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SID 2006 Best Buzz Awards |
Best Plasma DisplaySince Samsung SDI (Seoul, Korea; www.samsungsdi.com) was the only maker of plasma panels to exhibit at SID, there was no question about what company would win this award. But which panel? That was another story. SDI was exhibiting its 50-inch full-HD (1920x1080) panel, which is a fine-looking panel and a technological tour-de-force. But of more significance to the company and to consumers in the immediate future is the company's new "W1" architecture for mainstream plasma panels. W1 includes a "complementary colored panel." A blue-tinted dielectric layer and a brown tint on the barrier ribs combine to produce an apparently black barrier rib between the plasma cells, which contain the color phosphors. The results, says SDI, include an improved bright-room contrast ratio of 150:1, 15% less background luminance and reduced halation distance for a sharper image. On the electronics side, the architecture includes enhanced noise reduction and 13-bit processing for 8192 gray levels, twice the number of the previous "V4" architecture. In side-by-side comparisons, W1 displayed deeper colors, more subtle color gradations, and far better contrast under bright light. (In the photo, the W1 panels are at the left and center; the older V4 architecture is on the right.) The W1 architecture is available in 42- and 50-inch panels. The 50-inch panel has 1366x768 pixels, shows up to 550B colors, has a luminance of 1000 nits and a contrast ratio of 8000:1. Samsung SDI, Joe Virginia, 408 544 4206, jvirginia@ssi.samsung.com Best Large LCD
Perhaps most important is that the 100-inch LPL panel is substantially larger than arch-rival Samsung Electronics' 82-incher - the previous size champion - and is nearly as large as Samsung SDI's 102-inch and Panasonic's 103-inch plasma displays. LG.Philips LCD America, Stacey Voorhees, (408) 350 7707, svoorhees@lgphilips-lcd.com Best 3D DisplaysThe amount of 3D activity is clearly increasing, and three 3D displays were serious contenders for Best Buzz. We settled on two. One was the 2D/3D switchable "flatbed" autostereoscopic prototype from Toshiba America Electronic Components (Irvine, CA; www.toshiba.com/taec). The display delivers a fairly realistic sense of parallax as the viewer moves around the scene. Toshiba is thinking of making the display available in a range of sizes, from mobile to massive, for applications such as arcade games, e-learning, simulations of architectural buildings and landscapes, and even 3D menus in restaurants. The 42-inch WOW autostereoscopic display from Philips 3D Solutions (Eindhoven, The Netherlands; www.philips.com/3dsolutions) produces an aggressive three-dimensional illusion, which is appropriate for 3D advertising, one of its primary applications. An earlier version of the display was shown at SID '05 in Boston, but the company has made such great strides the past year that no mater what you have previously seen, you have to see this again. What's new is a technology Philips calls "2D-plus-Depth" format that constructs a 3D image not from separate binocular views but from a 2D image and separate z-axis depth information. In addition to producing impressive 3D imagery, the system's bandwidth requirements are close to those for 2D content, said Philips' Rob de Vogel. Toshiba America Electronics Components, Poloi Lin, 949 623 3098, poloi.lin@taec.tosiba.com Best Laser Pico-projector
This full-color XGA projector, which is contained in a palm-sized, 4.3-cubic-inch package, delivers about 10 lumens and consumes just 5 watts of power, but symbol says the next generation will deliver 15 to 20 lumens. As with most laser projectors, the image is in focus at any distance (without a zoom lens). The unit is designed to survive a four-foot drop onto concrete. Future generations could be small enough to fit inside a cell phone, but now the company is waiting for a key ASIC to be finished. When it is, units will quickly be ready for sale. Symbol believes it has a customer who is ready to go. Symbol Technologies, Shirley Shroedl, 631 738 4388, shirleyshroedl@symbol.com Best Small LCDs
TPO (Chunan, Taiwan; www.tpo.biz), the company resulting from the merger of Toppoly Optoelectronics and Philips Mobile Display, introduced a new flagship product, the P9301 "Aztec" display module. The transflective 2.4-inch VGA Aztec has an RGBW pixel structure that enables an average system power consumption of less than 150mW, about half the consumption of conventional RGB displays, said TPO System Architect Martin Creusen. The power consumption of VGA displays has been too high for cell phones, and Creusen believes low power consumption will be the key enabler. There was lots of customer interest at the show, he said. Toshiba America Electronic Components showed a switchable QVGA-VGA LCD with the timing controller implemented in low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) right on the display glass. There is no COG, no COF, no chips at all in or on this display, which makes for a very slim module. There were lots of pixels though. When you put a VGA display on a 2.4-inch-diagonal piece of glass, the pixel density is 333 ppi. This cell-phone display is top of the line in a family of QVGA and VGA displays. A QVGA member of the family is shown in the photo. Thin glass reduces thickness and weight. TPO Displays, Martin Creusen, +31 45 850-6075, martin.creusen@tpo.biz
Best New Backlight TechnologyGlobal Lighting Technologies (GLT) (Brecksville, OH: www.glthome.com) and Luminus Devices, Inc., (Woburn, MA; www.luminus.com) celebrated their recently announced partnership by showing a prototype backlight for LCD-TVs that promises to bring the era of high-volume LED backlighting considerably closer.
