***Display Forum 2002
December 11 - 12, 2002
by John Latta
Nice, France
As the readers of the WAVE Report know we are a fan of the
conferences put on by DisplaySearch. The quality of the market
assessments are excellent and the industry coverage
comprehensive. Display Forum was a joint conference organized by
Meko and DisplaySearch. Although the focus was on European
display market there was much to be gained from fresh market
dynamic insights.
Having only come from OLED 2002 a few weeks before we were
wondering - what is new to learn about in displays? Wrong. There
was much to be gained from Display Forum.
Eastman Kodak
Les Polgar, President of Eastman Kodak Displays, gave the keynote
on day two. It was an excellent summary of Kodak's view of the
technology and market. Key points made include:
- Kodak estimates that above $100m/year is being spent on
OLED research. This is significantly higher that the
estimate from OLED 2002.
- There are 9 companies that have or are shipping OLED
displays as of December 2002. Of these, 8 of the 9 use
Kodak's small molecule technology. The companies are:
Pioneer, TDK, SNMD, RitDisplay, Nippon Seiki, eMagin, Sanyo
and Kodak.
- Although there is a perception that small molecule and
polymer technologies differ in the following ways:
-- Rigid vs. flexible substrates
-- Glass vs. plastic
-- Vacuum deposition vs. solution processing
Les cautioned not to assume that small molecule cannot be
done on flexible substrates. Thus, to bin the attributes of
polymer as exclusive of small molecule would be a mistake.
Note the announcement of the previous day by UDC with DuPont
for solution based processing. (see below)
- Kodak does not quote lifetimes openly because there are so
many factors present. He cited some of these factors as:
initial luminance, color or white, test cell or actual
product conditions. One must understand all of these
parameters to determine if OLED materials are suitable for
an application.
- He cautioned that the current business model for much of
the industry, which separates suppliers from users, has
fundamental flaws. Suppliers include: IP and those that sell
materials to licensees. The users are those that make and
sell display products. The issue centers around the
objectives of each segment. While suppliers, such as CDT,
are focused on a "liquidity event," the users seek to make
profits from production. Les stated we have seen both sides.
First, when Kodak only licensed its IP and then when the
joint agreement was put in place with Sanyo where it became
a user. This fundamentally changed how Kodak viewed the
market because, in part, it now had to make the technology
work in products.
- One issue lost on the IP companies is that they must focus
on total systems cost. This is what their customers see--not
only, for example, just the cost of the materials.
- Les held up the Nintendo Game Boy into which had they had
inserted an OLED. This was the same unit widely shown in the
SID 2002 booth. He cited this as an example of where OLEDs
do not have an application. "This is a bad example for OLED
because the price situation does not align. In order to do
this a supplier company would have to sell at a tremendous
loss." However, these comments were inconsistent with his
remarks that the industry needs to get real about
applications and recognize where OLEDs can be applied and
where they do not fit.
- Kodak developed a roadmap for the application of OLEDs in
March 2001 for its management. Some 21 months later this in
unchanged. Les cited that track record is quite consistent -
it takes from 30 - 39 months from the time a demonstration
of technology is made to the time it takes to go into
production. According to his road map the following is
expected:
-- 2002 - Cell phones which use 2.2" OLED displays
-- 2003 - 2.16" and 4" displays for cameras and
camcorders
-- 2004 - 5" to 7" displays for handheld TVs and DVD
players
-- 2005 - 9.5" to 15" full color displays for notebooks
and PC Monitors
-- 2006 - >15" full color television
- The cost of the Fab 1 and Fab 2 OLED facilities was modest
by most standards - $350m.
- The comments they received over and over from CEATEC and
the OLED television they showed was consistent - "This is
the best television we have ever seen."
- Now it is the time for the industry to buckle down and do
the hard work making products with efficient processes.
- The display division at Kodak has now moved to a group
president and this is reflective of the increasing
importance that displays play at Kodak.
