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Display of the Year
Gold Award: Samsung Display’s 5.68-in. Curved (Flexible) AMOLED Display
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The Samsung 5.68-in. FHD curved AMOLED display represents a major milestone for the entire display industry – the world’s first truly flexible full-fidelity display technology to be mass produced and adapted for use in a mass-market product. Now being produced on a plastic substrate, the new Samsung display panel enables smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy Round to be curved, significantly improving a user’s grip. Smartphone users will be able to comfortably hold a larger-screen version of the panel with just one hand. The smartphone has a curvature of 400 mm, while human hands have a natural curvature of about 300–500 mm. Also, the display enables a more visually immersive mobile experience with a “landscape view” aspect ratio of 1.88:1, comparable to the Vista Vision technology (1:83:1) now used in most movie theaters. In addition, the curved screen is more readable thanks to a significant reduction in light reflectance. Samsung’s new curved display will later evolve into bendable and foldable displays that will further revolutionize the use of smartphones and other mobile-product form factors. The Samsung 5.68-in. FHD flexible display used in the Galaxy Round is fabricated on a special type of plastic that is capable of withstanding high processing temperatures to ensure adequate mobility, Vth, and other TFT characteristics. The plastic substrate is fabricated on carrier glass, and after TFT processing and organic material deposition, the substrate is removed from the carrier glass using a proprietary liftoff process.
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Silver Award: LG Display’s 55-in. FHD Curved OLED TV Panel
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LG’s curved OLED TV was introduced last year, bringing a new kind of viewing experience into the home. The TV uses LG’s WRGB OLED technology with an oxide TFT backplane, the company’s technical solution of choice for large-sized OLED panels. The panel is slim – only 4 mm thick with side bezel widths of 11 mm. At 19.2 pounds, the TV is also substantially lighter than competitive products. At the same time, it offers superior picture quality, achieving remarkably rich and natural colors through 8.3 million subpixels with the addition of white subpixels – 2 million more subpixels than competitive panels. The panel also delivers clear images with less than a 0.001-msec response time, 5,000 times faster than most LCDs. Most notably, LG Display’s curved OLED TV panel can realize deep and dark blacks with the capability of reproducing a wide spectrum of blacks, allowing for an optimal contrast ratio. In addition to the vivid and enhanced picture-quality experience, the curved structure of the new OLED TV panel offers viewing comfort. The curvature mimics a human’s normal line of vision, known as the “horopter line,” which makes it more eye friendly and allows viewers to feel less fatigue even when watching the screen for long periods of time. Users will also enjoy a more theater-like viewing experience because the curved screen has a wider and brighter field of view. The IMAX-like curvature of the screen minimizes visual distortion and loss of detail. LG Display’s curved OLED TV panel also incorporates the company’s acclaimed FPR 3-D viewing technology, which minimizes eye and body muscle strain during 3-D viewing. The added FPR 3-D film on the curved OLED TV panel offers better depth as well as a clearer 3-D effect.
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Display Component of the Year
Gold Award: UDC’s Green Phosphorescent Universal PHOLED Emitter Material
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OLED displays gained a large energy efficiency boost in 2013 when Universal Display Corporation (UDC) began shipping commercial green Universal PHOLED emitters to panel makers for incorporation into mobile products. UDC’s proprietary green phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED) emissive system can reduce an OLED display’s power consumption by approximately 25%, while providing excellent color in mobile displays. Adding green PHOLEDs to displays has increased OLED’s competitiveness with LCDs for mobile applications, and this new material is expected to be a key driver in the commercialization of OLED TVs. Through years of R&D work and achievements, UDC has produced UniversalPHOLED materials that provide record-breaking energy efficiencies, vibrant colors, long operating lifetimes, and manufacturing versatility. The green PHOLED emitter builds on the successful commercialization of UDC’s red Universal PHOLED emitter, first launched in commercial passive-matrix display products in 2003. PHOLED materials are expected to drive wider adoption of OLED technology and greater growth in the display and lighting markets because they significantly reduce power consumption and lower heat emission compared to prior fluorescent green OLED materials. Based on these advantages, UDC believes that all OLED products, including smartphones, tablets, TVs, and lighting panels, will benefit from the use of its green Universal PHOLED materials.
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Silver Award: Canatu Oy’s Carbon NanoBud (CNB) Film
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Canatu Oy’s Carbon NanoBud (CNB) Film provides superior optical performance for flat, flexible, or formable touch screens, displays, and touch-sensitive surfaces. This transparent conductive film is used in capacitive touch sensors for portable devices such as mobile phones, tablets, and digital cameras, and in automobiles that require excellent display readability in outdoor and bright indoor environments. With near-zero reflectance (less than 0.2%) from the CNB touch layers, CNB touch sensors improve contrast by up to 40%, and thus enhance display readability compared to incumbent touch solutions. In portable applications, the high contrast further enables the use of lower backlight power to increase battery life by up to 20%. CNB films have the highest transmission of any carbon nanomaterials, with 96% transmission at a 150-Ω/□ sheet resistivity, practically zero haze, and almost perfect color neutrality. CNB films are also applied in capacitive touch sensors for flexible wearable devices such as smart watches and flexible and foldable mobile phones and tablets. The films are highly foldable down to a bending radius less than 1 mm over more than 100,000 bending cycles. Another application of CNB films is in 3-D formed capacitive-touch surfaces in smart watches, home-appliance control panels, automobile center consoles and dashboards, and mobile phones. The films and sensors are stretchable up to 100% (twice their linear dimension) and can be thermoformed and overmolded with standard industrial processes such as film insert molding or in-mold decoration. Carbon NanoBud material is made from carbon nanotubes and fullerenes. Being carbon based, it absorbs light as opposed to reflecting as with commonly used ITO and other transparent conductive materials such as silver nanowires and metal meshes. This is the reason why CNB sensor layers have almost zero (<0.1%) haze and almost zero (<0.2%) diffuse and specular reflectance. When deposited on a substrate, CNB material forms a random network that is highly flexible and stretchable. Canatu’s CNB manufacturing process is environmentally friendly and cost effective, with CNB film produced from common carbon gases in a single process step at room temperature, on rigid or flexible substrates, and in sheet or roll-to-roll form.
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Display Application of the Year
Gold Award: LG Display’s G Flex
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LG Display’s G Flex smartphone incorporates a flexible OLED panel that is based on a plastic substrate instead of glass. By applying film-type encapsulation technology and attaching the protection film to the back of the panel, LG Display made the panel bendable and unbreakable. Compared to an OLED display panel based on glass, the flexible OLED panel is lightweight, thin, unbreakable, and features design flexibility. This allows for a design that naturally fits the contour of a smartphone user’s face. The G Flex’s OLED panel is vertically concave from top to bottom with a radius of 700 mm and only 0.44 mm thin. What’s more, the panel is also the world’s lightest, weighing a mere 7.2 g even with a 6-in. screen, the largest among current smartphone OLED displays. Plastic OLED panels are made in a process similar to that of glass OLED panels; however, the former uses a plastic substrate and a different “sealing” material. First, an organic matter called Polyimide (PI) is coated on the glass substrate. A proprietary, specially developed form of multi-layered organic and inorganic film is used to encapsulate the OLEDs and protect them from moisture. In the final process, to achieve flexibility, it is necessary to separate the glass and PI layer to remove the glass from the lower board, which can be achieved by applying a special layer. The board is naturally weaker once the glass is removed, so the back plate is then attached to the part where the glass was removed to ensure sturdiness. In the future, LG plans to make this process applicable to the production of large-sized devices, including personal laptops, monitors, and televisions, as well as eReaders and more.
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Silver Award: Google’s Chromebook Pixel
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Chromebooks are built for the way that people use computers and the Web today. They make computing faster, simpler, and more secure – for everyone. The LCD on the Chromebook Pixel is stunning, providing users with a rich, immersive experience. The 12.85-in. touch screen had, at launch, the highest pixel density of any laptop (239 ppi), and the 3:2 photographic format is specifically designed for using the Web (reducing the need for scrolling). Other statistics include a maximum brightness of 400 nits, a 60% color gamut, a wide (178°) viewing angle with IPS technology, and a 0.55-mm layer of touch-enabled glass fused directly to the screen (to preserve picture clarity). For users, text is crisp, colors are vivid, touch interactions are smooth – and each of the 4.3 million pixels seems to disappear into one spectacular picture. Google used a-Si TFT technology for the pixel to reduce the cost of the glass panel. The transmissivity of its high-ppi a-Si TFT panel was lower than panels fabricated with oxide transistors or low-temperature polysilicon. To attain low power consumption using a-Si, the company optimized the remaining components (including LEDs, optical films, and light pipe). The stack-ups can be seen in Fig. 1. The company’s goal is to continue to push the laptop experience forward, working with its entire ecosystem of partners to build the next generation of Chrome OS devices.
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2013 Award Winners
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Display of the Year
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Gold Award:
Sharp and Semiconductor Energy Laboratory’s IGZO LCD used
in the AQUOS Smartphone
The scope of connected applications for handheld devices is ever growing, as is the demand for information devices such as smartphones that enable us to see an enormous amount of rich content anytime, anywhere. The penalty we pay for this great performance has traditionally involved high-power demands and short battery life. In an effort to alleviate the need for this tradeoff, Sharp Corporation and Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) jointly developed a new IGZO technology that imparts crystallinity in an oxide semiconductor composed of indium (In), gallium (Ga), and zinc (Zn). This IGZO enables a display with both high resolution and ultra-low power consumption, characteristics that have in the past needed to be balanced against each other. In addition, the IGZO incorporates a touch panel, and represents the first time an IGZO panel has been integrated into a smartphone.
Sharp and SEL succeeded in aligning the crystallizing IGZO layer in the c-axial direction, which results in higher reliability of the device, in addition to enabling higher definition, lower power consumption (1/5–1/10), and high performance of the touch panel due to miniaturization and high performance of the thin-film transistor. The AQUOS PHONE ZETA SH-02E from Sharp can be used for 2 days without charging batteries because of its low power consumption and can be used 4.8 times longer than conventional units when displaying a static image, thanks to the IGZO. Improved recognition accuracy and response speed of the touch panel enable a better user interface as well. Pen input is also supported.
IGZO can also be applied to other, larger displays such as monitors, TVs, etc., since it corresponds to the same manufacturing processes of large motherglass substrates equivalent to a-Si. It can also be applied to displays other than LCDs; for example, organic electroluminescent displays. IGZO will also enable development of applications for non-display uses such as sensing devices. Sharp and SEL researchers believe that IGZO will become the core technology of displays in the future.
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Silver Award:
Shenzhen China Star’s 110-in. 4K x 2K 3D TFT-LCD TV
Shenzhen China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. (CSOT ) has successfully developed a 110-in. LCD TV that is the largest of its kind in the world. The 110-in. TFT-LCD integrates many innovations in LCD technology. It has a reported dynamic ratio of 50000:1, an ultra-high brightness of 1000 nits while consuming less than 1100 W, and highly saturated color reproduction with a color gamut of about 92% of NTSC. Moreover, through the effective use of shutter glasses technology in 3-D mode, the left to right eye crosstalk ratio is less than 2.5%.
CSOT’s goal was to develop an attractive display with an extraordinary visual quality that would enable entertainment applications such as gaming, movie, and multi-user communication. Such a TV will play an important role in bringing families together. Accordingly, the company wanted to develop a TV with a large LCD panel, high resolution, and 3-D functionality.
The 110-in. LCD was designed and fabricated in CSOT’s Gen 8.5 facility. To meet the above visual reality and entertainment requirements, 4K × 2K resolution (3840 × 2160) and shutter glasses 3-D functionality were implemented. During development, the major challenges were panel uniformity, power consumption, visual quality, and the creation of an electric and optical and mechanical (OM) system for the ultra-high-definition LCD.
It is well-known that large-sized LCDs can suffer from a lack of panel uniformity when resolution and frame rate are upgraded for playing films or pictures. In order to suppress mura and to enhance panel uniformity, CSOT improved its manufacturing processes in several ways. High transmittance technology, high transmittance vertical alignment (HVA), and local dimming with a 288-area LED backlight were utilized to reduce power dissipation. To support the 3-D mode with 120 Hz, fine stereo performance (FSP) technology was implemented in the driving system, which greatly improved both 2-D and 3-D quality. Since the ultra-high-definition interface is not mature in the market, the image-process system was assembled with an FPGA-base unit by CSOT. This 110-in. panel can receive any format of 4K × 2K video and is compatible with commercial transmission interfaces such as HDMI and DP. In addition, the large-sized panel accommodates the entire viewing angle of the human eye.
Besides the TV application, this 110-in. TFT-LCD can be used for advertisements and educational and office displays. Another area of focus for the company is to replace the LED boards commonly found in public-information-display (PID) systems with a much more colorful, complex, and detailed messaging medium afforded by this new development.
