LG or rival Samsung.

Part of that issue is ramp and yield, scaling the production of 55-inch OLED panels to go into production at the Gen 8.5 factory that LG plans to use. Back in mid-July 2011, LG’s CEO Kwon Young-soo stated the company was planning to move directly to Gen 8.5 (2200mm x 2500mm) panels. LG’s current Gen 4.5 plant is reportedly supplying panels to Nokia at a rate of about 4K substrates (730mm x 920mm) per month. This plant has been operational since Feb-2011 and can scale to 12K substrates per month. Nokia is using these OLEDs for smaller smartphone displays in a deal announced with LG back in Jan-2011.

In July, LG’s Kwon said the company was shifting away from the small AMOLED business in favor making the large-sized TV displays, with a commitment to launch by mid-2012. The CES Press Day, and introduction of the LG 55-inch AMOLED TV (55EM9600) was the culmination of that commitment.

But for LG, the numbers don’t quite add up with the company needing around 37K units per month (assuming a May 2012 launch) and the company previously stated that Gen8.5 fab can only produce 30K panels per month at 100% yield.

On the other hand, just the fact that we are discussing the question of unit volume and price for a 55-inch AMOLED-TV set is impressive in itself. How does that saying go… it’s not how well the elephant dances, it’s the fact that it is up on its haunches and shaking to the beat that is so astounding. Truth be told, LG and Samsung, perhaps even Panasonic too are planning to deliver in 2012, the AMOLED TV promised so long ago.

Quick somebody pinch me, we’ve been covering the technology for years, looking at jaw-dropping prototypes at major display and consumer events, only to have those same devices, shuttle back into the recesses of R&D labs, gone and forgotten until the next major confab comes along.

So getting back to the original issue, over whom to believe… Who cares? Bring it on, get those units launched and into the market. I can’t wait for the endless rounds of out-of-box and hands-on articles, Blogs and YouTube video’s on just how cool, thin, bright, colorful, and saturated, and if these displays measure up to the present king of the display hill, AM-LCD’s.

But this new year of the Dragon, and an election year to boot, here in the US, may prove to be the watershed year that a true AMOLED TV finally ships, albeit the wealthier side of the hoi polloi. Will it truly give us a reason to move that old LCD or Plasma dog into the garage, forcing us to dip into the kiddie’s college fund, or take out that second mortgage to bring home the latest and greatest, thinnest and brightest TV ever made? – Steve Sechrist

HP Touts Display Industry’s Fundamental Shift-”Ubiquity”

April 14th, 2011

For the broadcast universe here in North America, this week is NAB. And while the show isn’t known for revealing breakthrough display technology like at CES or SID, show goers were given a treat on Tuesday at the tandem Super-Session hosted by HP’s R&D guru, Phil McKinney, and the always entertaining Brian Cooley of CNET technology fame (by the way, he is possibly the best technology writer/ editor/ speaker on this side the business). But it was the McKinney talk from HP labs that literally broke new ground by revealing a paradigm shift in the use of displays, along with some ideas and concept models from the HP lab, shown for the first time ever at this year’s NAB.

The McKinney show-and-tell was an “immersive experience” which consisted of live camera feeds that create what the company calls a “Live field of view from the standpoint of the stage.” This is a double-wide HD stream of raw data (no edits etc.) using a set of camera’s and rig. There’s no director “…cutting and stitching together the overall story.”

This idea steals a march from the 3D camp where the idea is to slow down the action and become immersed in the scene. HP’s twist is to use a double-wide image and emulate a stationary person’s view of the event. At a concert, for example, the idea is to capture the event double-wide, stream it live and play it back for the audience to see it in another part of the venue-to truly experience what it’s like to be there. HP sees this live (unedited) streaming content applied to concerts and sporting events to re-create the experience for fans anywhere on the globe.

Next was shown a host of new concept displays including a prototype watch that serves double duty as a second screen for any device (smartphone, tablet etc.) you carry with you. The idea was first discussed publically by HP five full years ago. McKinney told the group that unbeknownst to him, watchmaker Fossil saw his concept presentation and went off to develop the idea into a watch/display prototype called the Fossil Meta-Watch. It’s a wirelessly connected display device that acts as a personal data aggregator of information from all mobile devices you carry. It allows you to retrieve content from a personal device, say your smartphone or tablet while they stay in your pocket or purse. McKinney gave the example of inconspicuously “…watching a news clip during the middle of a boring meeting,” giving ready access to vital information, that’s always available, right on your wrist.

