Tag Archives: Touch screen

SID 2014: ITO-replacement and quantum dot are the two biggest trends

June 4, 2014
I’m at the beautiful San Diego, California now for SID 2014 DisplayWeek. The No. 1 trend at this year’s SID is: ITO-replacement. The No. 2 trend is quantum dot. (I’ll blog about quantum dot tomorrow).
Over 10 companies showed ITO-replacement at SID 2014. Some are in the exhibition floor, some showed us through invitation-only meetings.
Canatu showed their Carbon Nano Bud type transparent conductor. It won SID silver award due to its low haze, low reflection, and flexible character. The picture here is the side by side comparison of CNB film with an ITO film.

Figure: Canatu CNB film and ITO film side by side comparison
Canatu SID 2014 TDR
Source: Canatu, photo by Touch Display Research, June 2014.

Another ITO replacement I like at the DisplayWeek is the Cima Nanotech and Amdolla’s 42” projected capacitive touch screen.

Figure 2: Cima Nanotech and Amdolla’s 42” projected capacitive touch screen
Cima 42 inch TDR
Source: Cima Nanotech, photo by Touch Display Research, June 2014.

In the recently published ITO-replacement report, 3rd edition, Touch Display Research profiled over 220 companies and research institutes working on ITO-replacement. Touch Display Research’s survey found that even with some metal mesh companies’ disappointing progress, the overall adoption of ITO-replacement is accelerating. We forecast the ITO-replacement market will grow rapidly from 2014 to 2021.
Thanks for reading,
Jennifer and team

 

Qeexo software can tell finger touch from knuckle touch

May 29, 2014
Today Qeexo announced it raised $2.3 million series A funding, led by Sierra Ventures.
Last week I had a chance to meet Qeexo’s CEO Mr. Sang Won Lee, and their head of business development, Mr. Jason Liang and got to know this start-up company. Qeexo is pronounced as “Kick, So”. It was founded in September 2012.
Mr. Lee demonstrated their software, named “FingerSense” to me on a Samsung smartphone. See figure here. With this software add on a typical smart phone, the touch screen could tell if it’s a finger touch, or knuckle touch, or a stylus touch.
Figure. Qeexo demo on a smart phone
Qeexo fingerQeexo knuckleqeexo menu
Source: Qeexo. Photo by Jennifer Colegrove

Qeexo indicated the FingerSense is software only, and can be deployed on today’s mobile devices without adding any hardware. Mr. Lee indicated the touch industry has come from single touch to multi-touch, the next wave will be “rich touch”.
Qeexo is currently in discussions with a number of mobile device manufacturers to embed FingerSense into their devices or license the software.
More analysis will be in our “Touch and Emerging Display” report. You can subscribe to the report right now on this website.
Thanks for reading,
Jennifer and team

Visit of Light Blue Optics about touch and pen

April 17, 2014

I’m traveling in Cambridge, England today. I had a chance to visit Light Blue Optics (LBO). Dr. Nic Lawrence, director of product management, and Ms. Evelyne Donnaes, Software team leader at LBO, showed me their touch and pen technologies.

The last time I visit LBO in Cambridge is about 6 years ago when they were developing laser based pocket projectors. Since 2011, LBO has changed business direction and developed optical touch technology. LBO’s expertise is in the touch software, which they named Light Touch.

In January 2014, Light Blue Optics and Promethean announced the integration of LBO’s advanced Light Touch™ technology into ActivWall – Promethean’s newest digital classroom projection offering.

Figure: Promethean ActivWall with Light Blue Optics touch technology

LBO Promethean

Source: Promethean and LBO

The ActivWall is an interactive digital surface that may be positioned both “front and back” in the classroom. In order to design digital classroom surfaces that allow multiple groups of students to simultaneously collaborate, the new ActivWall features Light Blue Optics’ unique Light Touch™ technology that supports differentiated pen (i.e. the system identifies whether the contact is a pen or touch and operates accordingly) and up to 20 simultaneous touches. LBO also claims their system is lower cost than competitors.

Detail analysis, comparisons of touch and pen technologies can be found in our monthly report: Touch and Emerging Display report, April 2014 issue.

Thanks for reading.

Jennifer and team

 

YotaPhone with two displays at MWC 2014

February 24, 2014

Today at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2014, YotaPhone and Cypress announced features on the 2nd generation YotaPhone: larger and better displays and both displays will have full touch screen.

Here is the spec comparison of the first and second generation YotaPhone:

Yota 1st and 2nd spec comp

Source: Yota Devices, compiled by Touch Display Research, Feb 2014

YotaPhone stands out from the crowd with its low power secondary display on the back, which is made by E Ink.

Touch Display Research believes flexible, thin, low power, good sunlight readability display will be suitable for secondary, cover display. For example, in a bright sunny day, when it’s hard to see the information on your mobile phone’s LCD or AMOLED display, you can use your secondary display to show the mobile phone information. In the “Flexible and Curved Display Technologies and Market Forecast” report, Touch Display Research forecast secondary display will have rapid growth from 2014.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Microsoft Surface VP Panos Panay speak about people

February 12, 2014

I was invited to attend Microsoft’s Hardware event recently hosted in their Mountain View, California campus. There were about 100 attendees at this event.