GLT's contribution is providing light-guides with patterns of MicroLenses that conduct the light and evenly redirect it through the LCD panel, even over large distances from the light sources. This architecture should allow large-size LCD panels to be edge-lit, as opposed to the direct backlighting used in most current LED backlights for TV-sized displays, resulting in dramatically reduced LED count, and simplified color and thermal management. The prototype shown at SID had its light-guide blades oriented vertically. Succeeding versions will have the blades oriented horizontally to permit backlight scanning. Over the next few months, the number of LEDs will be reduced to one RGB triplet per blade, said David DeAgazio, Director of Sales Worldwide at GLT. The intention is to backlight a 32-inch LCD-TV that formerly required hundreds of LEDs with only 12 PhlatLight triplets. The companies are talking to potential customers now, and prototype TV sets could appear as early as 1H'07, DeAgazio said. Global Lighting Technologies, David DeAgazio, 866 922 4584, info@glthome.com Best New Large-Venue Projection Light SourceSometimes, conference buzz for a product is among a small number of people - such as the people who attended technical paper 55.2. This select group, and a few others who talked to the people from Philips Lighting, were buzzing about Philips CPL (compact power light) projection lamp, which essentially extends proven UHP lamp technology to high power. Increasing the pressure in a UHP lamp smoothes out the emission spectrum and provides more light at the red end, but it still falls short of the spectrum from a xenon lamp. However, it's probably good enough and CPL lamps are more compact than xenon lamps. Philips initial product is a 450W unit, but 750W and 900W units are coming. The 750W lamp will put 11K lumens on screen, which is the same output as from a 3kW xenon lamp in a digital cinema projector. For large venues where xenon colorimetry is not required, Philips thinks CPL will replace xenon. That's what the buzz was about. Philips Research Labs, Jens Pollmann-Retsch, 49 241 6003 781, jens.pollmann-retsch@philips.com
Best New Process TechnologyUntil now, it has not been possible to solution-process small-molecule OLED materials. At SID, DuPont Displays (Torrance, CA; www.dupont.com) broke the link between the type of OLED material and the choice of manufacturing process with its announcement of solution processing with small-molecule materials - and backed it up by exhibiting a 6-inch diagonal display that looked like it was ready for prime time. Up until now, polymer materials have been exciting because they can be applied by "economical" ink jet printing. But small molecules have been used almost exclusively in commercial displays for products like cell phones because they are well developed and highly effective. DuPont's announcement opens the door to economic solution processing with well-proven small-molecule OLED materials, potentially speeding the way to large OLED displays. DuPont repeatedly refused to reveal the specific nature of the printing process they used except to say it is "not ink jet printing". When we pressed the executives in an exclusive interview they did say the red OLED material used in the prototype was a DuPont product, but would not comment on the other two colors. The company also said their printing process can be used with fluorescent or phosphorescent small-molecule OLED materials, as well as with polymer materials "when they are ready". DuPont presented a cost model that indicates its new solution process will allow OLED panel pricing to rival that of equivalent LCDs. Look for DuPont to announce an association with an Asian manufacturing partner within the next 18 months. DuPont Displays, Erin Mills, 310 860 6160, erin.s.mills@usa.dupont.com
Best Reflective Display
And E Ink itself showed an optimized color electrophoretic display that, for the first time, is bright enough to be inviting. But, in a strong field, the Best Buzz goes to Qualcomm MEMS Technologies (QMT) (San Diego, CA; www.qualcomm.com), which has brought its iMoD interferometric display to an impressive degree of sophistication and seems to be only months away from some level of volume production with its manufacturing partner Prime View International. iMoD's strengths are high reflectivity - for a bright image and easy readability in moderate to very bright ambient light levels - and very low power consumption so the display can be on all day and not drain its host system's batteries. This is critical in its primary initial application of secondary display in a clamshell mobile handset. QMT is initially making very bright and readable "Bichrome" versions of the display (see photo), but a substantial number of full-color demonstrators were being shown in the company's extensive display area at SID. Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, Shirley Yager, 858-651-6302, syager@qualcomm.com
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It's hard to select the one best large LCD at a show like SID, but you just can't ignore the world's largest LCD, especially when it's receiving its first showing at a public trade show. LG.Philips.LCD (LPL)(Seoul, Korea; 
The display should be placed on a flat surface and viewed at an angle, as if the user was looking down at a tabletop. The image rises up from the "tabletop" in a 
surprisingly convincing way. In fact, if you place an actual object on the display surface it can be hard to pick out the real object. (In the photo, the real object is the bottle with the green and orange cap in the lower right.) 
There were at least two laser pico-projectors at SID - one on the show floor and the other in a suite at the Marriott - not to mention a laser rear-projection TV set in another Marriott suite. But the pico-projector that looks most like a product is from Symbol Technologies (Holtsville, NY; 
There were a large number of very good, small liquid-crystal displays at SID, but two in particular captured our attention.
The two companies showed a 24-inch backlight consisting of 5 modules, each with 3 RGB LED triplets. (See photo.) The LEDs are the bright PhlatLight units with a photonic lattice that extracts much more light from an LED. Without the lattice, a lot of the light is normally trapped in an LED's structure. Similar Luminus LEDs powered all of the LED-lit rear-projection TV prototypes shown at CES in January. 
Reflective displays blossomed at SID '06. Electrowetting displays from LiquaVista reached a remarkable new level of sophistication, Bridgestone and LG Electronics presented "dry" electrophoretic displays, and Seiko-Epson and LG.Philips LCD described their own backplanes in combination with E Ink's "wet" electrophoretic frontplane.