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OLEDs and CTIA Coverage Highlight April's
Mobile Display Report Analysis

The April issue of our Mobile Display Report monthly newsletter published earlier this week contains coverage of component, technology and product news for mobile displays, mobile products and the mobile infrastructure. The CTIA Wireless Expo generated a lot of coverage on these topics, but we also took a deeper dive into OLEDs this month in anticipation of significant news we expect to come out of the SID Symposium in mid-May.

Events at the CTIA Wireless Expo for example, reinforced a persistent trend we think will continue to impact display makers. As wireless carriers continue to look for ways to improve average revenue per user (ARUs), they tend to integrate ever more "display dependent" technology (like camera functions, full motion video and now even GPS navigation into the handset.) This puts more pressure on display makers to make them brighter, lighter, thinner, less power hungry and packed with more pixels than ever before. By taking a look at how devices from all the big players including Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sanyo, and Chinese players like HTC are responding to these market challenges, subscribers may be better able to identify display trends and make product/feature adjustments going forward.

The other big application pushing display makers in terms of size, resolution and power management comes from the mobileTV side. Finally, the US market looks poised to start to offer more robust mobileTV services, starting to catch up to the rest of world. This conclusion is bolstered by news that Qualcomm finally claimed its second major carrier making its MediaFLO the de facto standard here in the US. AT&T is now set to roll out services in about a month. But Qualcomm will not be so fortunate in Europe, as the DVB-H mobile transmission protocol was added as a European Commission Standard last month. The move will make it much harder for other standards, like MediaFlo, to compete in Europe, meaning it is now more likely no worldwide standards will be possible.

On the other hand, a whole host of new opportunities for mobile services we now be enabled by the completion of the FCC's auctions of the old analog TV bands. This will take years to really roll out, but the completion of the auction is a significant milestone that should help to usher in new creative services and devices that we expect to rock the industry. This is likely to be very fertile ground for display and mobile product makers in the coming years, so you need to get engaged.

As extended wireless services like mobileTV, gaming and Internet browsing grow in popularity, service providers are looking for ways to decouple display size from the device itself. Pico projectors are one way to do this. They are becoming hot commodities on the verge of breaking-out with new optics and engines that are at the cutting edge of display technology. We've got our finger on the pulse of the nascent pico projector category, and this month we update coverage of a pico projector from Korean-based Iljin, who is hoping SK Telecom will release the product very soon.

Interestingly, the Iljin pico projector uses both lasers and LEDs to power it, but many early-stage products will feature LED illumination. LEDs, of course, power many handheld displays today and are starting to make in-roads into notebooks. What's holding up the transition? Pricing mostly, so when we see an acceleration of this trend, it is clearly newsworthy. According to Epistar, LED prices declined 20% to 30% last year andare already down 10 to 15% in the first two months of 2008. This, plus improvements in efficiency means fewer, and lower cost, LEDs can now power backlights. As a result, Epistar thinks LED BLUs in notebooks could reach a 30% to 40% penetration by the end of the decade.

Very high power RGB LEDs are being developed by Luminus to power edge-lit backlights for LCD TVs and projectors, and the company just received $72M in funding to further this goal. This is a significant chunk of change and a big vote of confidence in the company's prospects for realizing its dreams.

But white LEDs are gaining favor over RGB because of their simpler drive electronics, thermal management and better uniformity over time, and higher efficiency. Compared to a white LED made with blue LEDs and yellow phosphor, white by RGB LEDs offer superior color gamut. To counter this, white LED makers are adding red and green phosphors. In this issue, we report on progress in this area by a Japanese research team. And how about a polarized LED? You might want to read about this, too.

Insight Media has done a lot of research in this area and we expect to publish a report on all of the technical options for backlights in notebooks, monitors and TVs very shortly.

Turning to OLEDs, no one questions the value proposition of active matrix OLEDs -- thin, wide color gamut, wide viewing angles, fast response, etc. What is needed are some breakthroughs in manufacturing that will allow the technology to scale to larger sizes and offer long term competitiveness. At SID, we expect to hear a lot of information on this and other topics, and maybe even a breakthrough.