Ross Smith - FPD Forecast
DisplaySearch and the presentations set the stage for the market
dynamics which will create a major shift in display technology
and market by 2005 - 2006. TFT LCD capacity will go from 10m sq m
in 2002 to 40m sq m in 2006. This is a 41% growth rate. Yet, as
this capacity is brought on-line the companies are investing in
LTPS so that either OLED backplanes can be created or TFT LCDs.
LG/Philips is investing in 3 5th generation plants for AMOLED.
The driving force behind these huge investments is television set
market. In 2005 it is expected that 180m televisions will be
sold. Ross Smith, President of DisplaySearch, showed an economic
model for LCD TFT production. He forecast a 32" FPD television
for $999 in 2006. Ross considers this the sweet spot of the
market where demand will be dramatic and it is from this point
the FPD televisions will become a mass market reality.
Using that as the foundation of his talk, Ross laid out the
current and projected spending for FPD fabrication facilities to
2006. This provided a capacity forecast based on the attributes
of the facilities. From this he then estimated the unit and
revenue for FPD. Then came the supply and demand assessment. Part
of this was a DisplaySearch model for forecasting the cost of FPD
modules - 32" and 40". The key points reached were:
- 6th and 7th generation fabs are required to make a profit
from these large panels. 6th generation begins with glass
substrates of: 1500mm X 1800mm while 7th generation is:
1800mm X 2100mm.
- Taiwan and Korea is expected to account for 80% of the
production for large area panels by 2005.
- However, in the small to medium panel market Japan will
retain 76% share to 2006.
- The past crystal cycles, where over capacity created low
prices and losses and then shortages followed by higher
prices and another fab build cycle, is expected to dampen
significantly from 2002 to 2006.
- By 2006 15" XGA LCD monitor panel pricing is expected to
decline to $25 by 2006, while 18" panels will be
approximately $220.
- The major market target is the entry of FPD into the
television market. For both the 32" and 40" panels profits
can only be made with 6th and 7th generation fabs.
- OLED remains a dark horse. If its many issues are
resolved, especially lifetime, OLEDs offer some significant
advantages. These include: compelling image characteristics
and the potential for lower cost. It was stated that LCD TFT
costs for a 42" display are on a par with PDP of the same
cost, the reason being the backlighting cost. This is very
significant in that unless the component costs can be
significantly reduced TFT LCD panels will be competing with
other existing technologies. Yet, OLEDs, because they do not
need backlighting, offer a significant advantage.
- It is expected that there will be considerable push
towards LED backlighting, also to reduce the cost in LCD TFT
displays.
- By 2006 the FPD market will reach $63b.
Screen Technology
A start up in Cambridge, England, Screen Technology, presented a
tiling technology which is based on using conventional LCD TFT
panels. This uses low cost plastic light guides to effectively
expand the area of the panel to allow multiple panels to be
combined.
Tony Lowe, a non-executive director gave an interesting talk on a
different approach to tiling displays. The essence of the
technique is to use conventional LCD panels. In front of the
panel is placed an ITrans module. This is essentially a light
pipe assembly which fans out from each pixel on the TFT LCD
panel. The new panel, defined by the front screen of the ITrans
module, exactly fills the dimensions of the tile which, at least,
extends beyond the bezel of the TFT LCD. Thus, multiple modules
can be combined adjacent to each other with precise alignment.
The difficulty with tiling is that the edge problem is quite
difficult to solve. The requirements include:
- Invisible join between tiles
- No detectable changes in luminance across the display
- The angular distribution of light must match for each
adjacent pixel which are in alignment between the tiles.
These are very difficult to accomplish due to the sensitivity of
the eye to discontinuities in brightness.
Other companies have attempted such displays but failed in part
due to the edge requirements. Other issues include color fringing
at the edges.
So far they have assembled a 2 X 1 prototype and are working on a
4 X 3 52" viability demonstrator both of which use 12.1"
displays. They do not expect to show their technology until SID
2004.
They claim, due to the construction of the ITrans design that the
depth of the ITrans and the $/m are independent of the display
diagonal.
The company was initially funded with 500,000 pounds and seeking
funding in Mid 2003.