Another interesting concept is what McKinney called the “Post-it Note” display. The concept is a pack of displays (like post-it notes that consist of a pack of paper) that you “…literally can peel and attach…and they become displays wherever you are at… so whatever area you are in-any surface in front of you can become an active display,” McKinney said.

This is based on flexible display technology HP has been working on for some time. Think of this as a pack of larger post-it notes-you peel off a sticky note (display) you stick it in front of you, they can even have tiny camera’s embedded in them. We literally print the display on a film-type backing, at such a low cost that you can turn any surface into a display. McKinney said, “We believe this is a fundamental shift that is going to happen over the next three to five years where the model will be, your computing device will no longer have a display attached to it. Everything around you becomes the display,” he emphasized. “The computer you have in your pocket, such as your mobile phone today, can do about 70% of what you need to do on a day-to day basis.”

When the cost of printed displays gets low enough, “…we can turn every surface, every table-top, every wall, and every conference room table into a display. And this concept of a ubiquitous availability of displays changes what the computing devices look like,” McKinney said.

We find the first two product concepts, a double-wide HD camera providing direct feeds to capture the “event” experience, and smart “Meta-watches that bridge content from any personal device, to a wearable solution, as great ideas that should gain traction in the near term. But it’s the intriguing notion of very low cost, flexible, printed displays that are as easy to use as the popular Post-it Note, that truly captures the imagination. But the real question is, can this dream hit the 3- to 5-year window that McKinney claims? If so, we should be seeing some evidence of this at the upcoming SID Display Week next month.  Suffice it to say the NAB Super Session on Media Devices in a Connected World, certainly didn’t disappoint. –Steve Sechrist

Google’s New Nexus S AMOLED takes on the Apple “Retinal” Display

December 7th, 2010

The world of smart phones is anything but static. Yesterday, Google unveiled its latest branded phone, the Nexus S, made not by HTC but by Samsung, the largest supplier of AMOLED displays in the industry. And, true to form, the latest iPhone rival sports a 4-inch next generation AMOLED display (480 x 800 pixels at 235 ppi) and a battery of new features worthy of an iPhone competitor.

Small Display OLEDs and LCDs Under the Microscope

March 9th, 2010

Dr. Ray Soneira over at DisplayMate Labs is at it again. You may remember his controversial comments found in these pages, on LCD motion blur where he concluded there was no “notable difference” between top of the line (120Hz) LCD TV models and standard (60Hz) refresh sets – both handle full motion video equally well. (See Oct 27, 2009 Display Daily for more details.)

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor

Now the discriminating eye of Dr. Soneira has turned toward smaller displays, this time the notable iPhone LCD (3Gs model) and a new OLED display found in the Nexus One Android based phone. The “Display Showdown Part III” covers these two displays in the popular applications with some surprising results that published last week.

First, the scorecard that ranked by points (win/loss) per display category:

iPhone 3Gs – 12 points
Nexus One – 7 points

Yep, good old LCD beat out OLED, the Cinderella display technology by almost two to one given Soneira’s strict scientific measurements… but that’s just the beginning of the story.

The display specifications are a good place to gain an understanding of what’s going on here. For example, even though the OLED display has a higher display resolution (840 x 480 pixels vs. the iPhone’s 480 x 320) the Nexus One lost points on its limited 16-bit color depth (vs. the 18-bit Apple that dithers to mimic 24-bit.) Also, the measured peak brightness of the OLED (229 cd/m2) was almost half of the iPhone’s (428 cd/m2.) Other areas of the iPhone’s improved image quality over the Nexus One’s OLED were in color accuracy, apparently due to the use of dynamic color and contrast control in the Nexus One. Finally, the LCD scored better in high ambient light contrast (47:1 for iPhone versus 15:1 for the Nexus One.)

Not surprisingly, the Nexus One OLED did pick up points in black level brightness, where “blacks were absolute black” according to Soneira, measured at 0.0035 cd/m2, versus the iPhone’s “dark grey” measuring 3.1 cd/m2 in black state. Low ambient light contrast ratio was 65K:1 compared to the relatively low 138:1 measured contrast ratio for the iPhone 3Gs.