Certainly one of the key players in this battle is Kodak. Last month, the company consummated a cross licensing agreement with LG Displays (formerly LG.Philips LCD) and announced plans to bring W-OLEDs to market. In addition, sister company LG Chem has entered into a joint development agreement with Universal Display to "accelerate the commercialization of high-performance OLED materials for use in OLED displays and lighting products." These deals will strengthen LG Display's position in the burgeoning OLED market.

In addition, we took a more detailed look at Kodak and find some remarkable progress in its W-OLED architecture that addresses issues from the OLED differential aging, to OLED production scaling beyond Gen4, and even addresses non-uniform currents caused by variations in TFT production. These are all important milestones that must be hit to get OLED into the mainstream. You can be sure this report will not be lost on Sony and Samsung, both with major OLED development initiatives of their own.

The current issue of Mobile Display Report is 54 pages (see Table of Contents below). This newsletter focuses on the full technology, products and business ecosystem for mobile displays and mobile products. It is much more than a collection of press releases. By publishing on a monthly basis, we are able to filter though all of the news of the month to focus on what we believe to be the key developments and trends. Then, using our staff of world-class display experts, we summarize key points and provide analysis and perspective on these developments. Each issue is geared to not only keep you informed, but to help you make better business and technical decisions.

Until next time...

Chris Chinnock
President, Insight Media

To order this issue for the single-issue price of $100.00, click here.
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Below are this month's Table of Contents:

Volume 3

APRIL 2008

Number 4

LED/Laser Devices and Components	2
Epistar Gross Margins Expected to Fall	2
Luminus Closes $72M VC Funding Round	2
Japanese Institute Develops White LED	3
Philips Says Lighting Science Group Violates Patents	3
Polarized-LEDs - But to What Effect on LCDs?	4
OLEDs	6
Kodak's Back with Commercial OLED	6
W-OLED Architecture	8
Scaling to Manufacture	8
Materials Utilization up to 50%	9
LG Chem and UDC in OLED Materials Tie-Up	10
Novaled Opens Its First Subsidiary in Asia	11
Osram's OLED Lighting Hits New Efficiency Levels	12
LCD Components and Manufacturing	12
Indium Prices Fall while Demand Rises	12
Merck's Optimism Returns	13
Backlights	13
ASPs for Handset-BLU LEDs Drop 10% to 15%	13
Epistar to Ship Brighter Notebook LEDs for Backlighting	14
Digital Picture Frames	14
Is Your Digital Picture Frame Secure?	14
Mobile Products	16
Cell Phone Nav. Goes Mainstream	16
Kyocera Bows NFC / Bio Metric Phone	20
Motorola Shows New MobileTV Device	22
Chinese Mobile Handsets Target N. America	23
Samsung Instinct Wins CTIA Best in Show	24
LED/Laser Projectors	24
Iljin Prepares to Market Pico-Projector	24
Alternative Displays	25
Qualcomm Finds New Display Customer	25
Mobile Infrastructure	26
Mobile TV Gets Another Carrier	26
Eu Spectrum Auction Starts in April	27
FCC Auction Nets $20B, From Verizon and AT&T	27
Mobile TV in Europe Squeezing to Single Standard	28
Mobile Extended Services Come of Age	29
WiMax Gets New Investors	31
Smartphones to Replace the PC?	34
Business & Strategic	38
As Cell Phone Turns 35 Motorola Suffers	38
Clairvoyante is Dead; Long Live Nouvoyance	40
BenQ Steps up Handset Outsourcing	41
Compal Makes Low-cost Handsets for Nokia	41
Kyocera Teams with Sanyo in NA Handsets	42
Matsushita Ships 100M Handsets	42
Philips Sells More of its Stake in LG Display	43
Rohm and Haas Acquires Gracel Display	43
T-Mobile Slashes iPhone to 99 Euros	43
US Postal Service Launches CE Recycling	44
Market Intelligence	44
ABI Says SMS to Grow to $212B by 2013	44
China to Top World CE Economy	45
High-End Camcorders to Dominate in '08	47
PMPs Boost Mobile Ads to $2.2B by 2012	47
Insight Media News	48
Projection Summit 2008 Preliminary Agenda Announced	48
Newsletter Editorial Matrix	52
About Mobile Display Report	53
About Insight Media	53