Wave Report

It allows for attachment to the back of the spine from any direction, angle and height. It can be used to restore the normal contour, the lumbar spine known as lordosis or “sway back” and allows for partial correction of spondylolisthesis, or a slippage of one vertebra forward on another.

It provides a selection of pedicle screws, reduced-volume connectors, and pre-cut, contoured rods and received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2003.

http://www.back.com/
http://www.medtronicsofamordanek.com/

*** Andover Controls Adds Wireless Temperature Sensors to Its Product Offering
(January 12)

Andover Controls Corporation announced a partnership with Inovonics Wireless Corporation that will allow it to integrate Inovonics wireless temperature devices, transmitters, receivers, and repeaters with the Company's Continuum facility management systems.

Along with a basic and a larger thermostat-style enclosure type, Andover will offer a model with a slider and override button that allows occupants to adjust temperature set point and/or switch occupancy mode; plus a transmitter-style model with terminal block for an external thermistor (for use with pipe, duct, and other external sensors for applications beyond room temperature sensing). All models operate on a lithium battery with a five-year battery life, and have an open-field range of 2500 feet.

http://www.andovercontrols.com/
http://www.inovonics.com/
http://www.andovercontrols.com/Products/Peripherals/periphWireless.htm/

*** JVC Announces D-ILA Microdisplay Rear Projection HD Televisions
(January 12)

JVC Company of America announced a new generation of rear projection high definition televisions based on the company's D-ILA microdisplay device.

The first two D-ILA rear projection sets to be offered will feature 52-(HD-52Z575) and 61-(HD-61Z575) inch screens. Both use the same 1280x720 pixels, 0.7-inch D-ILA (Direct-Drive Image Light Amplifier) device in a three-chip design. Both also feature JVC's Digital Image Scaling Technology (D.I.S.T.) and the company's Four-Point Color Management system.

Later in the year, JVC will offer two additional 52- and 61-inch D-ILA rear projection models. The HD-52Z795 and HD-61Z795 will offer a fully integrated and comprehensive digital tuner solution, featuring ATSC/POD, IEEE1394 an Easy Programming Grid. These sets will also include JVC's D.I.S.T. and Four Point Color Management.

In JVC's D-ILA rear projection TVs the company's D.I.S.T. upconverts the signal to 720p through the use of algorithm technology. Jagged lines inherent in the original source are smoothed and vertical resolution enhanced. Another feature is JVC's Four-Point Color Management that delivers color reproduction by selecting four points from the color spectrum and adjusting each color separately.

The HD-52Z575 is scheduled for release in July 2004 at a nationally advertised value of $4,499.95.

The HD-52Z795 with integrated ATSC/POD is scheduled for release in 2004's third quarter at a nationally advertised value of $4,999.95.

The HD-61Z575 is scheduled for release in July 2004 at a nationally advertised value of $5,499.95.

The HD-61Z795 with integrated ATSC/POD is scheduled for release in 2004's third quarter at a nationally advertised value of $5,999.95.

http://www.jvc.com

0346.2 Story of the Issue

*** OLED 2003
By John Latta

November 20-22
San Diego, California

Over 250 industry executives attended this international conference designed to address business issues facing the industry, including market size and growth, technical advances and hurdles, application trends, and production economics for organic light emissive displays (OLEDs). This is put on by Intertech Conferences and is an outstanding OLED gathering.

http://www.intertechusa.com

Highlight include.

DisplaySeach

Barry Young of DisplaySearch presented some simple test results. The OLED on the back of the Kodak Easyshare LS633 camera, which was announced in February 2003, is the only full color OLED on the market. DisplaySearch tested it for lifetime over 1000 hours and found:

White color loss was 50%
Blue dropped 70%
Red dropped 30%
Green dropped <30%

Differential aging was quite severe.

However, when video was run through the panel the lifetimes went up 10X.

Barry drew the conclusion, given today’s materials and the dominance of white on PC screens, the role of OLEDs on PCs and notebooks is in doubt. He showed a screen using Word to reinforce the observation that PCs rely on white screens to display much of the information.

The prospects for television are much brighter than many had expected due to the significant increase in lifetime when used for moving displays. It was interesting that many of the later talks focused on the applications of OLEDs in television. An emphasis we had not seen before.

Barry Young estimated the OLED market at $259m in 2003, mostly due to sub displays for cell phones. A major challenge continues to lie with the material lifetime.

