Category Archives: ITO replacement

Atmel exits metal mesh

February 9, 2015

On February 4th, 2015, Atmel announced it decided to exit the XSense (Metal mesh type ITO-replacement) business.

It’s sad to see Atmel closing the Xsense fab in Colorado. I actually toured the XSense cleanroom in Colorado fab in November 2013.

As we wrote three months ago, in our “ITO-replacement: non-ITO transparent conductor technology and market forecast report”, 4th edition, “Metal mesh transparent conductor is facing obstacles due to optical and yield issues. Metal mesh manufacturers need to consider new strategies to increase market share.”

Figure. ITO replacement report 4th edition

ITO replacement 4th edition cover

Source: Touch Display Research, November 2014.

This report profiles over 220 companies and research institutes working on advanced transparent conductive (TC) materials and provides a detailed analysis of metal mesh, carbon nano tube (CNT), conductive polymer, silver nanowire, graphene, and other technologies.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Cambrios silver nanowire in One Film Solution touch panel

October 7, 2014
This week, Cambrios announced its new generation silver nanowire. The new silver nanowire is thinner than DNA, which is about 2nm. Cambrios claims silver nanowire is leaving behind other ITO-replacement technologies such as metal mesh.
At the same time, touch panel manufacturer, Henghao Technology, indicated they’ve adopted silver nanowire on the One Film Solution (OFS) touch panels.

Figure. ITO-replacement comparison chart
ITO replacement compare with TDR
Source: Touch Display Research Inc., ITO-replacement report, May 2014

In the Touch Display Research “ITO-replacement report”, we profiles over 220 companies and research institutes working on advanced transparent conductive (TC) materials and provides a detailed analysis of metal mesh, silver nanowire, carbon nano tube (CNT), conductive polymer, graphene, and other technologies.
Touch Display Research forecasts that the non-ITO transparent conductor market will reach $8.1 billion by 2021.
One Film Solution and flexible touch screen will be analyzed in our “Touch and Emerging Display” monthly report.

Thanks for reading,
Jennifer and team

New trends in touch: ITO-replacement, active pen, touchless control

Aug 6, 2014
We just published an article in SID Information Display Journal, July/August 2014 issue—New Trends in Touch.

Figure. SID Information Display Journal
Information Display July Aug 14 cover
Source: SID Information Display, July/August 2014

With touch panels becoming ubiquitous, the touch industry is undergoing rapid change. Touch Display Research Inc. reports on its most recent survey of the leading manufacturers in the touch-screen, ITO replacement material, active pen and touchless control industry.

Here is the link to the full article. You can become a SID member right now on their website: www.sid.org.

Thanks for reading,
Jennifer and team

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

 

Electronic Display Conference (eDC 2014) in Germany

February 27, 2014

I’m traveling in the beautiful Nuremburg, Germany for electronic Display Conference (eDC) 2014. Even though it’s raining today, the conference still had over 260 attendees.

In the touch session in the morning, Dr. Roland Aubauer from Microchip Technology discussed 3D gesture touch controller they developed. Mr. Bob Raikes, from Meko (also my industry friend) gave a presentation titled “Just because touch works on a phone, it’s not always the answer”. He jokingly suggested the PC should add a foot pedal, so like driving a car, we can use our foot to do left click or right click. Even that is a joke, but he does have a good point: besides finger touch, there are many other methods to do machine-human user interface.

Figure: Mr. Bob Raikes gave presentation

Bob speak

Photo by: Jennifer Colegrove

At the keynote session, Dr. Jyrki Kimmel from Nokia could not come in person, so he gave the keynote about displays in the mobile ecosystem on the telephone, while the conference chairman Professor Doctor Blankenbach helped to click through the slides.  It went well.

Then on behalf of Touch Display Research, I gave a keynote on the touch screen and emerging display market. I first thanked the conference organizer and our sponsor company Data Modul. I then discussed 7 new opportunities in the touch and display market: phablet, NB and AIO PC with touch, ITO-replacement, flexible and curved display, active pen, touchless control, and quantum dot.

Figure: Touch Display Research Dr. Jennifer Colegrove gave presentation

Jenny speaking edc small3

Photo by: Dr. Susanne Bieller, VDMA-DFF

At the end, Mrs. Sweta Dash from IHS gave a keynote about top 10 display trends for 2014 and beyond.

The conference ended at around 4:20pm very successfully. Attendees were still lingering around for networking.

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

3M announced metal mesh, silver nanowire and ITO film

December 17, 2013

It’s not a secret that 3M is developing metal mesh. What pleasantly surprised me is that 3M officially announced all 3 transparent conductor films: metal mesh film, silver nanowire film with Cambrios and ITO film.

