Abstract

Korean Organizations Continue to Strengthen Leading Positions in LCD and PDP Areas; Focus on OLED

Among the total of 183 technology papers presented by Korean organizations at SID 2009, 30.1% dealt with LCD, 23.4% with OLED, 11.4% with PDP, 8.1% with backlight, 3.3% with e-paper, and 3.3% with 3D display. Backlight technology is paired with LCD, and the combined share of backlight and LCD papers reached 38.2%.

Korean organizations thus continue to develop the mainstream technology LCD, while also aggressively conducting R&D on PDP technology. In terms of advanced technologies, Korean companies focus on OLED.

US Organizations Continue to Strengthen Capabilities in OLED, E-paper, 3D Display, Pico Projector, Flexible Display Technologies

OLED-related papers accounted for 27.2% of the total 103 technology papers presented by US organizations at SID 2009. This was followed by LCD with 15.5%, e-paper with 5.8%, 3D display with 5.8%, pico projectors with 5.8%, and flexible display technology with 4.9%.

Besides the mainstream LCD technology, US organizations are also aggressively conducting R&D for OLED, e-paper, 3D display, pico projector, and flexible display technologies.

Furthermore, Kent State University presented three papers on blue phase liquid crystal materials. The excellent features of these materials can not only simplify the LCD production process but can also reduce the use of materials, meeting demand for fewer carbon-dioxide emissions and more environment-friendly processes. Blue phase liquid crystal was thus a popular topic at this year's SID.

Taiwanese Organizations Concentrate Resources in LCD; Start to Strengthen Deployment in OLED, E-paper, 3D Display

LCD-oriented papers accounted for 31.7% of the total 101 papers presented by Taiwanese organizations at SID 2009. This was followed by OLED with 15.8%, backlight with 13.9%, e-paper with 10.9%, and 3D display with 6.9%. The combined share of LCD and backlight amounted to 45.6%. Taiwan is therefore still focused on the mainstream LCD technology. Taiwanese organizations' attitude towards technologies such as OLED, e-paper and 3D display has become more aggressive compared to the past.

Universities accounted for 58.4% of the papers presented by Taiwanese organizations at SID 2009, followed by companies with 26.7% and research institutes with 14.9%. The combined share of universities and research institutes totaled 73.3%. Universities and research institutes are thus the main organization types focusing on advanced technologies in Taiwan.

New E-paper Technologies Challenge Mainstream E-paper Technology

36 papers were presented at SID 2009 on e-paper display technology. Among these, papers on electrophoretic display accounted for 55.6%, electrowetting display for 19.4%, cholesteric display for 16.7%, electrochromic display for 5.6%, and liquid powder display for 2.8%. Electrophoretic display is thus still the mainstream technology in the e-paper field.

Analyzing the papers in terms of flexible and color capabilities, 25.0% of the 36 papers were concerned with flexible electronic display, 13.9% with color electronic display, and 5.6% with flexible color electronic display. The R&D investments in flexible capabilities are larger than investments in color capabilities. Electrophoretic display focuses on flexible capabilities, while its color display capabilities are relatively weak.

Electrophoretic display technology is still unable to come up with effective solutions to overcome technology bottlenecks for color capabilities. By contrast, other emerging e-paper technologies, such as cholesteric display, electrowetting display, and electrochromic display, aggressively focus on solutions for color display capabilities. Cholestric display has made the most progress in this regard; in technology papers it was revealed that this technology could already reach a 262,144 color level. However, improvements have to be made to the high driving voltage (40V-50V); otherwise, its development in the handheld device market will be limited.

Companies Are Most Aggressive in Presenting Papers on 3D Display Technology

Among the 26 technology papers on 3D display at SID 2009, 60.0% were presented by companies. This was significantly higher than the 38.0% ratio at SID 2008 and showed companies' aggressiveness in this area. For companies, 3D display technology is moving close to official market commercialization.

88.0% of the 3D display papers were on direct-view 3D technology not requiring special glasses (such as polarizer glass or shutter glass). Evidently, organizations are concentrating their resources in the development of direct-view 3D displays.

Parallax element technologies that cause direct-view 3D displays to have 3D effects, including lenticular lens, parallax barrier, and double-sided prism film, were all covered by the papers at SID 2009. Even though the visual effects of lenticular lens 3D display are the best, their costs are excessively high due to challenges in terms of controlling the accuracy of production processes. Taiwan's National Chiao Tung University presented a paper aimed at this bottleneck; the technology presented in the paper adopts IPS (In Plane Switching) wide-viewing angle technology and forms GRIN (Gradient-Index) lenticular lens technology. This paper was very relevant for companies working to develop direct-view 3D displays.

Companies Continue to Invest in Commercialization of OLED Technology

94 papers were presented on OLED technology at SID Display Week 2009, 51.1% of which were presented by companies. This ratio was up from 48.9% in 2008. Companies thus continue to invest in the commercialization of OLED technology.

Furthermore, 20.2% of the 94 papers dealt with OLED mechanisms, 16.0% with OLED materials, 14.9% with AM-OLED, 11.7% with flexible OLED, 7.4% with OLED lifetime, 7.4% with white OLED, 6.4% with OLED manufacturing, and 2.1% with RGBW color.

Most of the papers on OLED mechanisms, OLED materials and OLED lifetime dealt with luminous efficiency and display lifespan of organic light emitting materials. The US company Eastman Kodak presented the most papers on these three technology areas, followed by Korea's Samsung.

Currently, there are still technology bottlenecks for luminous efficiency and display lifespan of OLED displays. Large amounts of resources continue to be invested for these areas in the hope of rapidly developing efficient solutions to overcome these bottlenecks.

Appendix

Research Scope

This year's SID Display Week 2009 was held in the US city of San Antonio at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center from May 31 to June 5. This report examines 475 papers presented at SID 2009 by companies, universities and research institutes, in order to shed more light on the latest R&D developments for FPD technologies.

Glossary of Terms

List of Companies