For the first time DisplaySearch showed recently completed analysis of the TFT LCD profitability. In Q2 and Q3 Barry claims that the top 5 suppliers in the TFT LCD industry are making profits. This is in spite of the drop in ASP for a 15” panel from $625 in 3Q99 to $187 in 2Q03. A substantial reason for this is the migration to later generation fabs which make for more efficient production due to the much larger substrate sizes.

SK Display Corp – Sanyo and Eastman Kodak

G. Rajeswaran, SK Display Corp., the joint venture between Sanyo and Eastman Kodak, provided an overview of the status of their efforts. The highlight was Kodak’s progress is their claim of 1 year’s experience in mass production of a full color AMOLED. The lessons learned from this cited the statement “Full color OLED manufacturing is hard work.” This is, of course small molecule materials, which Kodak is the inventor and holder of the rights to.

SK Display cited that there is no need for a solid white display, based on Kodak’s experience with a display on a digital camera. A typical photograph uses on 20% to 25% of full white. This led to the statement that

“OLED Display Lifetime = Function of the display image content over time under given conditions of peak luminance and display surface temperature/”

SK Display showed two vectors for the roadmap.

High Resolution Displays but small form factor suitable for cell phones

Large size displays for TV and HDTV.

RiTdisplay

RiTdisplay is in Taiwan and claims to be the largest volume producer of OLEDs. They claimed a market share of 36.7% against Pioneer with 33.9% in 2003. RiTdisplay sees the Mobil phone market, and especially in Korea, as being the key. The reason being, that Korea has adopted the sub-display as an important part of the phone and RiTdisplay is the supplier of the OLED based sub-display. In 2003 RiTdisplay will ship more that 4m sub-displays. These are passive matrix displays and in Q3 or Q4 RiTdisplay will launch AMOLED.

Samsung

The Samsung talk was entitled “Challenges of Large Size OLED” and the target market was clear – large size, up to 50”, televisions based on OLED. They brought with them, for the demo area, a 15.5” AMOLED based on LTPS technology. It is claimed to be the largest of its type. The colors were just stunning.

In order to lay down the materials Samsung is advocating a technique they call LITI (Laser Induced Thermal Imaging). This will work with Polymer (PLED) or LEP/SM Hybrid OLED or SM OLED. According to these claims, Samsung has a fab technology which is OLED material independent. Yet, others on the floor stated this may not be the case and, thus, the ability of this technology to support mass production is questionable.

OSRAM

OSRAM announced its entry onto the OLED market. It has a fab in Penang, Malaysia. The technology is based on polymers. It claims to start production in 2003. It is using the brand name Pictiva.

Cambridge Displays Technology

Dr, David Fyfe gave a talk entitled LEP OLED – Key Success Factors. David claimed that if OLEDs were to be a success it would be accomplished with Polymers because of the superior cost model for fabrication. That is, ink jet mass production methods would have the dominant fabrication economics.

Universal Display Corp

UDC claims to have the high efficiency phosphorescent small molecule materials. It seems as if we have heard this same talk many times. The problem is the blue material and this talk was notable in its omission of any lifetime estimates of blue. It appears that no company is prepared to construct a full color display with materials from different vendors and thus until UDC can solve the blue problem they face a difficult and skeptical market.

Covion

Covion is the only company which is technology agonistic. It has efforts in:
Fluorescent Small Molecules
Fluorescent Polymer
Phosphorescent Small Molecules
Phosphorescent Polymers

Their presentation at OLED 2003 was focused on phosphorescent materials and the blue challenge.

The size of the materials production, given the small amount of materials used in each panel, is 10Kgs per manufacturing line. Covion stated that this is a small volume even by specialty chemical standards. They made an observation that there are 30 vendors chasing a modest opportunity market of $200m to $300m and we should expect consolidation.

Dow

Dow focused on polymers. Interesting results were presented on their efforts in blue polymer development. Examples of 4 new polymers were shown. A new material has recently emerged and that is white polymer and Dow announced a new material.

Recently Dow completed the construction of its polymer manufacturing facility.

Wave Comments

An important transition has taken place in OLED. Large scale manufacturing has begun. RiTdisplay is producing 4m displays a year. Kodak is in volume production with its partner Sanyo with the only full color panels based on their small molecule technology. Philips is also in production and reports yields at 80%. What is significant is that this marks the shift from concept to volume. Everyone characterized this as painful.

It was most refreshing to see world class chemical companies like Covion and Dow seriously addressing the OLED materials issues. This has only begun and it may be years before significant progress is made. However, having major suppliers of these materials is very important to the industry both from a research and production standpoint.