Although they would not discuss the cost of the module I learned
from other sources it the adds about 15% to the cost of the
display. It is claimed the ITrans module can be easily fabricated
from injection molded plastic.
UDC (Universal Display Corporation)
During their presentation UDC announced a joint development
agreement between it and DuPont to create soluble small molecule
phosphorescent OLED materials. It is intended that
phosphorescent, printable OLEDs could result. Note that to-date
when small molecule materials are put into a solution the light
emitting characteristics stop. This agreement is an indication
that these companies may have a solution, pun intended, to this
problem.
Sony on Wireless Strategy
Much to our surprise Sony's Marketing Director for Information
Technology, Andreas Ditter, gave a talk on Sony's Wireless
Challenge. Yes, it was out of place at a display conference but
we found it interesting none the less. The theme of Andreas's
talk was on Sony's strategy for wireless. Sony placed a strong
emphasis on 802.11a/b in the home and the role it plays in
creating the broadband home. He went so far as to state that Sony
would have dual mode a/b for the home in Europe in 2003. Sony
also made a strong case for Bluetooth. Many of the points that he
made were an advance indicator of what Sony showed at CES.
Nokia
Antti Laaperi, Nokia, VP of Mobil Phones R&D gave an interesting
keynote. One of the more provocative charts showed the growth in
SMS usage on phones as a function of penetration by country. What
was so striking is that the usage of SMS by the Nordic countries
far out distanced those in Greece, UK, France, Italy and Spain. I
described this as the Mediterranean effect and there was no good
explanation of this offered.
Antii had as a premise in his talk, that phones would be moving
to multimedia capability - specifically the support of imaging
and transmission over the phone network. Yet, the SMS chart was
cause for pause. That is, are we likely to see similar cultural
issues on high end phones, with imaging for example, which are
just not accepted by other cultures? In response, Antti agreed.
Later in off-line discussions, he cited for example that Saudi
Arabia could well ban such phones. This only emphasized a point
that local cultures have a significant role in determining
technology adoption.
In the PDA section of the conference much was made about the rush
to converged devices. The obvious example is the PDA and the
phone. In this case the display plays a central role in enabling
for expanded functionality of such devices. I asked the question
- why are we sure this is the case? Just the question provoked an
extended discussion. In the end Antti had the best observation -
Nokia is now on the third generation of such converged phones and
they have found they are no more than niche products.
Selected Highlights
DisplaySearch predicts that the ASP for PDA displays will remain
nearly flat from 2002 to 2006 at $40. I doubted this. The reason
is that as Gen 5 & 6 LCD fabs come on line this will further free
up Gen 3 and 4 fabs and this excess capacity will drive the
prices down. Yet, Barry Young countered that converting a Gen 4
fab, the first to make large size panels >10", to one that makes
3" panels not so easy. He cited one example, where a Gen 4 fab is
producing small displays but ships its sheet production to
another company for cutting and final display fabrication. It is
easier to do this than convert a large display fab to a small
display fab, in spite of the generation of the fab.
An emerging trend, with a focus on China, are desknote computers.
This is a computer in a portable form factor that just looks like
a notebook. It is not a notebook but a portable computer that has
the capabilities of a desktop. That is, there is no battery, the
processor is a desktop processor, as is the graphics chip.
DisplaySearch cautions on the Tablet PC that the form factor and
price are just not in line with what the market needs. The form
factor is too bulky for the Tablet PC to feel like a pad of paper
and the size should also be larger like a tablet of paper. The
price is out of line, by being more expensive than a notebook -
the pricing should go down not up from the notebook.
What is Missing?
In spite of all the high points, we were disappointed with the
CD-ROM conference proceedings that was mailed subsequent to the
conference. Contrary to the tradition at DisplaySearch, the
presentations were in Adobe Acrobat format, rather than
PowerPoint. As a result, one of the best slides at the
conference, Ross Young's dramatic illustration of the size of the
glass panels for Gen 4 to 7, was masked into one slide. The
utility of the proceedings was significantly limited by the
omission of the native presentation materials.
Wave Issue 0304 2/14/03 Article 2-01