Display Application of the Year
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Gold Award:
Apple’s iPad with Retina Display
By using an organic passivation technology for the first time in a 9.7-in. display with an amorphous-silicon TFT, Apple engineers and their technology partners were able to fit four times the number of pixels into the same 9.7-in. (diagonal) screen found on earlier iPad models. The resulting pixel density of the iPad Retina display – 264 ppi – makes text and graphics looks smooth and continuous at any size. This 2048 × 1536-pixel display has set a new standard for mobile-display resolution in a panel this size.
The third-generation iPad, as with each iPad since the original, uses technology called mobile in-plane switching (IPS) to achieve a viewing angle that has established the benchmark in the tablet category. It enables users to hold the iPad in almost any position they want and still see a high-fidelity image. The consistency of gamma over viewing angles provides an enhanced viewing experience to end users in consumer, business, and education applications; from web surfing, photo-sharing, and gaming to medical research, business analysis, and elementary and higher learning applications. The custom cell design is optimized for maximum transmittance, which, in combination with a custom driver IC and backlight, enables high resolution with industry-leading low power consumption.
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Silver Award:
Nokia’s Lumia 920 Smartphone
The Nokia Lumia 920 smartphone is known for innovative imaging, wireless charging, and advanced touch technology. The phone has a PureMotion HD+ screen that represents Nokia’s latest innovation to radically improve display capabilities. The PureMotion HD+ 4.5 in. 332-ppi screen offers crisper graphics and less blurring while users are scrolling, navigating, and playing games. Nokia’s PureMotion technology addresses the inadequate moving-image quality of other mobile displays, allowing it to better leverage the high-speed rendering capabilities of its internal graphics engine. One of the ways the Nokia Lumia 920 prevents blur on a screen is with a response time faster than 16.7 msec. On average, it takes about 9 msec for transitions on the screen of the Nokia Lumia 920. This phenomenal transition speed was achieved by boosting the voltage to each LCD pixel – overdriving the panel. With overdrive-enhanced LC response, PureMotion display pixels finish their transition well before the update of the next frame for any pixel needs to start, resulting in a less blurry image.
The Nokia Lumia 920 is the first Nokia smartphone to have a super-sensitive touch display that works with fingernails or even gloves. This new ability is the biggest leap forward for capacitive touch screens since multi-touch gestures were introduced. The technology is adaptive, reacting to any conductive object that is touching the screen. In practice, the screen will automatically adjust sensitivity to provide the best possible touch-screen experience, making touch usage faster, more natural, and accurate. Super-sensitive displays have also been featured in other Nokia Lumia smartphones like the Lumia 720 and 520.
The Nokia Lumia 920’s PureMotion display also introduces a new level of outdoor viewing experience in mobile displays. In addition to the very low reflectance, which largely improves dark tone rendering in ambient light, PureMotion adds high luminance mode for backlight LED-driving and image contrast enhancement, on top of superb optical stack design. Together they improve the overall contrast and therefore sunlight readability. In an extremely bright environment, the Nokia Lumia 920 PureMotion display takes advantage of its backlight luminance reserve and becomes the smartphone WXGA (1280 × 768) display with highest peak luminance. This high-luminance mode works automatically, based on the data received from an ambient-light sensor.
Display Component of the Year
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Gold Award:
QD Vision’s Color IQ Optical Component
Color IQ optical components are advanced light-emitting semiconductor nanocrystal products developed by QD Vision, Inc. They are the first product to utilize quantum dots for commercial displays. These breakthrough components enable LCDs such as TVs, monitors, and all-in-one computers to achieve significantly wider color gamut with a far more natural and vivid viewing experience than that of conventional white LED systems. While most LCDs offer color quality that might reach 60–70% of the 1953 NTSC standard, LCD products utilizing Color IQ optical components can achieve 100% of the NTSC, Adobe, and sRGB color performance standards.
Designed as a drop-in solution, Color IQ optical components may be easily integrated into conventional side-illumination LCD backlight systems. The components are delivered as a fully packaged, sealed solution, made of a glass optical tube containing red and green quantum dots (QDs) that are combined, tuned, and optimized to achieve a customer-specified on-screen white point. Designed for very-high-volume LCD applications, Color IQ products deliver color performance meeting or exceeding that of OLED and direct-lit RGB LED systems, while maintaining the cost structure of side-illumination systems for mainstream LCD TVs. After a number of years in development, Color IQ optical components have been rigorously qualified and tested to meet the stringent product reliability and lifetime requirements of mainstream consumer-electronics applications.
Systems with Color IQ optical components use highly efficient blue LEDs instead of white LEDs as the excitation source that stimulates the optical component to emit red and green and transmit blue light. Color IQ optical components harness the unique light-emitting properties of a new class of nano-materials called quantum dots to emit narrow bandwidth light, which is ideal for LCD systems, delivering pure saturated colors to the front of screen. QDs allow for independent control of emission color and composition, with their nanoscale dimensions controlling the semiconductor bandgap. Their combination of efficiency, reliability, saturated emission, and color tunability are unmatched in any known material set.
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Silver Award:
Sharp’s Moth-Eye Technology
Sharp’s AQUOS Quattron 3D XL9 LCD TVs use “moth-eye panels” to suppress the reflection of ambient light and to realize deep black imagery. Moth-Eye technology incorporates a nanoscale design that is inspired by the eyes of the common night-flying moth. These Moth-Eye panels help to emphasize Sharp’s “four primary colors technology,” which enhances the quality of color displays, and also helps make imagery visible even in a bright room. These sets (AQUOS Quattron 3D, XL9 series, including 80-, 70-, 60-, 52-and 46-in. models) have a high contrast ratio to the level of 100 million:1 and images composed of approximately 8.3 million subpixels.
Sharp Corporation succeeded in the first-ever mass production of Moth-Eye technology using a nano-imprint process incorporating a large-sized seamless drum stamper. In the field of the optical films, low-reflective (LR) films coated monolayer-on and anti-reflective (AR) films deposited multi-layer-on are popular. An LR film can be produced at a low cost, but does not provide a sufficiently low reflectance. An AR film can provide a low reflectance, but entails high costs for production. Therefore, there are strong demands to make both ends of optical properties and costs meet. The Moth-Eye technology is a solution because it has a single-layer film of UV curable acrylic resin on a base film, even though it works as a multi-layer film optically. A single-layer film has merits in terms of material and process costs. In the meantime, the drum stamper is also produced in a cost-effective and industrially easy way that utilizes a combination of anode oxidation and etching of aluminum. With this method, 100-nm-size structures are formed spontaneously in a large area by merely controlling anode oxidation voltage, rather than by an overly sensitive photolithography process that makes it difficult to achieve uniformity in a large area.
The biggest benefit obtained by Moth-Eye technology is that it provides users with clear and high-quality images in bright places both indoors and outdoors. In terms of power consumption, Moth-Eye technology can conserve electricity with no loss of image quality since it is not necessary to increase the brightness of the backlight as much as you would with a lower contrast panel. In the future, applications for Moth-Eye need not be limited to electronic displays. It can be used, for example, in the glass of a picture frame at a museum or for a showcase at a jewelry shop.
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2012 Award
Winners
Display of the Year
Gold Award: AU Optronics's 55-in. 4K x
2K 2-D/3-D Switchable Glasses-Free TV Display
AU Optronics's 55-in. 4K x 2K 2-D/3-D switchable
glasses-free TV incorporating AUO's proprietary display made its debut in Japan
in December 2011 and is currently the world's first 4K x 2K TV display, as well
as the largest glasses-free 4K x 2K 3-D TV display commercially available.
This TV's LC display offers an exceptional viewing
experience in extreme comfort. The display features a 4K x 2K (or "quad-HD")
resolution of 3840 x 2160 for vivid and lifelike 2-D images. Meanwhile, a
simple switch by the viewer converts the image instantly into 3-D format, with
3-D support for up to nine positions based on the TV's built-in face-tracking
camera. Virtually no dead zones exist, ensuring the highest viewing quality
possible. This lenticular-lens 3-D technology eliminates the need for 3-D
glasses in order to view outstanding 3-D images. Viewers can now choose their
preferred viewing positions to enjoy a pleasant and comfortable experience free
of added eyewear or dead zones. For AUO's partners, the glasses-free 3-D
solution also allows for ease of incorporating the new panel technology into
their current systems. This compatibility heralds the growing commercialization
of 4K x 2K 2-D/3-D switchable glasses-free TV displays.
Silver Award: Qualcomm's mirasol Display
Technology
Qualcomm mirasol display technology from Qualcomm
MEMS Technologies (QMT) is designed to deliver color and interactive content
that can easily be viewed in a variety of lighting environments, including
bright sunlight, without sacrificing battery life.
The first device featuring a mirasol display, the
Kyobo e-Reader, arrived on the market in November 2011. Three more e-Readers
quickly followed, and additional products are expected in the coming months.
Beyond e-Readers, however, mirasol displays have potential application in a
range of commercial and consumer devices.
The core building block of mirasol displays is the
iMOD element, a simple MEMS device composed of two conductive plates. One plate
is within a thin-film stack on a glass substrate. The other is a reflective
membrane suspended over the substrate. The human eye perceives color as certain
wavelengths of light amplified with respect to others. The iMOD elements in a
mirasol display can switch between color and black by changing the position of
the membrane. This is accomplished by applying a voltage between the conductive
plates. When a voltage is applied, electrostatic forces cause the membrane to
deflect. The change in the spacing between the plates results in a change in
the wavelengths of light that undergo constructive interference. In the open
state, the membrane is positioned to create constructive interference in either
the red, green, or blue wavelengths. In the closed state, the membrane is
positioned to create constructive interference outside the visible range,
causing the element to appear black. A full-color display, meanwhile, is
assembled by spatially ordering side-by-side iMOD elements reflecting red,
green, and blue wavelengths respectively while in the open state.
The mirasol display is also capable of video. Since
visible-light wavelengths operate on the nanometer scale (i.e., 380–780
nm), the deflectable iMOD membrane only has to move a short distance – a
few hundred nanometers – in order to switch between two colors. This
switching occurs extremely fast, on the order of tens of microseconds, and
directly translates to a video-capable display.
The above properties give mirasol significant
advantages. Since the display is reflective, the brightness of the display
scales naturally with the ambient light level. This results in a consistent and
comfortable viewing experience across a wide range of lighting environments,
including direct sunlight. To extend the viewable range into dark ambient
conditions, an integrated front light is incorporated into the display module.
Additionally, the display is bistable, meaning it consumes near-zero power in
situations when the display image is unchanged.
Today, consumers are relying on mobile devices for
functionality previously addressed by other devices: playing games, reading
books, and watching movies – and they want to be able to do these
activities anytime, anywhere. All require more display use, which puts greater
strain on the battery, and with today's technology, most mobile devices are
limited to indoor functionality. Qualcomm mirasol displays offer both outdoor
viewability and longer battery life with minimal performance compromises.
Display Component of the Year
This award is granted for a novel component that has
significantly enhanced the performance of a display. A component is sold as a
separate part destined to be incorporated into a display. A component may also
include display-enhancing materials and/or parts fabricated with new
processes.
Gold Award: Nanosys's Quantum-Dot
Enhanced Film (QDEF)
The recent take off in the popularity of powerful
mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones offers a tremendous opportunity
for display makers in the coming decade. It has become clear that consumers
want a richer, more lifelike experience from their devices, and color
performance is one area where large gains can be made immediately to meet that
demand. The industry has focused on improving nearly every other characteristic
of the screen over the years – luminance, contrast, thickness, resolution
– often to the detriment of color performance. Color is the next major
differentiator in the display market and will bring a stunning new visual
experience to the consumer and a great new value proposition to the
manufacturer.
The color performance of an LCD screen is determined
by two parts of the display: the backlight and the color filters. Nanosys
addresses the color issue by offering a new backlight for LCDs. A standard LCD
backlight creates white light using a yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) phosphor.
The YAG phosphor produces a two-color light spectrum, dominated by blue
accompanied by a broad, yellow component. It lacks strong red and green
elements. QDEF uses the unique properties of quantum dots to create a pure-
white backlight that is designed specifically for LCDs. This light, made up
only of narrow spectral peaks in red, blue, and green wavelengths, allows for
wide color-gamut performance when mixing these primary colors at the pixel
level. It does this with great efficiency, allowing for a bright display
without requiring higher power consumption, thus saving battery life. A quantum
dot, which is about the size of a water molecule, can emit any color of light
at precise wavelengths. QDEF combines red- and green-emitting quantum dots in a
thin, optically clear sheet that emits white light when stimulated by a blue
LED light source.
The result is vivid color. High-color displays will
allow consumers to enjoy more visceral and truer to life content. And high-
color performance displays will make the digital viewing experience of photos,
movies, and video games more realistic. Filmmakers and video-game developers
will be able to more accurately bring their creative vision to life.