Microsoft Vice President for Surface, Panos Panay gave a very good speech at this event. He indicated “It’s not about hardware, it’s not about software, it’s about people. It’s not only about vision; it’s about people that can deliver the vision.”

After his speech, I asked him about the Microsoft Surface table and tablet. More analysis can be found in Touch and Emerging Display monthly report, February 2014 issue.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

CES 2014 What to Expect

December 20, 2013

I’ll travel to International CES 2014 in Las Vegas in early January. CES is one of the most crowded consumer electronic shows in the world with over 150,000 attendees.

Here are what to expect:

  1. OLED display. We expect Samsung and LG will demo large size AMOLED TV at CES 2014, just as they did in last year. But this time it’ll be one level higher: we expect to see 4K and larger size. Other companies, such as Sony, AUO, Panasonic will also demo 4K OLED TV.

Touch Display Research forecasts that by 2020 the OLED TV market will reach $15.5 billion. 2016 will be the takeoff year for OLED TVs with billions of dollars of revenue each year after that.

2. 8K display. We expect to see 8K display at CES 2014. More analysis can be found in our “Touch and Emerging Display report” December 2013 report.

3. Quantum dot is adopted in LCD to improve color gamut and reduce power consumption.  At CES 2014, we’ll see Sony’s Triluminos TV with quantum dot from QD Vision.  We might also see Hisense demo quantum dot TV as well.

Quantum dot could improve Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) dramatically in terms of color gamut, color accuracy and reducing power consumption. This is one of the biggest breakthrough technologies for LCD in recent several years. Now quantum dot LCD is challenging AMOLED.

Touch Display Research forecasts that the quantum dot display and lighting component market will reach $9.6 billion by 2023.

4. We’ll also see many flexible/curved display at CES 2014, such as curved OLED TV, curved LCD TV, curved smart watches, wearable devices.

Touch Display Research forecasts 30 million units flexible and curved displays will be shipped for smart watch application by 2023.

Overall flexible and curved display market will reach $27 Billion by 2023.

5. ITO-replacement. At CES 2014, we’ll see many touch screen devices, from mobile phone to large public signage. ITO-replacement transparent conductor is penetrating to touch screens very rapidly. ITO-replacement attracted over 200 companies and research Institutes. We expect to see metal mesh, silver nanowire and other ITO-replacement touch panels at the show.

Touch Display Research forecasts the non-ITO transparent conductor market will grow from $206 million in 2013 to $4 billion by 2020.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Atmel XSense fab tour in Colorado Spring

November 5, 2013

Atmel XSense is one of the metal mesh types ITO-replacement transparent conductor for touch panel. Atmel announced mass production of XSense in early 2013. The first design-win is the ASUS’s tablet PC.

I recently interviewed Atmel’s director Mr. Rusty Stapp, he showed me the ASUS tablet PC, several new demos and different size XSense touch sensors: flat or curved.

Atmel invited me for a fab tour of their XSense fab this week. I’m in Colorado Spring currently, and I’m very excited and looking forward for the fab tour tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer

Popular session in FPD International 2013 Yokohama

November 1, 2013

I’m back in California from the FPD International 2013 conference in Yokohama, Japan. It was my honor to speak at this conference, and I’m very glad to meet some of you in person at this conference.

Today in the FPD International 2013 conference website, Nikkei BP (the conference organizer) posted the total attendee numbers: there were over 47,000 attendees for the 3 days exhibition, and over 3500 attendees for the forum.

I’m very glad to see that our session “Touch Panel New Market and Technologies” is rated the popular session at this conference. http://expo.nikkeibp.co.jp/fpd/2013/english/

Figure: FPD International 2013 popular sessions

popular session

FPD International 2013 my session

Source: FPD International 2013, Nikkei BP

Nice to present with you, Mizuhashi-san and Geoff.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

TPK, Cambrios and NISSHA Expand Joint Venture

October 4, 2013

On October 3rd, Cambrios, TPK and NISSHA signed the expansion of joint venture– TPK Film Solution.

Back in August, in our “Touch and Emerging Display” monthly report, we’ve reported that TPK will produce silver nanowire type film touch panel by end of this year.

The interesting thing of yesterday’s news is that NISSHA also joined it. NISSHA has been producing ITO film touch panel before.

ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) is currently the mainstream transparent conductor. However, due to its high cost, long process and fragility, non-ITO type transparent conductors are gaining momentum.

Over 180 companies and research institutes are working on ITO replacement in 2013. Sixteen companies and research institutes are working on silver nanowire. Metal mesh, carbon nanotube, conductive polymer and graphene are also popular ITO-replacement transparent conductors.

Figure: Non-ITO transparent conductors vs. companies

ITO alternative figure

Source: Touch Display Research, ITO-replacement report, May 2013

What is the market size and forecast for ITO replacement transparent conductors?  What’s the price of transparent conductive film? Which transparent conductor is suitable for which application? Which direction should you invest in non-ITO transparent conductors? A detailed analysis can be found in our “ITO replacement–Non-ITO Transparent Conductor Technologies, Supply Chain and Market Forecast Report.”

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team