But there is much more going on here than just measured specs. As Soneira points out, the Nexus One OLED display “…looks like a prototype…loaded with lots of rough edges, hasty unfinished beta display drivers, …poorly implemented image processing, poor system integration together with sub-standard factory display calibration.”

Soneira concludes, “It really looks and behaves like a prototype for a very nice future display, not a finished production display for a world class mobile device that Google markets it to be. It will be interesting to see the degree to which existing units will be corrected and improved with software updates.”

What we think really happened here is that the pressures of time to market may have caught up with the display engineering team over at Nexus One-with an eye toward rushing to launch, putting the fix/bug list off until version 2.0. Still, some of these comments are pretty hard to reconcile, even though matching this newly minted smart phone against the iPhone manufacturing juggernaut seems a bit unfair. But life is that way, and if you want to compete with Apple, you can’t go half way. Ultimately, we think this team will get it right as we look forward to the next display shoot-out installment. – Steve Sechrist

 

Is there a Flex Display In Your Future?

February 9th, 2010

At CES we reported on seeing the new tablet from Hearst Publishing spin-off, Skiff, a 10-inch EBR that uses LGs flexible e-paper display (TFT on metal foil). Now LGD is showing off the goods in its newest flex display with a whopping 19-inch flexible display on metal foil. How big is 19-inch you may ask? Open a Time Magazine (or other standard format publication) and hold it vertical from the top-that’s 19-inches with front cover and back cover, open and exposed. And even more impressive, the new LG display flexes-perhaps not quite as much as the flimsy Time (about 50 pages this week), but there is little rigidity in this “now you’re talking e-paper display.” Still no word on color, but the size and 0.3mm thickness means things are getting very exciting.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor

The company is confident that its new flexible technology will be a hit with OEMs and will open up the new e-paper market, calling it, “…the next-generation display sector of e-paper,” according to VP of LG Display Dr. In Jae Chung.

And this is no one-off prototype device. The company is planning the launch of a slightly downsized 11.5-inch (standard notebook paper size) flexible e-paper display production line, sometime before the end of June-2010.

Not many details were released on just how LGD got there, but the LG Display R&D Center described a “robust backplane process” in a paper co-authored by Chun, et al., and delivered at the last SID in May-09 by Chung’s colleague, Chang-Dong Kim. The invited paper is titled:Development of TFT Process and Circuit Integration on the Flexible Substrate to Enhance Flexibility of the Display. Here’s an excerpt:

“We have set up single STS plate process (short for stainless steel substrate) based on conventional a-Si backplane process and used a relatively thick STS (SUS430) materials instead of a thin sheet as a substrate to adopt simple processes without any carrier glasses and additional adhesive layer. …This process technology is very useful for adopting current equipments for mass production.” The paper went on to say the a-Si TFTs are back channel etched.

Digitimes reported on another aspect of the new LG flex technology saying that, “…to help facilitate flexibility, LG uses a “gate in panel” (GIP for short) approach that integrates the gate driver IC onto the flexible substrate. To save space, this component is usually attached to the side of the more rigid glass substrate panels, but would prevent flexing if side mounted here.

Chung has worked in this field of LCD for almost 30 years and spent the last 20 at LGP (LG and Philips) and now LG Display. At an earlier presentation given on flexible displays Chung once said: “…It is expected that the remarkable development of the printing technologies and the organic electronics can realize the rollable, extremely low price, and even disposable displays.” And while the industry is still working on a couple of those dreams (larger-sized disposable organics as in OLED), we do see the fruits of a lifetime of work in displays coming to light in the new LG Display 19-inch panel. We look forward to a variety of new larger EPH displays coming out this year, including flexible substrate mounted, like this new LG. – Steve Sechrist

 

End of an Era at Kodak

December 8th, 2009

They pioneered a totally new display technology in the 1970’s, developing it over the course of the next 30 plus years. They hold hundreds of patents that are licensed by dozens of manufacturers, and trained a cadre of display engineers that now span the globe, developing what may prove to be the central display technology of the next several decades. Yet in the end, it only rated a couple of lines in a corporate press release from Kodak last week – but it was a bombshell announcement; The company would sell its OLED business “…to a group of LG companies.”

