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SPECIAL ½ PRICE OFFER:
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On Monday, we published the February issue of the Mobile Display Report (MDR). MDR reports on the activity in the display industry for small, (even micro) displays, up to monitor-sized panels, plus the components and finished products side of the industry.
For this and every issue of MDR, our team of editors, in their respective emerging technology areas, step back and look at the events of the month to figure out what all the individual press announcements, new product introductions and related and news items mean.
Here is a quick summary of some of those trends and events that we think will have a significant impact.
This month our LED and Laser components section is bulging with news and updates. First, a report from Photonics West gives us a pretty grim near-term picture for laser technology, particularly in projection and display.
The hold up; expensive green lasers that can top out at $50 - and that's just the green component. But even beyond projection, on a sector-by-sector basis (semiconductor, optical storage, communications, biomedical, et al.), the best the laser industry is hoping for in 2009 is flat revenues.
Last month, we detailed all of the pico projector introductions at CES.
This month, we report that a Tokyo-based research firm says three micro projectors have made the Top 10 best sellers list. For models of less than 300 grams, this now represents 17.0% of unit sales in January, up from just 1.8% in August.
One product that could also help drive continued sales in the category comes from Explay, who introduced the "Colibri" module that can serve as both a cell phone embedded and a stand-alone LCoS pico projector.
As an industry, LEDs are also showing resistance to the recession.
The boost is coming from both commercial lighting (at 22% CAGR to 2013) and in LEDs in displays (14% CAGR), both as backlights and in projection systems. And as a sign of things to come, we tracked a deal this month between both the largest notebook LCD panel supplier (LG Display) and Cree for flat screen LED chips.
This puts the Korean company LG on the fast track to build up to 60% of notebook LCD panels with the solid-state LED backlights. If there is a lesson to learn from the LED market in these difficult times, it is the value of technology application diversity.
On the component and materials front, we're also seeing a lot of activity with new high electron mobility materials to serve as a substitute for conventional ITO (indium tin oxide) used in TFT LCD displays.
Not only is ITO expensive (commodity prices have climbed and fallen with LCD demand), it is also not a suitable solution for OLEDs and some flexible display panels. We also covered the Korean work on a new graphene-based material for use as a possible ITO substitute, plus we provide an update on the efforts to use carbon nanotube (CNT) material for voltage control of liquid crystal
microlenses for a Head-up Display application.
In OLEDs, we cover an extensive interview with Dr. Karl Leo, Fraunhofer's Institute for Photonic Microsystems (IPMS), who basically ceded the TV side of OLED development to the "large Asian manufacturers," admitting that solving the production issues for a large OLED-TV panel would be "too hard" given the current level of OLED technology and the competition (LCD-TVs).
Leo said Germany's OLED manufacturing development will focus more on commercial OLED lighting applications with the goal to double efficiency to 100 lumens per watt and to increase lifetime tenfold to more than 100K hours. They will also continue work in 3D Autostereoscopic and other displays.
Again, the broadening of application areas emerges as the strategy for technology survival during this time of slowed growth and constrained R&D budgets. For OLEDs, competing with the LCD manufacturing (and R&D) juggernaut is not appealing for many manufacturers.
For example Samsung said it would delay its OLED-TV launch until well into 2010, when the time is "more suitable." But the promise of this relatively simple (small component count) emissive technology will continue to attract interest and we think it's just a matter of time before OLED panels begin to enter the large display category in earnest.
LG is bucking this trend, however, with the announced launch of its recent (Best Buzz winning) 15-inch OLED monitor.
Finally, we're tracking a trend in Smartphones this month where the tectonic shift brought about by the ISD (independent software developer) supported iPhone, is beginning to affect markets beyond the cell phone.
Smartphone gaming is beginning to displace portable games and Sony's PSP is the first to feel the heat.
This is just the beginning as creative applications come on line for the iPhone, in particular (with Google's Android and LIMO phones to surely follow). Last month they put the e-Book reader makers on notice with "Classics" -- the hottest downloaded app for iPhone-- that allows the small, color iPhone screen to serve as an e-Book reader.
Could this broadside attack sink the fledgling e-Book market before it gets started? We'll see.
The current issue of MDR is 65 pages, so there is a lot more detail than can be summarized here.
So suffice it to say, we hope you will join us as we continue to track the progress, and help define the future, of this emerging side of the Display Industry with thoughtful insights from Insight Media. - Steve Sechrist
See Table of Contents.
Special Offer! During February, we are offering 6-month subscriptions to Mobile Display Report for $250.00.
This is ½ off the regular subscription price. If you would like to subscribe to MDR for 6 months for only $250.00, click here.
* New subscribers only. Maximum of five readers per subscription.
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