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March Summary from Projection Monthly with Flat Panel Coverage |
The March issue of our big-screen newsletter, Projection Monthly with Flat Panel Coverage is now in the hands of subscribers. In this issue we published our CES Best Buzz awards recognizing many companies for innovations that we, and others in the industry thought merited special recognition. We also instituted a new type of award this year: The Rodneys. This is named after the comedian Rodney Dangerfield. It is for companies and technologies that did not get the buzz they deserved - they "got no respect." Check out the CES Best Buzz winners at: For the Rodney winners, go to: We also have a lot of coverage of solid-state illumination in the March issue, including coverage of the "Strategies in Light" conference. While much of this conference focused on lighting applications, the display industry was well represented by speakers from Luminus Devices, Organic Lighting Technologies and Formosa Epitaxy and exhibits by Fusion Optix, Osram, Foreal Spectrum, Dow Corning, Perkin Elmer, Cotco and others. As the LED markets mature, we are seeing more strategic deals. Philips and Osram have now agreed to share technology and patents covering all organic and inorganic LEDs. A similar deal was struck by these same two companies many years ago for UHP lamp technology and led to them dominating sales of this technology. So, is history about to repeat itself? In addition, Philips now owns Lumileds and has publicly stated that it plans to discontinue production of incandescent lamps in the near future and begin to production of solid state and compact fluorescent lighting instead. This is a big stake in the ground. We also covered some interesting development in blue LEDs and lasers. For example, Philips Lumileds announced it had solved the problem of "droop" - the decline in efficacy (the amount of luminous flux produced for each watt of electrical input power) of white LEDs as the current increases. This development (Lumileds called it a "breakthrough") will allow Lumileds to offer high-power LEDs that deliver 70 lumens per watt or more at drive currents of 1A and higher. This will be an industry first, the company said. LED efficacy continues to improve too. Philips Lumileds announced a new efficacy record for one of its high-power white LEDs. Operating at a 350mA current level, the LEDs deliver 136 lumens with an efficacy of 115 lm/Watt, while at 2A, the LEDs deliver 502 lumens with an efficacy of 61 lm /W. The 115 lm/W efficacy level is 17 times what was available in 1999 when Lumileds introduced the first high-power LED. Now that's an impressive statistic! On the manufacturing front, technology start-up Shimei Semiconductor Co. has developed a blue GaN LED with high optical output, but on a silicon substrate. LEDs can be manufactured more cheaply on Si substrates because larger-diameter Si wafers are more economical for volume production. Silicon substrates are also cheaper than sapphire and the silicon substrates are more flexible and easier to work with. The company has apparently worked out the problems with lattice mismatch and differing coefficients of thermal expansion that have plagued efforts in the past. And, in what University of California at Santa Barbara also call a breakthrough, researchers led by Shuji Nakamura have created a new type of blue-violet laser diode that they say could replace the c-plane violet laser diodes used for HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats. UCSB said the team has achieved lasing operation in nonpolar gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors and demonstrated the world's first nonpolar blue-violet laser diodes. Nakamura, a UCSB professor who is best known as a pioneering developer of volume-manufacturing technology for GaN-based LEDs and lasers, noted the new devices would offer lower power and longer lifetimes than current blue lasers. While the wavelength of these devices is not useful for display devices, once the technology is perfected, it may well be possible to add other wavelengths. LED backlights are starting to capture the attention of notebook makers, too. In Q2'07, expect to see notebooks from Apple and HP that feature an LED BLU. Some in the industry expect notebooks with LED BLUs to reach 10% of the market in 2008. Reaching a 10% penetration is a very important threshold as penetration could rise very rapidly to 50% if the conditions are right. What could hold it up? Primarily the industry's capacity to make high brightness LEDs, as only a few suppliers can currently manufacture the highest output LEDs. We suspect this will need to spread to a broader manufacturing base before rapid growth can occur. There remain several alternative technologies to make LCD BLUs, so LEDs are not assured of domination. One interesting approach we report on is carbon nanotubes. The Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology has prototyped a 15-inch LCD screen, so we will have to keep an eye on this approach, too. These are just a few of the many in-depth topics covered in the 113-page March edition of Projection Monthly with Flat Panel Coverage. To view the full table of contents, go to: http://www.insightmedia.info/archive.php To order or request a sample of Projection Monthly with Flat Panel Coverage, go to: Insight Media, Dian Mecca, 203-831-8464, dian@insightmedia.info |
About Insight Media Insight Media (www.insightmedia.info) is a leading market and technology research firm providing its unique Opportunity Analysis for manufacturers and resellers of electronic displays and their components. Opportunity Analysis evaluates technology, market data, competitive factors, user applications, business and distribution elements and combines them into an integrated strategic operational guide. Insight Media also provides timely newsletters, detailed assessments, global market reports, focused industry conferences, and tactical consulting. To be removed from the Insight Media News list, please click here. Insight Media ©2007 All Rights Reserved. 3 Morgan Avenue, Norwalk CT 06851, 203-831-8464 |