I had the chance to talk to 3M’s marketing manager, Mr. Erik Lood, recently.  I asked him why you supply ITO film and ITO-replacement film at the same time. He indicated, “We want to offer our customers all the choices: good, better, best. Customers can choose.”

Touch Display Research forecast ITO-replacement market will grow from $206 million this year to $4 Billion by 2020.

How visible is 3M’s metal mesh lines? I’ll find out when I meet 3M in a few weeks.

More analysis can be found in our “Touch and Emerging Display report” December 2013 issue and Jan 2014 issue.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Sharp and Microsoft both use metal-mesh ITO-replacement touch panels

September 19, 2013

I just came back from Touch Taiwan 2013 and the associated International Display Manufacturing Conference (IDMC). With about 400 exhibitors at the show, it was certainly very hot, just like the weather in Taipei.

I had a chance to touch both Sharp and Microsoft’s large size touch panel in Touch Taiwan. Both use metal mesh type ITO-replacement material on their touch panel.

Figure. Sharp metal mesh touch panel (left) and Microsoft metal mesh touch panel (right)

Sharp metal mesh touchMicrosoft metal mesh

Photo: Jennifer Colegrove, Touch Display Research Inc., 2013.

Sharp showcased a series of 20”, 32” and 70” touch panels and claim they have very high performance due to the high SNR (signal noise ratio). Microsoft’s 55” touch demo was showcased in Corning’s booth, as they used Corning’s Gorilla Glass as the cover lens.

Touch Display Research believes that metal-mesh type materials have high conductivity and could fit best on large-sized projected capacitive touch panels. We forecast the ITO-replacement market will grow to about $4 billion by 2020.

Which companies are supplying metal-mesh type transparent conductor? What’s their manufacturing process?  What’s the market share of metal-mesh vs. silver nanowire vs. carbon nanotube vs. conductive polymer vs. graphene? More analysis can be found in our ITO-replacement report and the Touch and Emerging Display monthly report.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

 

Rolith joins the ITO-replacement industry with its metal-mesh transparent conductor

August 13, 2013

As published in our recent “ITO-Replacement: Non-ITO Transparent Conductor Technologies, Supply Chain and Market Forecast” report, there are already 19 companies and research institutes  working on or shipping metal-mesh transparent conductors.

On August 12th, California-based start-up Rolith announced that it has successfully fabricated metal-mesh type transparent conductors using proprietary nanolithography technology. It claims to have fabricated metal mesh of sub-micron width, and can achieve high transparency (>94% transmission) with a very low haze (~2%) and low resistivity (<14 Ohm/☐).

Rolith was founded in 2008 by Dr. Boris Kobrin, Julian Zegelman, and Dr. Mark Brongersma. It received seed funding from Asahi Glass Corp in 2010 and has been developing nanolithography technology for “moth eye” structure for anti-reflection coating. Now, with the same technique and process, but changing the material to conductive ink and the mask pattern to grid pattern, Rolith is entering the ITO-replacement market.

Many characteristics need to be considered when comparing different types of ITO replacement. The figure shown below compares the conductivity and cost.

Figure: ITO-replacement material comparison:  conductivity and cost

ITO replacement compare with TDR

Source: Touch Display Research, ITO-replacement: non-ITO transparent conductor technologies, supply chain and market forecast report, May 2013 version.

Touch Display Research forecast the ITO-replacement market will grow from $206 million this year to $4 billion by 2020.

What are the challenges of Rolith’s technology? What are the advantages and disadvantages of metal mesh? More analysis can be found in our monthly Touch and Emerging Display Report.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

 

ITO Replacement Companies

May 18, 2013

Over 180 companies and research institutes are working on ITO replacement in 2013. 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. Transparent conductor applications include touch sensors, displays, lighting, thin-film solar (PV), smart windows, and EMI shielding.

Graphene is the most researched non-ITO material with 41 companies and research institutes working on it. Carbon nanotube and metal mesh are the number two and three.  Twenty-nine companies supply non-ITO transparent conductive film. Twenty-one companies supply the nano ink or powder.

Figure: Non-ITO transparent conductors vs. companies

ITO alternative figure

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

Several companies are already mass producing these advanced transparent conductive materials. Atmel has been mass producing XSense for several months. Fujifilm is currently expanding its EXCLEAR capacity. UniPixel is starting the mass production of UniBoss. Cambrios is leading the silver nanowire transparent conductor.

What is the market size and forecast for ITO replacement transparent conductors?  What’s the manufacturing process of different metal meshes? 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