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor

From Kodak’s corporate halls, it was the right thing to do, and the market agreed giving the stock a slight bump last week on the news. Simply put, the technology was going to cost too much to develop. Here’s how Kodak put it, in their curt 185-word press release:

“OLED is one of the businesses we wanted to reposition to maximize Kodak’s competitive advantage at the intersection of materials and imaging science. This action is consistent with that strategy. Our OLED intellectual property portfolio is fundamental; however, realizing the full value of this business would have required significant investment.”

Not that the company wasn’t making progress with OLED. At SID the company was working with Montreal based Ignis Innovation and its MaxLife backplane technology, and showed a new 5-inch AMOLED display using white OLED with an RGBW matrix color filter and the Kodak deep blue phosphor. Ken Werner noted in his July-09Large Display Report write-up that, “The pixels in this display had the same size as a 32-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) TV (370 micrometer pitch.)”

There was progress on the solid state lighting front as well. As recently as May-09, Kodak received a $1.7M US Dept. of Energy (DOE) contract for solid-state lighting development and commented on the progress of manufacturing, stating “Vapor Injection Source Technology allows manufacturers to significantly reduce unit-manufacturing costs, with high manufacturing throughput and material utilization that initially exceeds 50%, and could be greater than 75% in future manufacturing applications.”

DOE even gave Kodak an award for excellence in project execution, stating; “Kodak exceeded the project efficacy target of 50 lm/W, developing an Energy Star color and efficacy compliant OLED that delivers 56 lm/W, 10,000 hours life, color rendering index of 83.6, and a color temperature of 4,000K.” Dr. James Buntaine, CTO and vice president at Kodak OLED Systems was also quite bullish on the future potential of its technology, “OLED solid state lighting has tremendous potential to transform the future of the lighting industry – enabling future lighting systems that are significantly lower-cost and more energy-efficient.”

But perhaps most telling is this; after all the progress, research and development invested in the technology, Kodak was still selling its top-of-the-line 7.6-inch AMOLED display based photo frame for just under $1,000 and well out of the reach of mainline consumers.

Ken Werner said it best in a recent Display Daily, “As has been true for all display technologies, the path to high-volume manufacturing and larger sizes for AMOLED has been slower and harder than anticipated. That has… left most of the serious development to large corporations with deep pockets and patient corporate cultures.” So after 30 years, Kodak’s patience has finally run its course and the banner for continuing its OLED development is now passed to LG, where the new “K” in Kodak OLEDs now stands for Korea. – Steve Sechirst

 

The Cusp of a New Display Technology (-No, Not OLED)

November 17th, 2009

Do we need a replacement to LCDs? First, let’s recognize the display industry in particular has a “grass is always greener” mentality, precisely because we are talking about how to display greener (more realistic) grass… even in 3D, so the discussion is a natural one.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor

To be sure, LCDs have come a very long way from the monochrome low-resolution panels of yesteryear (remember amber laptop displays from Toshiba and others in the early 90’s?) On practically every front, LCDs have made significant strides and refinements; power, thickness, brightness, contrast, color saturation… the list continues. It’s a moving target for any display rival coming down the pipe.

But what would be the natural path of evolution for LCDs, now considered a relatively “mature” technology, in spite of all the recent improvements. By some accounts, LCDs take over one hundred processing steps and use up to 30 separate layers of material (albeit very thin films) to achieve the brilliant images-on the now ultra thin panels. Reduced complexity is perhaps the key to reducing cost, power and evolving the technology to the next level.

OLEDs are a less complex technology to be sure, but they still have materials lifetime issues, particularly in the blue color. What has been asserted of late is a relatively new technology (we’ve covered since 2007) called TMOS. It’s interesting because, it leverages the existing LCD fab infrastructure, and significantly reduces complexity in manufacturing by moving from “spatial additive color” the sub-pixel process LCDs use, to a “temporal additive color” approach using time to differentiate varied hues and shades of each red green and blue light output.

The company claims it needs just six layers and far fewer manufacturing steps, and the front plane can move to a very efficient roll-to-roll process. TMOS is the brainchild of UniPixel, and we did a couple of extensive write-ups on the technology in past Large Display Reports going back to 2007. Most recently our coverage includes the Samsung’s joint development agreement with the company (Feb-09) and a FlexTech alliance to support roll-to-roll conductor patterning capabilities (July-09).