Nanosys invested about a decade of R&D to ensure
its quantum dots are of the highest quality and reliability. More than 100
patents have gone into the design of QDEF, and it has been tested to meet
industry standard lifetimes for TVs – 50,000 hours or more of use. But
engineering the quantum dots to meet display-industry specifications was not
enough to offer a powerful product for the LCD market. The dots needed to be
easily integrated into current manufacturing operations with minimal impact on
display system design. For this reason, Nanosys worked with major display
manufacturers to design a simple, drop-in product that does not require line
retooling or manufacturing-process changes. QDEF is a replacement for an
existing film in LCDs called the diffuser sheet. Manufacturers who have
invested billions in equipment for LCD production can simply slip QDEF into
their manufacturing process, change their "white" LEDs to blue, and start
producing LCD panels with OLED-like color performance and better energy
efficiency, at only a fraction of the cost.
Silver Award: LG Chemical's Film
Patterned Retarder Incorporating Merck's Proprietary Reactive Mesogen (RM)
Layer
A film patterned retarder (FPR) is an optical
component attached to a 3-D LCD TV's front polarizer to convert left- and
right-eye images to left- and right-circular-polarized light, allowing viewers
to enjoy 3-D images through passive-polarized glasses. The FPR consists of a
substrate, alignment layer, and a patterned reactive mesogen (RM) film. The
novel photoaligning polymer has very high UV sensitivity and a heat stability
that is suitable for film process.
The reactive mesogen film used for LG Chemical's FPR
is made using Merck KGaA licrivue materials. These RM materials are designed to
be coated on a variety of substrates to produce well-aligned birefringent
films. For FPR, the licrivue materials are formulated for coating onto flexible
plastic substrates by a roll-to-roll coating process. The coated licrivue RM
materials align and follow the pattern of the photoalignment layer. This
alignment is preserved by UV polymerization of the RM film to form the
patterned retarder.
LG Chemical commercialized this FPR for the first
time in the world in 2010. LG Chemical's FPR, which incorporates Merck KGaA
licrivue materials, is 10 times thinner and 20 times lighter than glass-based
patterned retarders, can be easily mass-produced, and makes enjoyment of 3-D
content more convenient. LG Chem has developed various key technologies such as
a novel photoaligning polymer, non-contact-type roll-to-roll continuous
patterning, and management of the dimensional stability of FPR – all of
which help realize superior performance in 3-D displays.
Display Application of the Year
This award is granted for a novel and outstanding
application of a display, where the display itself is not necessarily a new
device.
Gold Award: Samsung's Galaxy
Note
Combining the features of a smartphone and a tablet,
the Samsung Galaxy Note offers a large screen and new user input technology,
while retaining a pocketable design that allows users to capture, create, and
share in new ways. It utilizes AT&T's 4G LTE network to enable a premium
user experience.
The Galaxy Note is a portable communication device
designed with a 5.3-in. display featuring HD Super AMOLED technology. Its
high-resolution (800 x 1280 pixels) screen provides a dynamic, colorful, and
comfortable viewing experience for content such as videos, photos, documents,
and Web sites. Super AMOLED can depict more dynamic images since it has deeper
blacks than LCDs and covers 95% of all natural colors. Also, depending on the
screen's white area, AMOLED display adjusts its luminance for eye comfort.
The Galaxy Note includes a creative tool called the
S Pen, which delivers fast, responsive, and precise control to create fine
lines and detail on the device display, much like an ink pen and pad of paper.
The Note also features S Memo, a multimedia application designed to capture all
forms of user-created content generated by the S Pen. Pictures, voice
recordings, typed text, handwritten notes, or drawings can all be combined via
a single application, converted to a 'memo' and shared as desired. An easy
screen-capture function also allows users to instantly save any screen. The
screens can be personalized with the S Pen before being saved or shared.
The Note comes equipped with a 1.5-GHz dual-core
processor, making it extremely fast, with a smooth and seamless user interface.
Meeting extra rigorous security criteria, the Galaxy Note is categorized as a
"Samsung Approved for Enterprise" (SAFE) device. The addition of SAFE
certifications ensures that any organization's mobile work force can be
remotely managed and securely connected to corporate applications and data.
Samsung has also included a smart professional
planning tool that makes full use of the device's large screen. The calendar
integrates the phone's to-do list and schedule; and control and navigation are
intuitive. The Galaxy Note is outfitted with a premium accessories portfolio
including a desktop dock. A spare-battery-charging system allows for a
convenient backup charging solution.
The Samsung Galaxy Note's large screen and unique
input technology enable mobile communications in a more personal, creative
way.
Silver Award: Perceptive Pixel's 82-in.
Projected-Capacitive Unlimited Multi-Touch and Stylus LCD
Over the last 5 years, multi-touch input,
particularly via projective-capacitive sensing, has become ubiquitous for
mobile and slate devices. This approach, when implemented properly, can sense
an unlimited number of fingers with zero-force sensitivity at high sample rates
while preserving excellent display fidelity. Although there are many other
types of touch sensors implemented in other types of devices, for better or for
worse, the user base has come to expect the "feel" of projective-capacitive
touch sensing, and, similarly, developers have come to count on recognizing
gestures produced by such devices.
However, projective-capacitive sensing is
notoriously difficult to scale to larger displays, so it has been rare to see
pro-cap devices larger than 24 in., and these have only been achieved by
distancing the sensor glass so far from the display, with such a thick sensor
glass, that theresulting parallax makes the device unusable for serious
applications, let alone with a stylus. Display characteristics also suffer from
such a stack-up due to inter-reflections.
In August of 2011, Perceptive Pixel introduced the
first large-scale pro-cap interactive display that achieves the level of
fidelity and performance necessary for real productivity. It is the world's
largest projective-capacitive multi-touch and stylus display, featuring true
full-frame unlimited-finger touch and precision stylus sensing at 120 Hz across
a proprietary sensor that is optically bonded to an 82-in. LCD panel. The
display utilizes novel state-of-the-art projective-capacitive controller
electronics with an unprecedented signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), specifically
designed for application at these large dimen-sions and in optically bonded
sensor stack-ups.
This controller is also designed to track multiple
(four in this model) high-precision active styluses tracked truly
simultaneously along with an arbitrary number of touch contacts on the same
sensor substrate. These styluses are true digitizer-class devices, with
features such as subpixel precision, pressure sensitivity, hover sensing, and
barrel switches. This is only the second controller ever introduced with this
capability.
The unit utilizes a proprietary transparent
conductor sensor that Perceptive Pixel manufactures in its Portland, Oregon,
facility, constructed on a thin 2-mm Gorilla Glass substrate. Perceptive Pixel
then optically bonds the giant 82-in. sensor onto the LCD cell, again in its
own facility. Though there are incidental benefits in display fidelity, optical
bonding was deemed critical to this product's construction because a
professional user experience demands an ultra-low parallax between the display
plane and the interaction surface, especially when a precision stylus is
utilized. This process also greatly enhances the ruggedness of the system,
serving as a protective cover glass to the cell against the focused force of a
stylus tip.
The Perceptive Pixel 82-in. pro-cap display feels
exactly like a mobile touch device, only greatly scaled up. Perhaps, more
importantly, all applications designed for mobile devices work. Perceptive
Pixel utilizes a unique system architecture that integrates the raw, richer
sensor information at a much tighter level with the software frameworks above
it, allowing much more sophisticated gesture and contact classification along
with a dramatic reduction in latency.
The combination of both multi-touch as well as
precision stylus-sensing capabilities opens up new user-interface paradigms
that human–computer interaction (HCI) researchers are only beginning to
harness. Touch is great for its intuitiveness, power, and non-intrusiveness,
but it is not effective for sustained productivity or for precision work, which
is why it has not achieved significant penetration beyond consumer markets.
Similarly, as compared to pen-only interfaces, the
combination of these two modes in a truly simultaneous manner (not alternating
between one and the other) results in a synergistic division of labor between a
users' two hands, leading to measurable increases in user efficacy.
This device may allow users to realize a digital
replacement for the old analog whiteboard. Perceptive Pixel's 82-in. display
can be frequently seen on CNN as well as other networks being used to cover
this year's historic presidential primaries and election.
2011 Award
Winners
Display of the Year
Gold Award: Apple's iPhone 4
Retina Display
By developing pixels only 78 μm wide, Apple
engineers and their technology partners were able to pack four times the number
of pixels into the same 3.5-in. (diagonal) screen found on earlier iPhone
models. The resulting pixel density of the iPhone 4 Retina display – 326
ppi – makes text and graphics look smooth and continuous at any size. The
640 x 960-pixel display set a new benchmark for mobile-display resolution. The
iPhone 4 Retina display uses technology called mobile in-plane switching (IPS)
to achieve a viewing angle superior to that of conventional mobile LCDs,
enabling users to hold the iPhone 4 in almost any position they want and still
get a high-fidelity image. The consistency of gamma over viewing angles
provides an enhanced viewing experience to end users in applications such as
gaming and photo-sharing. The LTPS-TFT backplane design is fully customized,
including organic passivation and optimized pixel design for maximum
transmittance. Combined with a custom driver IC, this enables high resolution
with industry-leading low power consumption.
Silver Award: Samsung Mobile
Display's On-Cell Touch AMOLED
Samsung Mobile Display developed the
revolutionary On-Cell Touch AMOLED (OCTA) display for use in mobile
applications. The OCTA display has an integrated touch sensor that eliminates
the need for an additional touch-screen overlay. Until now, touch-capable
mobile displays have utilized an input sensor fabricated onto a separate glass
substrate, which is then laminated as a separate subassembly onto the display.
This extra glass layer has resulted in additional weight and product thickness.
Furthermore, the extra sensor-to-display interface layer causes a loss of
display luminance and is a source of internal reflections that degrade display
performance, especially in high-ambient lighting conditions, such as outdoors.
The OCTA display was developed to meet the ever-increasing performance and
industrial design demands of today's modern mobile devices. The touch sensor
integrated onto the display glass uses projected-capacitive touch-detection
technology to deliver multi-touch input capability with the highest possible
sensing performance. Additionally, because AMOLED displays are self-emissive,
they do not require the thickness, added weight, and expense of a backlight. As
a result of this new design approach, the Samsung OCTA display delivers
excellent performance and exceptional quality with a highly accurate and
sensitivity-optimized touch input in a module that is less than 2 mm thick. The
Samsung OCTA has nearly 100% light transmission and outstanding outdoor
visibility due to Samsung's elimination of the extra interface layer. Also, its
multi-sensor input capability enables gesture recognition for the most advanced
mobile devices.
Display Component of the Year
Gold Award: E Ink's
Triton
Color e-paper displays enabled by E Ink's
Triton color imaging technology deliver high-contrast, sunlight-readable, low-
power performance designed to further close the divide between paper and
electronic displays. With the E Ink Triton color configuration, a thin color-
filter array (CFA) is added in front of the black-and-white display, which is
based on E Ink's Pearl electrophoretic technology. The CFA consists of four
subpixels – red, green, blue, and white – that are combined to
create a full-color pixel. The result is a low-power, direct-sunlight, readable
color e-paper display. Triton enables color applications markets including e-
books, e-newspapers, e-magazines, e-textbooks, and digital signage.
Silver Award: ITRI's Flexible
Substrate for displays
The Silver Award was given to the Industrial
Technical Research Institute (ITRI) for its novel flexible substrate technology
that is compatible with existing TFT infrastructures and processes. ITRI's
Flexible Substrate is an inorganic dominated silica/polyimide (PI) hybrid film
in which the silica content can be increased as high as 60 wt.%. The film is
suitable for the fabrication of flexible displays in both batch and roll-to-
roll processes. The existence of networks between silica particles in a PI
matrix has been confirmed by 3-D tomography. The novel inorganic
silica/polyimide (PI) hybrid technology for flexible substrate is a significant
step forward in the display field. For batch-type processes, the flexible
substrate is easily prepared by coating a PI solution on glass carriers,
followed by fabricating TFT devices on the said substrates. The surface
roughness of PI/silica hybrid film as measured by atomic-force microscopy (AFM)
is less than 5 nm. It is therefore good enough for the manufacture of flexible
displays. Moreover, the adhesion properties of PI/silica film with silicone
oxide, silicone nitride, and ITO are very good without any other primer or
surface treatment process needed. The Tg of the PI/silica hybrid film is higher
than 400°C due to the inorganic silica dominated phase. Furthermore, the
high inorganic content of silica/PI reduces the coefficient of thermal
expansion (CTE). The silica content of the film can be increased as high as 60
wt.% while still reaching the desired optical properties. For the roll-to-roll
fabrication process, the ITRI flexible substrate attains a variety of
attractive properties, such as low CTE (20 ppm/°C, high transmittance
(around 90%); within a wavelength range of 400–700 nm), excellent
flexibility, and high Young's modulus (4.3 Gpa). Additionally, a flexible
color-filter active-matrix electrophoretic display (AMEPD) and a flexible touch
film were made on ITRI's flexible substrate. The novel inorganic dominated
silica/PI hybrid technology is a significant step toward the realization of
flexible active-matrix displays.
Display Application of the Year
Gold Award: Apple's
iPad
Apple's original iPad shipped in April 2010.