The claims of lifetime by every company are near worthless. There are no uniform measurement standards, and it appears that no one wants them. The gap between lab measurements under controlled conditions and practical tests on mass produced displays are two totally different aspects of the same issue. What is different at this conference is that the application plays a significant role in determining the lifetime and the industry has yet to sort this out.

0346.3 Security

*** 3e Technologies International's Cryptographic Client Software Approved for DoD Use
(January 12)

3e Technologies International announced that its 3e-010F Crypto Client Software is FIPS 140-2 Level 1 Validated. The FIPS Validation process ensures compliance with both U.S. and Canadian Government security standards established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Canadian Communications Security Establishment.

Validation of the 3e-010F Crypto Client Software supplements NIST's recent FIPS 140-2 Level 2 approval of 3eTI's Access Points - the 3e-521NP, 3e-530NP and 3e-522FIPS.

The 3e WLAN Security Suite implements cryptographic technologies including: AES, 3DES, SHA-1, HMAC SHA-1, 802.1x/EAP-TLS, Diffie-Hellman, RSA, and HTTPS/TLS. It features an RF Manager that allows the adjustment of WLAN RF output power level from 0 up to 200 mill watts, providing coverage in excess of 2,000 feet.

http://www.3eti.com/

0346.4 Wireless

*** Soflinx Corporation Introduces Soflinx Mobile Defender
(January 13)

Soflinx Corporation announced the availability of Soflinx Mobile Defender, a portable wireless sensor network for detecting explosive, nuclear, radiological, and chemical warfare agents at "off-site" locations.

Mobile Defender consists of an array of independent sensors that can be placed and removed from any strategic location including building access points, rooftops, windows, or any other vulnerable or high-risk area. Each sensor is self contained in a small, tamper resistant brief case, which houses all the sensory and electrical components, as well as an independent power supply, and wireless radio. The system is managed through a mobile control console (laptop), which provides real-time monitoring of sensory data and management of the overall network. Mobile Defender can accommodate up to 50 sensors, and can interface with any existing monitoring and reporting systems in use at a given location.

Mobile Defender uses the Soflinx proprietary Datalinx technology. Datalinx is a modular and scalable operating system for wireless sensor networks that creates an intelligent, extensible network with adaptable and scalable network architecture, by defining and implementing roles and procedures designed specifically for each network component.

http://www.soflinx.com/

0346.5 3D

*** Caligari Releases jewelSpace3
(January 13)

Caligari Corporation announced availability of jewelSpace3, the next generation version of its 3D modeling and design software for jewelers, built on Caligari's software, trueSpace.

jewelSpace3 features a 3D interface that enables jewelers to view, adjust and modify jewelry designs onscreen. Finished designs can be exported in different formats, including to the web for customer viewing, to prototyping machines and to traditional CAD applications.

All libraries are accessible from within the interface, enabling jewelry designers to select and drag desired images or templates into the design space and create or customize a piece of jewelry. Finished or partially assembled designs can be stored in a Smart Library for later use. New features in jewelSpace3 include a channel maker, physical sizing tools, chamfers and fillet support to smooth out sharp edges, a global interactive replace feature, allowing the selection and replacement of an element in all stored designs and a desktop directory.

jewelSpace is now offered in two packages, jewelSpace3 and jewelSpace3 Elite. jewelSpace 3 costs $1995, including the jewelSpace software, training material on DVD and 90 days of email technical support. jewelSpace3 Elite, for $4995, includes the software, the training DVDs and one year of technical support via email or phone, with additional training available upon request.

http://www.jewelspace.net/

0346.6 Exhibitions
*** Steven F. Udvar-Hazy center National Air & Space Museum Now Open
(December 15)

The Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum has built a new museum for the display and preservation of its collection of historic aviation and space artifacts. In honor of its major donor, it has been named the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center opened to the public on December 15, 2003. The Udvar-Hazy Center is south of the main terminal at Dulles Airport in northern Virginia, near the intersection of Routes 28 and 50. The 70,611-square-meter (760,057-square-foot) building is situated on 176.5 acres. The facility has a large aviation exhibit hangar and a separate space exhibit hangar, an observation tower from which visitors can watch air traffic at Dulles Airport, classrooms, a large-format theater, food service and more. A shuttle bus service runs between the downtown Museum and the new Center for a fee.

Aircraft pictures at the museum, taken by Digital Aircraft Log photographer John Latta, are available at http://www.digitalaircraftlog.com/dullesite/ddulles2/FrameSet.htm

http://www.nasm.si.edu/museum/udvarhazy/
http://www.digitalaircraftlog.com/

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