There are power and other display benefits over LCD as well. Here’s how Insight Media describes TMOS in the most recent 2009 Green Display Report: “UniPixel’s states that their TMOS display technology is targeted to leverage a subset of the current LCD manufacturing process, offering the potential of lowering the bill of materials manufacturing costs by as much as 60% in some cases, while improving performance characteristics including lowering power consumption and increasing brightness over existing LCD and OLED flat panel display technologies.”

And that’s just the point. Given the investment in existing LCD fab and equipment, perhaps the next generation technology will be more of an evolution, “a subset of the current LCD manufacturing process” rather than an outright technology revolution. If this is the case, TMOS may just fit the bill. Anyway Samsung isn’t taking any chances.- Steve Sechrist

 

Are OLED-TVs on Track?

November 10th, 2009

Question: When is a 15-inch diagonal size considered a legitimate TV? Simple, when you add the four letters O L E D in front. In fact, Sony has done this for a couple of years now with its 11-inch XEL-1 “OLED-TV” and, at 3mm, it is considered the world’s “thinnest” TV in production. It is also the most expensive consumer TV (OK under 85-inches) on a per-inch basis, with a selling price of $2,499 or $227/inch.)

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor

Back in January at CES, LG showed its version of the mini-giant in a 15-inch package and gained the distinction to be the first native HD OLED-TV with a resolution of 1366 x 768 (the Sony is only 960 x 540 pixels.) Now LG is making good on their promise of delivering the 15-inch display in 2009 by announcing it is shipping (in Korea only) and claiming the world’s thinnest TV in production title with a new 1.7mm thin display-cutting the old record almost in half. That thickness level has grown from the 0.8mm prototype 15-inch panel shown at CES, by the way. Other specs on this display technology for the next decade include 100K:1 contrast and a 3M Korean Won ($2580) price tag that lets Sony keep the highest price per inch crown in the consumer category. (Truth be told, Panny actually holds the title with its $53K 103-inch behemoth that originally sold for $70K, a whopping $680/inch.)

At CES we learned the LG prototype panel was driven at 120Hz, and while watching an LG engineer make some adjustments, we noticed some signal noise that suggested the panel was being driven by two sets of vertical drivers (left and right). LG said the plan at the time was to manufacture the panels in mass production at Fab line 1 in Gumi, Korea. The engineer (wanting to go unnamed at the show) told us they would be in production “for sure” by the second half of 2009 and it looks like he was spot-on with that prediction.

In fact, OLED manufacturing is gaining traction in Korea, even while some Japanese manufacturers are dropping out. OLED-info.com recently reported that Samsung is mulling a Gen 5.5 OLED production line capable of delivering 1320mm x 1500mm (about 52- x 60-inch) substrates, which can be used to efficiently produce 30-inch OLED-TVs. This would require a total investment of $1.3B from the Samsung Mobile Display – the group who popularized small and medium sized OLED panels in digital cameras, cell phones and other mobile devices.

There was also a report that “several Korean firms” including Samsung, LG and “others” signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to develop OLED manufacturing equipment to produce large-sized AMOLED panels. The group is looking to usurp Japan as the major supplier of the tools to manufacture the next generation OLED panels-particularly targeting domestic Korea production. The news came on top of a May-09 agreement between Samsung and LG to develop such equipment, as reported by Chosun Ilbo.

But one Japan manufacturer, Kyocera, is moving the other way. The company recently reported closing down their OLED subsidiary that was working with UDC to manufacturer PHOLED panels for cell phones and other smaller mobile devices.

Perhaps above all, the news suggests that the move to large OLED displays is proving far more complex and investment heavy than previously thought. LCDs are a moving target in both price and display performance (plus the cool thinness factor), so OLEDs are continually challenged to deliver an ever growing set of parameters that are higher, better, and yes-cheaper than the status quo, even before mass production begins.

Is the technology (or rather the concentrated human thought) up to the challenge? Our best guess-yes, as long as the money holds out. Put another way-as long as belief in OLED meeting the challenge and delivering the goods holds out by those stakeholders who are leading the charge. You can’t help but cheer them on-for the world loves an underdog. – Steve Sechrist