Industry experts were initially unsure how the new tablet computer, which was
larger than a smartphone and smaller than a laptop, would be received by
consumers, but nearly 15 million sold worldwide that first year (
http://www.apple.
com/pr/library/2011/01/18results.html
). The iPad's mobile in-plane
switching (IPS) LCD, combined with a multi-touch user interface and iPad system
design (it runs on the same iOS as the iPhone) turned out to mark a new era of
tablet computing. The iPad display provides a superior viewing experience, with
a minimized gamma shift over viewing angles by using advanced mobile IPS
technology. By working closely with display partners on all technical aspects,
Apple has customized the design to achieve a total optimization of display
pixel structure, LED, backlight, electrical circuits, and software management
to maximize the power efficiency. The iPad is able to achieve 9 hours of
battery life for 3G Web surfing and 10 hours for WiFi Web surfing by combining
this custom-designed LCD with an innovative product design and power management
system – all with an ultra-thin profile.
Silver Award: Samsung's Galaxy
S
In June 2010, Samsung Mobile launched
its first-ever premium portfolio of smartphones in the company's 15-year
history in the U.S. The vibrant display on each device attracted the attention
of both media and consumers and allowed the Galaxy S portfolio to succeed in
the smartphone market. Samsung Galaxy S smartphones provide a premium viewing
experience with a brilliant 4-in. display powered by Samsung's Super AMOLED
touch-screen technology. Super AMOLED technology design yields thinner
displays, delivering some of the thinnest, most responsive full-featured
smartphones in the industry. Due to its advances in color reproduction,
contrast ratio, response time, and viewing angle, Samsung's innovative display
technology makes watching movies, viewing videos, and playing games come to
life like never before, even in bright light and outdoor environments.
Samsung's Super AMOLED screen offers improved color reproduction that is 40%
higher than other leading displays. That means the user sees an incredibly
close match between the color quality on the mobile phone and that of the
original content source, whether it be film, video, or digital images. Super
AMOLED also delivers a contrast ratio of 100,000:1, which is more than 100
times the quality of other leading displays and the closest comparison to HDTV
standards. That means the Galaxy S will show the very brightest whites and the
very darkest blacks for unmatched vivid colors and clarity. In terms of
response time, Super AMOLED is 2500 times faster than the leading display
standard, clocking in at one-hundredth of a millisecond.
2010 Award
Winners
Display of the
Year
Gold Award: LG Display's 47-in. 3
-D LCD Panel
LG Display's 47-in. 3-D LCD Panel is the first
commercially available TFT-LCD module for 3-D televisions in the mid-40-in.
range. The panel works with polarized glasses to provide bright, high-quality
3-D imagery (and vivid 2-D imagery as well) that is comfortable for viewing,
without the crosstalk or flicker that can cause dizziness and eye strain. To
create the 3-D LCD, the company developed a new patterned retarder and its own
special process of glass lamination.The patterned retarder separates the
polarization states between the odd and even lines so that right- and left-eye
images can be seen completely separately. Right-eye images are presented by the
odd lines and left images by the even lines. Viewers' right and left eyes,
therefore, see different images with the polarized glasses, making the images
appear three dimensional. The retarder, in combination with the special glass
lamination process, enables a low surface reflection with no moiré
pattern, greatly improved luminance, and crosstalk-free imagery. The panel also
uses in-plane switching (IPS) for superior viewing. It employs LG Display's
proprietary technology to realize clear imagery and is the brightest of any
currently available 3-D LCD panels that use glasses. Moreover, the 3-D viewing
works with low-priced polarized glasses.
Silver Award: Pixel Qi's 3Qi
Multimode LCD
Active-matrix liquid-crystal-display (AMLCD)
technology is the technology of choice for many applications, from mobile
devices to large HDTVs. But there are areas where today's LCD is lacking: it is
power hungry, particularly when the display is optimized for high luminance; it
is not easily viewable in brilliant ambient light; and it is not considered an
ideal medium for comfortable, long-term reading. These are the challenges
tackled by Pixel Qi, a California and Taipei start-up company founded in 2008
by Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen. Jepsen previously co-founded the One Laptop Per Child
program, for which she developed an earlier generation of the 3Qi screen.
Today's version builds on her experience in delivering sunlight-readable
screens for children in less technologically developed countries – from
Peru to Nigeria to Nepal. In developing the newer 3Qi multimode LCD technology,
Pixel Qi added another requirement: the display had to be manufactured in
existing LCD fabs. The use of standard manufacturing processes and materials
enabled rapid ramp-up to volume production of reliable displays at competitive
costs: Pixel Qi has been making strides as a genuinely fab-less screen
developer. The 3Qi display has all the advantages of a standard backlit LCD:
rendering quality, full-color images and full-motion video, and high screen
luminance using regular backlights. But unlike standard displays, in high
ambient light levels such as in an office or home, the 3Qi display's reflective
mode contributes to the rendered image, allowing the backlight to be turned
down or off, which delivers significant power savings and makes for an
attractive screen and comfortable reading experience – with exceptionally
high resolution. Outdoors, the 3Qi display really shines: its reflective mode
renders a crisp image with the look of the best electrophoretic displays.
Display Component of the Year
Gold Award: N-trig DuoSense Solution
(for pen and multi-touch)
Touch is one of the primary channels through
which we experience our world and manipulate the objects making up our
environment. In order to create a way for people to interact more naturally
with their computers, N-trig created the DuoSense Solution, a dual-mode pen and
true multi-touch capacitive digitizer, combining all forms of input into a
single device for performing tasks with a wide variety of personal-computing
devices. Users can employ the pen to annotate on the screen or engage with two
or more fingers to manipulate objects directly on the computing device. N-
trig's dual-mode digitizer uses both pen and zero-pressure capacitive touch to
provide the company's true hands-on computing experience for mobile computers
with a single device. It consists of
The DuoSense Digitizer,
a customized capacitive sensor module, mounted on top of the LCD,
which enables direct on-screen manipulation using pen and multiple simultaneous
touch inputs, and enhances the overall user experience; and
The
DuoSense Pen,
which enables users to annotate, draw, and point to
objects directly on the screen, complementing the inherent multi-touch
capabilities. The DuoSense pen is available as either an electrostatic
battery-less pen or a battery-powered Digital Pencil, both of which correspond
to the same unique hardware.
Silver Award: RealD XL Cinema
System
The RealD XL Cinema System is an efficient polarization modulator that
mounts externally to a digital-cinema projector. It works in concert with
passive, circular-polarizing eyewear to produce cinematic-quality 3-D images.
The product was inspired by the need to present 3-D images on larger screens.
Single projector 3-D systems, at the time (around 2006) removed large portions
of the available light by using absorbing linear polarizers or spectral
division. The XL surpassed competing technologies by employing polarization
recovery to double the light throughput of 3-D presentations. A single
digital-cinema projector with XL is capable of showing 3-D movies at screen
sizes up to 80 ft. in width. The XL design was required to double the polarized
light output of the system and, additionally, perform under the conditions of
digital cinema. The system is robust in high optical flux (>30,000 lm), as
considerable time was spent on process development for each component and
subassembly. To maintain cinematic resolution, a careful optical implementation
overlays images to extremely tight pixel tolerances. Simple and intuitive
overlay adjustments minimize installation time. Once aligned and locked, the
system does not require readjustment over its lifetime.
Display Application of the
Year
Gold Award: Nikon COOLPIX S1000pj
The COOLPIX S1000pj is the first compact digital camera to feature a built-
in projector. With a simple touch of a button, the camera projects photos or
movie clips at up to 40 in. in size on any flat surface. Pictures can be
projected individually or as slide shows complete with music and added effects
that enhance the experience. The pico-projector unit, which was minimized in
order to be integrated with the digital camera, is based on white-LED
illumination optics and incorporates polarizing beam-splitters, a reflective
liquid-crystal–on–silicon (LCOS) microdisplay, and projection
optics. In order to utilize the light efficiently, Nikon developed optimized
illumination optics that include a type of free-form-surface optical element.
Silver Award: NVIDIA 3D Vision
A transition to 3-D across all major digital media and entertainment
platforms is happening now. With its NVIDIA 3D Vision technology, consisting of
software and wireless active-shutter glasses, NVIDIA is helping to bring this
technology to consumers, delivering ultra-realistic games, high-definition
video playback, a rich movie experience, and crisp photos – all in 3-D
with ultra-wide viewing angles. 3D Vision has been designed with top-of-the
line optics that are used in conjunction with 120-Hz LCD panels to enable two
1080-pixel full-resolution images per eye in 3-D mode running at 60 Hz per eye.
They are comfortable to wear and modeled after modern sunglasses, offering a
lightweight alternative to conventional 3-D glasses. 3D Vision eyewear is a
fully un-tethered solution, enabling free range of motion and up to 40 ft. of
wireless 3-D viewing. 3D Vision works with any 120-Hz certified display,
including the newest 3-D HDTVs, computer LCDs, notebook computers, and 3-D
projectors. The included NVIDIA software automatically converts over 450 games
to work in 3-D stereo out of the box, without the need for special game
patches. 3D Vision is also the only stereoscopic 3-D gaming solution to fully
support NVIDIA SLI, NVIDIA PhysX, and Microsoft DirectX 11 technologies.
2009 Award Winners
Display of the Year Award
Gold Award: Samsung's 240-Hz LCDs
Samsung has broken new ground with the introduction of its 40-, 46-, and 52-
in.-diagonal full-high-definition (FHD, 1020 x 1080) 240-Hz LCD panels. These
panels deliver unprecedented motion-image performance for LCD TVs, enabling
superlative image quality even for fast-action high-speed moving images. Recent
increases in LCD resolution, luminance, contrast ratio, viewing angle, color
gamut, and color depth have all brought LCD-TV picture quality to new levels,
but motion-image performance has been widely considered to be the final
obstacle between LCD TV and the ultimate viewing experience. Samsung's 240-Hz
LCD panels have now removed that obstacle with a highly innovative pixel-cell
structure and a new driving architecture that overcomes hold-type driving
limitations inherent in LCDs and other matrix-addressed displays. NTSC video
streams provide a new frame of data 60 times per second. In Samsung's new 240-
Hz panels, a motion-estimation motion-compensation (ME/MC) engine creates three
interpolated frames for every one incoming frame. The three interpolated frames
are inserted between each two incoming frames. Therefore, the viewer sees four
times as many frames as with conventional TV, which reduces by a factor of 4
the frame-to-frame image-holding time that causes motion blur. Motion
performance of displays is characterized using the motion-picture response-time
(MPRT) metric. LCDs refreshed at 60 Hz typically deliver MPRT values at about
16 msec. This level of MPRT performance results in significant motion blur for
fast-moving image sequences, especially on larger screens. In 2007, Samsung was
first to market with 120-Hz panels, delivering MPRT scores of 7-8 msec, similar
to that of plasma-display-panel (PDP) screens. Samsung's new 240-Hz panels
deliver MPRT results on the order of 4 msec, which is a performance level
comparable to that of a CRT. This type of "CRT-like" motion-image performance
was previously considered unattainable on LCDs and other matrix-addressed
displays. Key technologies that enable Samsung's 240-Hz system include an
advanced ME/MC interpolation architecture, new embedded-clock interface
technologies to handle the higher data bandwidth between the timing controller
and source boards, a new LCD panel architecture based on half-gate double-data
(hG-2D) driving, and a novel pixel structure based on charge-shared super-
patterned ITO vertical alignment (CS S-PVA). Samsung's CS S-PVA structure is a
key enabling technology that effectively doubles the available pixel charging
time, in turn allowing the 240-Hz panel's data lines to be driven cost
effectively with a single bank of column drivers.
Silver Award: Texas Instruments' DLP Products - DLP Pico
Chipset
Texas Instruments DLP Products has developed a way of offering large-scale
viewing of the increasing amount of mobile content consumers have at their
fingertips with the first generation of the DLP Pico Chipset. This new
technology is so small that device manufacturers can embed DLP projectors into
mobile phones and accessories, enabling enhanced viewing on the go. DLP pico
technology allows users to project enlarged images, video, and Web browsing
onto any flat surface. A coffee shop becomes a boardroom, a camping tent
becomes a theater, and the classroom wall transforms into the newest backdrop
for share-and-tell. By utilizing unconventional light sources such as LEDs, DLP
pico technology features an aperture ratio of more than 92%, tens of thousands
of pixel elements, switching speeds of less than 20 µsec, and TI's
DarkChip native-contrast-ratio process technology. In addition, the chipset is
capable of displaying the widest color gamuts possible. Images are produced
using the same technology that goes into all DLP products. Over 100,000 tiny
hinge-mounted mirrors are used to project up to 50-in. diagonally in size. The
initial concept for DLP pico technology emerged about 3 years ago. With a value
proposition of projecting the biggest image from the smallest box, an
opportunity to expand into new categories became apparent. The DLP team looked
at cell phones, handhelds, and laptops and identified limitations in screen
size and viewing capabilities. For example, when checking e-mail from a smart
phone, users cannot see an attachment.
Display Component of the
Year
Gold Award: Corning's Jade Glass for Advanced
Display
In January 2008, Corning launched Jade glass for advanced display, a fusion-
formed glass with high thermal stability, designed for the high-end feature-
rich mobile-device market. Jade works with two display technologies - low-
temperature polysilicon (LTPS) applications and organic light-emitting diodes
(OLEDs) - to solve some of the challenges facing the mobile-device industry.
Jade is the first glass substrate optimized for LTPS. Beyond this application,
Jade provides capabilities that may enable the scaling of OLEDs to large-sized
TVs. The amorphous-silicon (a-Si) process is used in the manufacture of LCDs
for TVs and monitors, while the LTPS process is used by makers of displays for
small devices. Compared to a-Si, the LTPS process is much more demanding in
terms of temperature, surface, and dimensional requirements, and while it may
seem a contradiction to talk about a high- thermal-capability glass for a
process described as "low temperature," that is precisely what is needed. The
LTPS process requires the glass to be very stable and not change shape.
Throughout the process, the glass must also maintain a pristine surface
quality. The keys are uniformity and consistency. The primary distinction
between Jade and other polysilicon glasses is that Jade needs no secondary heat
treatment or polishing to meet the demanding surface and thermal stability
requirements of the LTPS and OLED manufacturing processes. Previously, fusion
manufacturers (including Corning) needed to heat-treat a-Si glass in order to
stabilize it so that it could withstand the process - in effect, pre-shrinking
the glass. Not only does this pre-treatment make the entire process more
complex, it also creates the potential for the glass to change shape under high
temperature, and the extra handling can degrade the surface quality of the
glass. Polysilicon has always had the promise to deliver higher-performance
devices, but the limitations of LTPS technology have confined it to a small
portion of the marketplace. Jade will now help move LTPS technology forward,
providing increased flexibility for innovation in performance and
scalability.
Silver Award: Merck's PS-VA Mixtures
Polymer-stabilized vertical-alignment (PS-VA) is a novel LCD technology that
enables displays with very fast switching and very high contrast, as well as
high transmission. Thus, backlight brightness can be significantly reduced,
which prolongs battery lifetime in mobile devices and reduces power consumption
in TV sets - making both these products "greener." Lower backlight power, as
well as the PS-VA-specific LCD-electrode layout, also provide a cost benefit to
LCD makers. PS-VA technology needs very specific LC mixtures and also a
specific panel-manufacturing process: in the PS-VA mixture, a small amount of
polymerizable LC (reactive mesogen) is the key component. During the PS-VA
process step at the panel manufacturer, that reactive mesogen is polymerized by
UV light while a voltage is applied to the LCD panel. For well-chosen liquid-
crystal mixture formulations, display layouts, and process conditions, a local,
small deviation of the LC orientation from the vertical direction, or "tilt,"
is generated, which brings about the above-mentioned significant enhancements
in LCD performance. From a practical point of view, incorporating a tiny, but
well-defined amount of reactive mesogen into an LC mixture is not a trivial
matter, as modern displays demand the utmost purity in all materials. "Normal"
LCs are basically inert, but due to the reactivity of the new component,
special large-scale LC-mixture production processes and equipment as well as
new quality-control methods need to be employed (while also minimizing any
drawbacks in takt time and yield).
Display Application of the
Year
Gold Award: Amazon.com's Kindle 1
The Amazon Kindle is a revolutionary portable reader that wirelessly downloads
books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers to a crisp, high-resolution
electronic-paper display that is designed to look and read-like real paper,
even in bright sunlight. Kindle uses a display technology called electronic
paper that provides a sharp black-and-white screen that works by using ink,
just like books and newspapers, but displays the ink particles electronically.
It reflects light like ordinary paper and uses no backlight, which helps
eliminate the eyestrain and glare associated with other electronic displays
such as computer monitors or PDA screens. Amazon's stated goal is to offer the
world's best purpose-built reading device. The company's long-term vision for
Kindle is to have every book ever published, in any language, in print or out
of print, all available in less than 60 sec. It started out with 90,000
available books in 2008 and today offers over 260,000 books, plus newspapers,
magazines, and blogs.
Silver Award: iZ3D's 3-D Monitor
In 2005, Neurok Optics decided that the autostereoscopic solutions it had been
developing for monitors lacked the necessary "wow" factor for users. But the
company was eager to attract a U.S. game-playing population of 100 million and
encouraged by the increasing number of 3-D game titles on the market. It
therefore made the decision to compromise its original goal of unaided 3-D
viewing with the idea that consumers would find it preferable to wear some
vision aid that enabled a 3-D "wow" factor as opposed to autostereoscopic 3-D
with limited 3-D effects. Neurok then used the intrinsic electro-optical
characteristics of liquid crystals to create its "iZ3D" technology with stacked
panels in which liquid-crystal material acts as a polarized light-directing
valve. The software algorithm of iZ3D's polarization-based technology creates
slightly different images for the left and right eye. But unlike film with
fixed polarizer angles for projectors, iZ3D controls left- and right-eye images
by dynamically changing the polarity of each picture element (pixel). Left- and
right-eye images are addressed and controlled simultaneously. With the
software-based iZ3D image-control algorithm, the back TFT-LCD controls the
intensity of the transmitted light and the front TFT-LCD controls the
polarization angle of the transmitted light. In actuality, iZ3D updates images
60 times per second. However, the change to the required polarization angle is
performed subpixel by subpixel. That means that for 1680 x 1050 resolution, up
to 600 million subpixels are reoriented every second for each image frame
change. The polarizer films on the back LCD panel determine the polarizer axis
of the light as it enters the front panel. To dynamically control the light
transmission of the back and the front panel, iZ3D takes advantage of liquid
crystal's inherent polarizing characteristics: the liquid crystal of the front
panel redirects the entering polarized light, according to the degree of the
liquid-crystal twist. To control the liquid-crystal twist, an electrical field
is applied. Varying the electric field, subpixel by subpixel, results in
polarization angle changes for each subpixel. The specific liquid-crystal
material in iZ3Ds will respond to electrical-field changes with changes in the
polarization angle anywhere between 45 and 135°. This method of
simultaneously addressing, controlling, and displaying left- and right-eye
images creates flicker-free images for comfortable, prolonged 3-D viewing
enjoyment. The 22-in.-wide iZ3D monitor is a 2-D/3-D switchable display bundle
that includes passive 3-D glasses and stereoscopic 3-D display drivers. The
monitor is designed for work in 2-D and for single- and multiple-player gaming
in 3-D. Watching 3-D movies and videos is also supported with the addition of a
software stereo player. The LCD panels feature a 16:9 aspect ratio with 1680 x
1050 resolution, 300-nit luminosity, and 5-msec response time. Inputs are
dual-video DVI/DVI or DVI/VGA to drive the two stacked LCD panels. The monitor
works with all current graphic cards that have dual outputs.
2008 Display Industry Awards
Display of the Year Award
Gold Award: Sony Corp. - OLED TV XEL-1
The promise of OLED TV has been on the horizon for several years, and Sony won
the race to market with its slim XEL-1, changing the form factor of television
while delivering excellent picture quality. The 11-in. (measured diagonally)
XEL-1 model is about 3 mm thin at its thinnest point and offers picture quality
with extremely high contrast, outstanding brightness, exceptional color
reproduction, and a rapid response time. It was introduced Dec. 1, 2007 in
Japan and in January 2008 in the U.S. and incorporates Sony's independently
developed "Organic Panel. The "Organic Panel" has been under development for
more than 10 years. With its light-emitting structure, an OLED display can
prevent light emission when reproducing shades of black, resulting in very deep
blacks and a contrast ratio of more than 1,000,000:1. The lack of a backlight
allows the device to control all phases of light emission from zero to peak
brightness. The innovative technology delivers exceptional color expression and
detail without wasting power, so it is an exceptional energy-saver. Since OLED
technology can spontaneously turn the light emitted from the organic materials
layer on and off when an electric current is applied, it features rapid
response times for smooth, natural reproduction of fast-moving content such as
sports and action scenes in movies.
Silver Award: Samsung SDI Co. Ltd. - 2-in. QVGA Ultra-Slim Low-Power High-
Contrast Wide-Color-Gamut AMOLED Module
Samsung SDI's 2-in. QVGA ultra-slim, low-power, high-contrast, wide-color-gamut
AMOLED module, which started mass production in August 2007, represents the
vanguard in OLEDs for mobile displays. This product is a 2-in. QVGA AMOLED
module that is used in the Nokia Prism and Arte collections of mobile phones.
It contains applied fine-metal-mask (FFM) evaporation technology on low-
temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) substrates. This AMOLED display has a
resolution of 240 x 320, a luminance of 180 cd, a viewing angle of 180°
(all directions), no visible flickering, 100% color gamut in comparison to NTSC
with up to 16 million colors, and a power consumption typically around 120 mA.
This model is the strongest entrant yet to compete with TFT-LCDs in the high-
end mobile-phone market, thanks to its slim form factor, low power consumption,
extra-wide color reproducibility, and extremely high contrast ratio.
Display Component of the
Year
Gold Award: Luminus Devices, Inc. - PhlatLight Backlight Unit
Luminus Devices has already made a considerable impact on the display market,
having successfully proven its PhlatLight® LEDs as suitable replacements
for mercury-arc lamps used in projection TVs and projectors. This experience
provided Luminus with the insight and understanding to apply the unique
characteristics of its PhlatLight technology to other display applications. The
high flux and collimated light output of PhlatLight LEDs have now enabled, for
the first time, edge-lit backlight units (BLUs) for very large-screen LCD TVs
with diagonals larger than 40 in. The PhlatLight BLU is making the large-screen
LED-backlit LCD TVs viable by reducing the price premium of LED backlights and
driving the adoption of LED backlighting into mass markets. High-volume
production and system scalability to larger and smaller sizes will help bring
the performance and ecological benefits of LED backlighting to all types and
sizes of TVs, monitors, and digital-signage displays, with LCD TVs
incorporating PhlatLight LED backlight units expected in stores by the end of
2008.
Silver Award: FUJIFILM Corp. - WV-EA Film
Before now, TN-mode LCDs were mainly used for monitors smaller than 19 in. In
monitors larger than 19 in. and TV sets bigger than 20 in., IPS or VA mode were
the norm, but of late, TN-mode LCDs have been appearing in these larger-sized
displays as well due to lower cost, the faster response time of TN-mode LCDs,
and the improvement of WV film. In particular, the development of "WV-EA"
contributes to the size expansion of TN-mode LCDs. "WV-EA" is a new WV film for
TN-mode LCDs suitable for large-sized wide-aspect-ratio LCD monitors and LCD-TV
sets. The "WV-EA" film that was initially developed in 2005 achieved a further
viewing angle expansion (see figure) for monitors, but not for TV applications
because of the existence of mura on the coating surface. The thickness mura
(non-uniformity or unevenness) in the alignment and polymerized discotic
material (PDM) layer occurred with the conventional coating method, mainly
caused by the fluctuation of airflow in the drying process. This mura gave rise
to optical fluctuation, and it was a critical issue for larger panel sizes.
Some additives were used and adjusted to improve the thickness mura. However,
it is quite difficult to control both the thickness uniformity and the
viewing-angle performance because the additive changed the optical properties
of the WV film. The "WV-EA" film introduced in 2007 has succeeded in remarkably
improving the thickness uniformity. Here, FUJIFILM has introduced new airflow
control technology with the precise control of airflow directions and speed in
the drying chamber. In addition, the company has developed a new additive that
makes compatible the thickness uniformity with the optical properties. These
improvements have allowed the "WV-EA" film to expand in TV applications, which
have never been possible with the conventional WV films.
Display Application of the
Year
Gold Award: Apple - iPhone
Introduced in June 2007, the iPhone created a frenzy of interest that
superceded the buzz for any consumer-electronics device that had come before
it. From a display perspective, the iPhone is notable for what Apple calls the
Multi-Touch display, a 3.5-in. (diagonal) widescreen display with a 480 x 320-
pixel resolution at 163 ppi. The iPhone uses projected-capacitive touch
technology in two different implementations as described in Apple's patent
application. The first, which Apple calls "self capacitance," is a simple
passive array of 24 x 36 sensing electrodes in a single plane. Commonly known
as a "matrix" touch panel, this is often used in applications such as
industrial control panels, membrane keyboards, and other situations where a
limited number of well-defined areas on a surface need to be made touch
sensitive. Since it is basically a low-resolution architecture, it is not
regularly applied to displays. The second implementation is a more-traditional
structure consisting of two sets of parallel rows of transparent conductors,
one on each side of a substrate, perpendicular to each other. Apple calls this
implementation "mutual capacitance." What makes this remarkable is that Apple's
firmware processes and outputs up to 15 simultaneous touches. This gives the
iPhone's user interface (UI) a tremendous amount of flexibility in terms of
recognizing different types of touches, which is vital since there is no
traditional phonepad - the entire display serves as the UI.
Silver Award: RealD - ZScreen and Electronic 3-D Cinema
The ZScreen was developed by StereoGraphics Corp. of San Rafael, California,
which was purchased by RealD in 2005. The team that created the ZScreen was
lead by Lenny Lipton and included Art Berman and Lhary Meyer. Its original
application was as a modulator for CRT monitors used for stereoscopic viewing
of molecular modeling images for Evans & Sutherland workstations. The same
team also designed the CrystalEyes product that has been the standard for
scientific and engineering visualization for almost two decades. The ZScreen
was developed into a projection device used with CRT projectors and then with
DMD projectors. The modulator itself consists of a sheet polarizer in optical
series with two pi-cells that are driven out of phase. The technology was first
suggested by James Fergasen as a communications device, and he worked with
Lipton to perfect its application to moving image projection. The ZScreen was
applied for the theatrical application at RealD by a team lead by Josh Greer
with Matt Cowan, who developed the cross-talk reduction process. The future
looks bright for the stereoscopic cinema, which is experiencing a creative
renaissance as filmmakers explore the new medium. This rebirth of the cinema is
being enthusiastically greeted by audiences all over the world.
2007*
*Note: The year of the awards was changed in 2007 to reflect the year in which
the award was given out - hence, there is no 2006 award.
Display Component of the Year
Gold Award: Corning Inc. Eagle XG™ Glass Substrate
Launched in 2006, EAGLE XG™ Glass Substrate is the industry's first LCD
glass substrate that contains no added heavy metals and halides-traditionally,
glass production has required the use of arsenic, antimony and/or halides to
prevent bubbles in the glass. EAGLE XG is currently the most environmentally
friendly substrate available. Its revolutionary new glass composition provides
added value while retaining all of the enabling attributes of the previous
industry standard, Corning EAGLE2000™ substrates, including density,
durability, thermal properties and a pristine surface optimized for the
manufacture of large, high-resolution displays. At the end-of-life for an LCD
with EAGLE XG, the absence of hazardous materials increases the options for
recycling and makes disposal less of an issue.
Silver Award: Luminus Devices PhlatLight LEDs
PhlatLight™ LEDs (light-emitting diodes) are an advanced solid-state
light source based on Luminus Devices' patented photonic lattice technology.
PhlatLight LEDs have an embedded, sub-wavelength microstructure that radically
influences the way light is emitted out of the LEDs. Luminus has leveraged its
expertise in photonic lattice technology to develop the proprietary PhlatLight
product family for use in a variety of applications, including projection TVs
and other advanced, high-definition displays. PhlatLight technology optimizes
light extraction by suppressing the lateral propagation of photons inside the
chip of LEDs. The photonic lattices direct the photons to the front surface of
the LED, emitting substantially more light and in a narrower, collimated beam
that is more readily collected and delivered to its target than with
traditional LEDs. The photonic-lattice technology in PhlatLight products is
what sets them apart as an entirely new category of LEDs.
Display of the
Year
Gold Award: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.: High Contrast, Wide Color Gamut,
LED-Backlit LCD TV (LE40M91B)
The Samsung LE40M91B 40-inch LED backlit TV lead the pack of LED-backlit TVs
that entered the marketplace in force for the first time in 2006. This thin-
film transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT-LCD) TV combines superior
brightness and maximum image fidelity to deliver a high-quality high-definition
(HD) viewing experience. Featuring a dynamic contrast ratio of 10,000:1-the
highest available today-the sleek, new LE40M91B allows for exceptionally dark
blacks against the brightest whites. By re-mapping the complete range of
primary colors through a mercury-free LED backlight, Samsung has extended the
wide color gamut to an industry-leading 145% of the EBU standard. Its high-
definition 1366x768 pixel resolution accentuates the panel's subtly understated
black sheen appearance with richly textured wide-screen panoramas in a 16:9
aspect ratio. Other significant visual achievements include the incorporation
of 10-bit gray-level fidelity, elimination of motion judder, and prevention of
smearing along the edges of the picture that can occur on flat screens during
fast-moving scenes. With a response time of less than 8 milliseconds, the
LE40M91B is virtually free of motion-picture blur with no false contouring. The
display's refresh rate of 100Hz (EU), 120Hz (NTSC) produces an extremely clear
picture with virtually no ghosting. In normal TVs, a new visual frame appears
every 1/50th of a second (EU) or 1/60th of a second (US). Hold-type driving
used in flat displays at this rate can result in the appearance of blurred
images. By interpolating a new frame to be inserted between each set of
incoming frames, the tendency toward motion-blur artifacts appears to have been
virtually eliminated based on early reviews.
Silver Award: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.: World's First 103-Inch
Diagonal 1080p Plasma Display
When it comes to displays, bigger is often better, and the sheer size of
Panasonic's 103-inch diagonal 1080p Plasma TV is certainly an attention-
grabber-it is the largest plasma display in the world. However, the performance
of the TH-103PF series of plasma TVs was the reason for its selection as the
2007 Display of the Year Silver Award winner, not just its size. With industry
leading 16-bit color reproduction, the TH-103PF series provides a wide-screen
progressive display featuring full high-definition (HD) pixel resolution of
1,920 horizontal x 1,080 vertical, a contrast ratio of 5,000:1, and 4,096
equivalent steps of color gradation, delivering clear, crisp and dramatic
fast-action video images. This 1080p display's screen resolution, which amounts
to about 2 million pixels, equals twice the resolution of high-definition
televisions that are commonly available today. It boasts an effective display
area of approximately 89 inches wide by 50 inches high, which is equivalent in
size to four 50-inch Panasonic plasma displays. A contrast-management system
optimizes the contrast for each individual portion of the image displayed,
while a high-precision Motion Pattern Noise Reduction circuit adjusts the image
to enhance picture quality by detecting motion patterns that generate noise.
Panasonic overcome numerous technical hurdles by developing a new rib structure
and phosphor for these super large panels. The 103-inch 1080p plasma panel
features consistent and uniform discharge, delivering the same accurate images
from the center to every corner of the screen and brightness as the current 50
-inch HD model.
Display Application of the
Year
Gold Award: Actuality Systems Inc.: PerspectaRAD
PerspectaRAD is a significant step forward in the display field because it is
the first time a high-resolution volumetric 3-D display is in pre-clinical
studies for cancer treatment. It is the first display technology to deliver
high-resolution, real-time animated medical imagery to clinicians in true
autostereoscopic 3-D (3-D without "goggles"). PerspectaRAD is a combination of
cancer-treatment software, a volumetric 3-D display, and a 3-D haptic
interface-it connects to existing Philips Medical radiation therapy work
stations to give radiation oncologists improved tumor coverage with high
accuracy. The traditional method of radiation oncology is problematic because
doctors are performing a complex 3-D procedure on 2-D displays. PerspectaRAD
solves these problems, allowing physicians to view the CT scan in a true
volumetric 3-D display: the Perspecta Spatial 3-D Display. It creates a
floating, hologram-like 3-D image that can be seen from any angle. It instantly
lets the doctors see the location of the tumor and organs in relation to each
other. The Perspecta Display includes software and hardware that take 3-D data,
such as a CAT scan, and "slices" it into 198 pieces around a central axis, like
slicing an apple. The sequence of slices are relayed by several-fold mirrors
and focused by spinning projection optics onto a diffuse screen that rotates at
900 rpm. The imagery and the screen are synchronized, and in aggregate create a
walk-around 3-D image 10 inches in diameter composed of 100 million voxels
(volume pixels). It is the highest-resolution volumetric display ever built,
and is run off a single Windows XP PC.
Silver Award: Motorola MOTOFONE F3
Motorola's Motofone F3 handset employs a revolutionary ClearVision display that
addresses the concerns that have made cell phone adoption in many emerging
nations an issue, specifically cost and power usage. This the first time that a
bistable display technology has been used in a high-volume product. The
Motofone F3's ClearVision display leverages low-cost, low-power
electrophoretic-display (EPD) technology from E Ink Corp. to provide users with
a 2-inches-diagonal, highly readable screen viewable even in bright sunlight.
The Motofone F3 is one of the few entry-level mobile phones that incorporates
significant technology innovations including the EPD, dual antenna, single
transducer and other SW improvements into a highly affordable device.
2005
Display Industry
Awards
Gold Award:
The Philips 3D Solutions 42-in. 3D Intelligent Display is perhaps the most
comprehensive 3D solution on the market today. It is tailored to professional
markets including digital signage, a growing area of interest for 3D displays,
which can attract more attention than traditional 2D signs. The 42-in. LCD with
slanted multi-view lenticular lens technology is based on Philips WOWvx
technologies, and provides autostereoscopic 3D images with full brightness (460
cd/m2), full contrast (1000:1) and true color representation. The display is
based on a 1920x1080 high-definition (HD) panel, enabling great picture quality
in both 2D and 3D mode. It allows multiple users to view 3D content at the same
time within a large comfort zone.
Silver Award:
Sharp Corp. and Sharp Laboratories of Europe Ltd.'s Two-Way Viewing Angle LCD,
the world's first mass-produced display capable of showing different
information simultaneously to two different users. It initially rolled out in
July 2005 as a 7-in. w-VGA LCD based on Sharp's parallax barrier 3D technology.
A parallax barrier is superimposed on a thin-film-transistor (TFT) LCD, causing
light from the backlight to separate into right and left directions. This
allows the two images to be separated by a wide angle, with each viewing
position enjoying considerable viewing freedom and minimal cross talk (or image
mixing). The product was initially targeted for the automotive market, allowing
the driver to view a GPS screen or safety information while the passenger can
watch a DVD or, eventually, digital TV. Sharp believes the market for this
technology extends beyond the car, and says it can be applied to any display
technology, including emissive displays, and for any screen size, from the
smallest mobile phone display to a 65-in. screen.
Display Product of the Year
Awards
Gold Award:
SmartDisplayer Technology Co. Ltd.'s Smart Card with Embedded Electronic Paper
Display is a flexible, 0.25mm-thin, ultra-low-power bistable display. SiPix
Imaging Inc.'s Microcup® Electronic Paper distinguishes this smart card,
allowing for increased security, control and personalization. This is the first
flexible display panel to be embedded into an ISO-compliant payment card. The
DisplayCard was developed by Innovative Card Technologies and authentication
expert nCryptone. Due to the challenging requirements for the DisplayCard,
Innovative Card Technologies/nCryptone chose SmartDisplayer's flexible display
for several reasons: flexibility, low power consumption, impact-resistiveness,
and extreme thinness. SiPix Microcup® Electronic Paper met all these
requirements, with the added benefit of display-image retention even with the
power removed.
Silver Award:
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s Pocket Imager (SP-P300ME) is the world's first
market-launched projector with a light-emitting-diode (LED) light source,
offering unparalleled brightness (25 ANSI lumens) and contrast ratio (1000:1)
when compared to other similar-sized projectors. The Pocket Imager measures
12.7 cm x 9.3 cm x 5 7m and weighs 700 grams. The unit features a digital light
projector (DLP) light engine with a novel LED light source. The display is a
.55-in. digital micromirror device (DMD). A special cooling system reduces the
heat coming out from many points with only one fan, which helps this product
attain low audible noise (under 25dB) during operation. It can project images
at various screen sizes, ranging from 12 in. to 63 in., without affecting
contrast at a resolution of 800x600 pixels. The adaptable focus range is .4m to
3m.
Display Material or Component of the Year Awards
Gold Award:
Dai Nippon Printing Co. Ltd.'s Crystal Illusion Screen is a transparent optical
front-projection screen on which bright, crisp images can be reproduced in a
bright room. The reproduction of sharp, large-sized images floating in mid-air
makes it possible to open a new projection display market. High-contrast
pictures can be displayed even in bright rooms because the new screen uses
cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs). With a peak gain of 2.0 and 50%
transparency, the Crystal Illusion Screen is available in sizes of up to 75
inches in a 16:9 format.
Silver Award:
3M Optical Systems Division's Vikuiti™ () LCOS Optical Core (the "Optical
Core"), which is lead- and cadmium-free in compliance with EU RoHS regulations,
enables a high-quality television image with the lowest possible Liquid Crystal
On Silicon (LCOS) projection light-engine cost and reduced light-engine
component count. The key enabling technology in the Optical Core is Multilayer
Optical Film ("MOF") Polarizing Beam Splitter ("PBS") film. This film comprises
many hundred layer-pairs of two polymers, one of which is uniaxially
birefringent while the other is homogeneous. By matching the index of the
homogeneous layers with the ordinary index of the birefringent layers, light
polarized perpendicular to the extraordinary axis is transmitted through the
film unimpeded. However, light polarized along the extraordinary axis is
partially reflected at each inter-layer interface. Forming a quarter-wave stack
of these layers, so light can be separated into two orthogonal polarization
states with high extinction, enhances this reflection. This is important for
producing high-performance television images. Optical Core performance is
industry leading, including contrast values typically exceeding 6000:1 with
much higher transmission efficiency than other systems. The PBSs have been
shown to have over 30% higher transmission than MacNeille or wire-grid PBS
designs (c.f. Philips' paper 64.1 at SID '05). Incorporation of this technology
into brighter systems, such as front projectors for home theater and conference
rooms, is under development. Implementation of other approaches is also in
process to simplify imager compensation, achieve new levels of ANSI Contrast,
and further decrease engine costs.
2004 Display Industry Awards
Gold Award: LG.Philips LCD's LC550W01-A5 LCD Module, the first
commercially available thin-film transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT-LCD)
module for television sets in the mid-50-in. range. With the development of the
LCD module, LG.Philips addressed the challenges of designing large TFT-LCD
modules for television applications with a variety of innovative
technologies.
Silver Award: Nemoptic BiNem®'s Bi-Stable LCD, a bi-stable
variation on the classic supertwisted nematic (STN) LCD that made the
technology compatible with existing STN manufacturing lines. Nemoptic's black-
and-white, VGA version of the display was manufactured and integrated into
eBooks by Nemoptic licensee Picvue, earning Nemoptic the 2004 Display of the
Year Silver Award.
Display Product of the Year
Awards
Gold Award: Sony's LIBRIé eBook reinvigorated the eBook
category by integrating a bi-stable, electrophoretic, "electronic paper"
display from the team of E Ink and Philips. The Display Industry Awards
Committee bestowed Sony Corp. with the 2004 Display Product of the Year Gold
Award for incorporating novel display technology in the design of an eBook that
is more appealing to consumers and bringing the eBook closer to fulfilling its
potential.
Silver Award: Motorola's RAZR V3 Cell Phone. From its 13.9 mm-
thick anodized aluminum case and an all-up weight of only 95 grams, to the
chemically etched keypad created from a single sheet of nickel-plated copper
alloy, the two state-of-the-art displays, and its long list of features,
Motorola's RAZR V3 was sleek and stunning. For raising the ubiquitous cellular
telephone to new levels of elegance and functionality, the awards committee
honored Motorola with the 2004 Display Product of the Year Silver
Award.
Display Material or Component
of the Year Awards
Gold Award: E Ink's Microencapsulated Electrophoretic Front-Plane
Laminate (FPL) for Paper-Like Displays showed substantial innovation in the
science and technology of electrophoretic front planes. E Ink solved a number
of difficulties with electrophoretic displays and, working with partner
Philips, commercialized a display that exhibited two levels of gray in addition
to black and white, with all levels being stable when power is
removed.
Silver Award: Lumileds Lighting LLC's Luxeon LED Module for
Backlights pioneered practical LED backlight modules for liquid-crystal
displays.
2003 Display
Industry Awards
Gold Award: LG.Philips LCD's 20.1-in. UXGA TFT-LCD panel with copper
bus lines. As active-matrix liquid-crystal displays (AMLCDs) get larger, the
high resistivity of aluminum alloy bus lines results in flicker and non-uniform
images across the panel. Increasing the width of the lines reduces the
resistance but worsens aperture ratio, which reduces brightness or increases
power consumption. Copper is a much better conductor than aluminum alloy, but
copper can be a contaminant for downstream processes.
In its 20.1-in. UXGA AMLCD, LG.Philips LCD developed a way of using copper bus
lines that does not affect downstream processes; in addition, the copper
process results in one less deposition step and two fewer etch steps. The
copper-bus display's flicker was 25 dB down, with a luminance of 250 nits and
power consumption of less than 30W.
Silver Award: Hitachi Ltd.'s polysilicon-TFT displays made with a
low-temperature process on 730x920-mm glass substrates. By developing a low-
temperature (450EC) process for making polysilicon TFT-LCDs, which eliminates
the need for pre-annealing the glass substrate, Hitachi Ltd. made it possible
to produce relatively low-cost polysilicon displays on relatively large glass
substrates.
In 2003, the company was manufacturing two small, full-color, low-power TFT-LCD
displays using the process. Hitachi said the process should be capable of
fabricating LCD and OLED panels up to 20 inches on the diagonal on glass
substrates without pre-annealing.
Display Product of the Year Awards
Gold Award: Mitsubishi Electric Corp.'s ultra-thin, single-DMD™,
XGA rear-projection monitor. With its tour-de-force optical system, the LVP-
60XT20 (VS-60XT20U outside of Japan) provided a 60-in. display in a package
only 10.2 inches deep. This allowed rear-projection monitors to be considered
as direct alternatives to flat panels in many public information and
advertising applications.
Silver Award: Eastman Kodak's EasyShare LS633 digital still camera,
the first consumer product ever to incorporate a full-color active-matrix OLED
display. Kodak integrated the AM550L full-color OLED display it made with Sanyo
into the Kodak EasyShare LS633 digital still camera.
Display Material or Component of the Year Awards
Gold Award: Universal Display Corp. and PPG Industries' new generation
of red and green phosphorescent OLED materials and device structures with three
to four times the efficiency of conventional fluorescent materials. The
phosphorescent materials permitted Samsung SDI to build the first prototype
OLED cell-phone display that is more efficient than an equivalent AMLCD.
Silver Award: NXT's SoundVu® Distributed Mode Loudspeaker (DML)
technology, in which actuators on the periphery of a panel turned the entire
panel into a speaker that produced high-quality, stereo sound. The apparent
source of the sound could be made to coincide with the location of the image
that is "originating" the sound, so sound-vision synchronicity, which has been
an important part of commercial cinema since the 1940s, could now be
incorporated in desktop and laptop PCs, and in flat-panel TVs. The technology
has been used by NEC, Sharp, and others.
2002 Display Industry Awards
Gold Award: Eastman Kodak's AM550L organic light-emitting-diode (OLED)
display. At a time when the first OLED products to appear in consumer products
were simple monochrome or "area color" alphanumeric displays, Kodak and
manufacturing partner Sanyo ramped up volume manufacturing of this full-color,
active-matrix, video-capable OLED with vibrant, saturated colors. The AM550L,
which had a 2.16-inch (5.48-cm) diagonal and 521x218 pixels, produced a bright
image, consumed 450 mW of power (typical), and weighed just 8 grams. It was
intended for applications such as cell phones, PDAs, digital still cameras, DVD
players, and automotive and industrial uses.
Silver Award: Samsung Electronics' 40-in. wide-XGA TFT-LCD module.
Already seen in various forms for several years, the "40-inch" became
commercially available less than a year before the 2002 DYAs. As the first
TFT-LCD module to break the 30-inch barrier, this device demonstrated that LCDs
could compete with PDPs in the markets for public information displays and
large-screen TV. That same year, larger prototypes were announced by Samsung
and rival LG.Philips Display.
Display Product of the Year
Awards
Gold Award: Samsung Electronics scored another win for its 43- and 50
-in. rear-projection HDTV monitors. These were the first mainstream rear-
projection HDTVs using Texas Instruments' DLP™ microdisplays. Samsung's
field-sequential color projection engine used one microdisplay for economy, and
with initial prices beginning at less than $4,000, the company entered the
market at a competitive price point.
Silver Award: Sony Corp.'s KF-60DX100 Grand Wega 60-in. rear-
projection LCD HDTV incorporated several new technologies in 2002. These new
technologies included a 1.35-in.-wide-XGA (1366x768-pixel) high-temperature-
polysilicon (HTPS) LCD panel, a dot-line inversion drive scheme, and a three-
panel optical engine that featured corner-to-corner high resolution and a
user-replaceable UHP lamp.
Display Material or Component
of the Year
Gold Award: Optiva, Inc.'s Thin Crystal Film™ Polarizers, which
represented a fundamentally new way of making polarizers based on a molecularly
engineered nanomaterial. When applied to a glass or plastic substrate, the
company's TCF™ polarizing material self-assembled into a supramolecular
liquid-crystal structure. The result was a polarizing film less than 1
micrometer thick, compared to 200 micrometers for a traditional polarizer. The
new polarizer was highly customizable, much cheaper than traditional
polarizers, and could be applied to the inner sides of LCD substrates,
protecting them from scratches and abrasions, and thus creating more rugged LCD
displays.
Silver Award: DuPont Holographics' holographic reflectors, which
inexpensively and dramatically improved the visibility of portable, reflective
liquid-crystal displays.
2001 Display Industry Awards
Gold Award: Rainbow Displays for its Model 3750 37.5-inch AMLCD panel,
which seamlessly - invisibly - tiled three 21.4-in. AMLCDs in a one-by-three
array. Seamless tiling had proven to be surprisingly difficult; Rainbow was the
first company to successfully implement the technology in a commercial product.
Silver Award: IBM Research Laboratories for its Model T220 9.2-
megapixel AMLCD - 3840x2400 addressable pixels on a 22.2-in.-diagonal screen
for a pixel density of 204 ppi (80 pixels/cm). The T220 was the product of
years of research by IBM exploring the technology and benefits of LCDs with
nearly photographic quality.
Display Product of the Year Awards
Gold Award: Minolta, for pioneering the use of a liquid-crystal-on-
silicon (LCoS) microdisplay as the viewfinder in a digital still camera,
replacing the optical viewfinder that had not changed in principle since its
use on 35-mm film cameras of the 1930s.
Silver Award: Not presented in 2001.
Display Material or Component of the Year Award
Gold Award: Alien Technology's Fluidic Self-Assembly (FSA) process
automatically placed small encapsulated integrated circuits called
NanoBlocks™ into matching depressions in a display's backplane. This
innovative approach to packaging display (and other) electronics showed
potential for making very rugged and inexpensive devices.
Silver Award: MOXTEK's ProFlux™ polarizer, made of a very-fine-
pitch wire grid. The wire-grid polarizer tolerated the high light intensities
and temperatures found in projectors, and was capable of contrast ratios much
higher than those produced by conventional polarizing beam splitters.
2000 Display Industry Awards
Gold Award: eMagin Corp.'s OLED-on-Silicon microdisplay, uniquely
combined two of the industry's most exciting technologies: organic light-
emitting diodes (OLEDs) and display-on-silicon microdisplays.
Silver Award: Ise Electronics Corp.'s carbon-nanotube (CNT) FED high-
brightness lighting element was the first commercial product to use CNT field-
emission technology.
Display Product of the Year Awards
Gold Award: inViso's eCase incorporated its OptiScape II LCOS
microdisplay module for a hand-held viewer that could be synchronized with a
PC. This allowed the user to carry documents while on the go and to view them
at approximately the same resolution and color depth as on a desktop monitor.
Silver Award: Sharp Corp. and Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co.,
Ltd. for Sharp's LC-R60HDU 60-inch high-definition rear-projection video
monitor, the first commercial product using LCD imagers with thin-film
transistors made from continuous-grain silicon (CGS). The monitor presented
SXGA images with the very high luminance of 1000 cd/m2 and a contrast ratio of
400:1.
Display Material or Component of the Year Awards
Gold Award: DigiLens' Application-Specific Integrated Filter
(ASIF™), which applied a new electrically switchable Bragg grating
technology to make a solid-state replacement for the mechanical color wheel
used to obtain full color from a one-panel projection display.
Silver Award: Toppan Printing Co. Ltd. for its EBU-CF matrix color
filter, which featured new pigments and dispersing parameters matched to new
phosphor specifications for the backlight used with the filter. The result was
the first color filter that allowed LCD TV sets and computer monitors to render
colors as well as their CRT-based competitors. The filter was the first to
comply with European Broadcasting Union (EBU) color-reproduction standards.
1999 Display Industry Awards
Display of the Year Award
Gold Award: Toshiba Corp.'s family of direct-view, low-temperature
polysilicon (LTPS) TFT-LCDs with integrated drivers. Low power consumption and
higher durability made these 4", 8.4" and 10.4" LTPS TFT LCDs ideal for
portable applications. Toshiba's aggressive development and commercialization
of LTPS TFT-LCDs provided system designers with thin, light-weight displays
that did not require external LCD drivers, resulting in more reliable displays
that were more resistant to mechanical stress.
Silver Award: MicroOptical Corp.'s Clip-on & Invisible
Monitor™, an eyeglass display that put a microdisplay in the ear piece of
a superficially ordinary pair of eyeglasses, and reflected the image into the
eye with a virtually invisible prism embedded in the eyeglass lens. The result
was a one-ounce virtual display that provided a clear, sharp virtual image in
front of the user. The quarter-VGA model weighed only 100 grams and added only
about $250 to the cost of a prescription pair of eyeglasses.
Display Product of the Year Awards
Gold Award: Sharp Corp.'s 20-in. LCD Color TV was, at the time, the
world's largest-screen, commercially available direct-view AMLCD TV. The
640x480-pixel display had a viewing angle of 120° horizontal and 100°
vertical, and an enhanced color filter that combined with the bright backlight
to produce substantially enhanced color purity and a 40,000-hour lifetime.
Silver Award: Silicon Graphics Inc.'s 1600SW digital, wide-screen
professional LCD monitor. The 1600SW featured a 17.3-in. SuperWide™
screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio and 1600x1024 pixels. The monitor combined
wide viewing angles of 120º horizontal and +45 /55 vertical, with a
response time fast enough for viewing video and interacting with 3D models,
making it ideal for content creators, engineers, and financial professionals.
Display Material or Component of the Year Awards
Gold Award: Pixelworks Inc.'s PW364/264 Single-chip
ImageProcessor™ Display Controllers were the world's first single-chip
flat-panel display controllers. The chip - the first 0.25-micron system-level-
integration ASIC with embedded DRAM - contained half a million gates of random
logic, a 32-Mb SDRAM core, and an on-board integrated 16-bit processor running
at up to 133 MHZ. With this product, Pixelworks made a giant step toward
reducing the size and cost of LCD controller boards and toward bringing LCDs
into the monitor mainstream.
Silver Award: Digital Display Working Group's Digital Video Interface
(DVI). The DVI is a digital interface standard that was developed by a group of
industry leaders including Compaq, Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, NEC,
and Silicon Image, and earned the general acceptance of the display and
computer industries. The standard specifies a single plug and connector that
encompasses both the digital and legacy VGA interfaces, as well as a digital-
only plug and connector, answering the industry need "for a common digital
connectivity specification for digital displays and high-performance PCs while
allowing for existing analog support." DVI handles bandwidths in excess of 160
MHZ, and thus supports UXGA and HDTV with a single set of links. At the time of
the DYAs, DVI was expected to accelerate the trend to routine support of
digital displays by PC-based controllers, thus reducing the cost of digital
liquid-crystal monitors.
1998 Display Industry Awards
Display of the Year Award
Gold Award: Tohoku Pioneer's Organic Electroluminescent Display.
Tohoku Pioneer produced a production version of its 256x64 dot-matrix OLED
device and incorporated it into Pioneer's GD-F1 FM Multiplex Automotive
Receiver for receiving text messages from the FISC traffic-information system.
The OLED's high luminance and contrast made the messages readable in most
daylight conditions. This green device was the world's first and only
commercially produced OLED. In presenting Tohoku Pioneer with the 1998 Gold
Award, the DYA committee acknowledged Tohoku and Pioneer's solution of the many
technological problems that stood between a promising electro-optical material
and practical display devices.
Silver Award: Fujitsu's 15-in. Multi-Domain Vertical Alignment (MVA)
TFT LCD. With its FLC38XGC6V/6V-01 module, Fujitsu combined a novel LC mode
with a multi-domain structure for a combination of wide angle (160° both
horizontally and vertically) and very fast switching time (25 ms, on + off)
based on the structure of the display itself, i.e. without external
compensation. In addition, the multiple domains were created without rubbing.
Fujitsu exhibited a 21.3-in. demonstration unit in Japan, which was shown
displaying a motion picture, suggesting the possibility of a wall-hanging TV.
But in 1998, the awards committee found the 15-in. MVA-TFT module, which was
being delivered at a rate of several thousand a month, the most exciting
development. With a luminance of 200 cd/m², a contrast ratio of 300:1, a
four-tube backlight, and a choice of an LVDS or CMOS digital interface, the
committee deemed this display a particularly attractive CRT replacement for
monitors.
Display Product of the Year
Award
Gold Award: Hughes-JVC's D-ILA™ Digital Graphics G1000 Projector
incorporated their recently developed Direct-Drive Image Light Amplifier (D-
ILA™) in the first projector to use the highly effective reflective
light-valve technology. Unlike the CRT-addressed ILA® devices developed
previously by Hughes-JVC, the LC-on-CMOS device was digitally addressed. At 0.9
in. on the diagonal, it was much smaller and lighter than the CRT-addressed
devices.
The projector used three of the D-ILA™ devices working through a single
lens to produce a maximum screen resolution of 1365 x 1024 pixels with a
luminous flux of 1000 ANSI lumens and a contrast ratio of more than 250:1. The
projector handled a full SXGA image without scaling or loss of quality, scaled
smoothly for lower screen resolutions, and could handle 1000 TV lines for full
HDTV compatibility. With a weight of 28.6 lbs., the projector was intended to
be transportable and to offer easy set-up. With the 1998 Gold Award, the
Committee acknowledged a quarter century of dedicated light-valve development
at Hughes and Hughes-JVC.
Silver Award: Alcatel's One-Touch Com™ use a 40 x 80-mm backlit
LCD to combine the functions of a GSM digital cellular phone, a personal
organizer, a wireless Internet e-mail communicator using SMTP and POP3
protocols, a short-message (SMS) communicator, and PC companion. A specially
formatted SMS message sent to the One-Touch Com™ could update the
calendar automatically. PC synchronization could be done via the PC's serial
port or wirelessly through the integrated IrDA infrared port.
The key to getting all of this into a compact 240-gram package was the
relatively large display, which could present a GUI, interactive data screens
appropriate to the various functions, a soft keypad for dialing phone numbers,
and a soft alphanumeric keyboard that was actuated with a stylus.
Alcatel created a sophisticated multi-functional product that could open
Internet e-mail to a wide range of users, without any need for computer
equipment or expertise. The product was based on a highly intelligent design
that was enabled by display technology and a thoughtful user interface.
Display Component or Material
of the Year Awards
Gold Award: Silicon Image's PanelLink™ was the first
implementation of transition-minimized differential signaling (TMDS), setting
the stage for substantially less-expensive digital flat-panel monitors (FPMs)
and universal controller cards that economically supported both TMDS and
traditional analog monitors.
PanelLink™ implemented TMDS with a transmitter-receiver chipset, with the
chip residing on either a single-purpose TMDS or universal graphics controller
card. A twisted-pair cable up to 5m long connected the two chips.
Dai Nippon also won a Gold DCMA award in 1998 for its Ultra-Contrast Screen.
Conventional double-lentricular "black stripe" screens, used with Fresnel
lenses in television and other rear-projection applications, had been very
effective in providing high screen gain with low reflection of ambient light
for high contrast. But the pixel pitch of these screens couldn't be reduced
much below 0.3mm, making them unsuitable for SXGA and HDTV applications. At
these higher screen resolutions, it was possible to use single-lenticular
screens, but the lack of black stripes on these screens meant reflections were
higher and contrast lower. The addition of a contrast-enhancement filter would
have provided increased contrast, but at the cost of screen luminance.
Dai Nippon Printing Company helped resolve that problem with its ultra-high
contrast screen (UCS), a lenticular screen with 0.14-mm pitch that incorporated
an internal ambient-light absorption system (ALAS) that provided improved
contrast without an external black matrix or contrast-enhancement layer. As the
first high-gain ehanced-contrast solution for single-light-source (LCD, DMD,
etc.) rear projectors, UCS was widely accepted.
1997 Display Industry Awards
Display of the Year Award: Jointly awarded to Fujitsu and NEC for
their 42-in. Color Plasma Display Panels. Fujitsu Ltd. was first with its 42-
in. PDPs and dominated the still-small market in 1997. NEC Corp., another
Japanese company, had also made strides in the market by 1997, and showed an
impressive panel at SID '97 in Boston. Fujitsu and NEC were the only two
companies to have PDPs commercially available before the cutoff date for the
1997 DYAs, and the awards committee chose to honor both companies for their
achievements and the industry as a whole for its farsighted commitment to
plasma technology.
Honorable Mention: Sony's Super-Flat FD Trinitron® CRTs caused a
stir at SID '97 with their 16:9 aspect ratios, beautiful CRT images, and
completely flat screens. Flat-screen CRTs had been produced in the past in
small quantities by Tektronix for military and government customers, and by
Zenith in somewhat larger quantities for premium computer monitors. But Sony
was the first to produce a large wide-aspect-ratio flat-screen for television
and the first to use Trinitron® taut-wire technology in a flat-screen CRT.
The result was a striking difference in what viewers saw when they watched a
CRT-based television receiver. Sony used the designation WEGA for Japanese-
market receivers based on the FD Trinitron®.
Display Product of the Year
Awards
Display Product of the Year: Clarity Visual Systems' LCD Rear-
Projection Point-of-Purchase Displays showed the company could apply rear-
projection LCD technology to a specialized but large market and optimize it for
videowall, kiosk, and dynamic-signage applications. Units had viewing areas
ranging from 40 to 58 in. on the diagonal, depths starting at 18 in., weights
beginning at 90 lbs., and an average white luminance greater than 200 fL.
Clarity's models were designed to be used singly, arrayed horizontally in
"banners," vertically in posts, and both horizontally and vertically in video
walls. Design goals included even luminosity across each screen, excellent
consistency of luminance and color from unit to unit to enhance videowall-type
applications, and easy accessibility and set-up. Clarity impressed the 1997
awards committee with its ability to focus on a class of customers and their
needs and to tailor display system integration and development efforts to
specifically answer those needs.
1996 Display Industry Awards
Display of the Year: Hitachi's 13.3-in. Super TFT-LCD with In-Plane
Switching. Although other companies followed in its footsteps, Hitachi was the
first to utilize in-plane switching (IPS) in a practical display. In doing so,
Hitachi created a true desktop replacement for cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), with
large horizontal and vertical viewing angles and with no color change at any
viewing angle. IPS, which Hitachi called "Super TFT," made a major change in
the TFT-LCD panel architecture. Traditional TFT-LCDs had had electrodes on the
front and backplates, and applying a voltage to these electrodes tiled the
liquid-crystal molecules from the plane of the plates to a plane that was
perpendicular to the plates. This turned the LCD pixel from OFF to ON, but did
so in such a way that the optical characteristics could vary greatly with
angle. Super-TFT put both electrodes on the bottom plate so that when the
liquid-crystal molecules were twisted from the OFF to the ON state, they were
always oriented parallel to the bottom plate, resulting in optical
characteristics that were remarkably constant with viewing angle.
The process for implementing this new architecture was simpler than the
traditional one. The only tradeoff arose from the fact that the Super-TFT
approach put opaque metal electrodes on the bottom plate. The result was a
somewhat smaller aperture ratio, so Super-TFTs were not suitable for battery-
operated applications.
Honorable Mention: PixTech's () 52-in. Field-Emission Display (FED)
was the first commercially available FED. The ¼-VGA monochrome display
came in a 70-nit 1-W (typical) version with a green phosphor, and had
horizontal and vertical viewing angles of 160°. PixTech opened the door for
manufacturers of FEDs, and with its PixTech Alliance invited other companies -
including Futaba, Raytheon and Motorola - to walk through that door with them.
1995 Display Industry Awards
Display of the Year: Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processing (DLP)
Engine. Incorporating TI's Digital Micromirror Device (DMD™), this unique
approach used individual hinged micromirrors fabricated on a MOS IC that
contained the drivers for the mirrors. Each mirror represented a pixel, which
was turned on and off depending on whether the mirror was tilted so that the
light it reflected was directed through a lens onto a screen or out of the
lens' range. TI's unique approach to the challenges of projection-display
technology was marked by technical innovation, a long-term commitment to
working out the engineering details, and a clear and consistent business model
based on Canon's success in building laser-printer engines that OEMs
incorporated into end-user projection products.
Honorable Mention: Fujitsu's 21-in. Color Plasma Display. Fujitsu was
the first company to bring a "full-color" plasma display to market, and the
company's model FPF21C8060UA was, in 1995, the only the only commercial "full-
color" (262,000 colors) PDP. Upon Fujitsu's receipt of the 1995 honorable
mention, the awards committee noted the company's PDP was "clearly the first of
many commercial large-screen color PDPs" and that these panels would
"dramatically alter the face of entertainment, computation, presentation,
industrial control, and communications products by making direct-view large-
screen color displays practical."
Display Product of the Year
Awards
Display Product of the Year: Casio's QV-10 LCD Digital Camera was the
first digital still-image camera to be enhanced with a liquid-crystal display
(LCD) The camera weighed 6.7 ounces (plus the weight of four AA batteries),
stored up to 96 JPEG images and featured a 1.8-in. TFT active-matrix LCD for
use as both a viewfinder and playback monitor. With the camera in record mode,
the LCD monitor allowed the viewer to look at the image on the viewfinder and
adjust the exposure interactively.
The camera could send its images in NTSC video format directly to a video tape
deck, a standard television set equipped with a video-input jack, a picture
phone, or a video printer. With an optional personal-computer adapter kit, the
images could be uploaded to a Windows-based PC or Macintosh computer for
storage, manipulation and/or printing. The edited images were then capable of
being transferred back to the camera. In play mode, four or nine images could
be displayed on a single screen, and users could enlarge selected portions of a
single image.
By incorporating a color display, Casio transformed the general-purpose digital
still camera into a tool of vastly expanded uses, pricing it at under $1,000 to
make it possible for many consumers to explore those uses.
Honorable Mention: Sharp's Hi-8 Viewcam. Following the company's own
lead in creating compact consumer camcorders using a relatively large color LCD
as a combination viewfinder and playback monitor, Sharp created the VL-H420UP
viewcam for professional applications. The unit used a 4-in.-diagonal LCD with
enhanced resolution and a reflectivity of only 1% for better contrast and
viewability in brightly lit conditions. The Viewcam offered a 16:9 wide-screen
mode, digital image stabilization, fade-in/fade-out capability, a high-speed
motorized zoom that went from full wide angle to full telephoto in 2 seconds,
and an instantaneous 20X digital zoom.
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