Category Archives: Conference Review

SID 2015 advanced and comprehensive exhibitor: BOE

June 8, 2015

SID 2015 DisplayWeek was held in San Jose, California last week. We blogged about the SID Monday Seminar last week.

Here is the summary of exhibitions at SID 2015. This year there were about 195 exhibitors at the show floor. After visit the whole exhibitions for 3 days, my conclusion is that this year one of the most advanced and comprehensive exhibitor is BOE.  BOE not only demoed a 10K LCD, (see picture here), but also showed metal mesh touch screen, AMOLED display, quantum dot display and more.

Figure: BOE 82 inch 10K display at SID 2015 DisplayWeek.

BOE 10K TDR

Photo by: Touch Display Research Inc.

The interesting thing is that Samsung is no-show at this year’s SID. In the past several years, Samsung had always put together one of the most splendid booth and showcase the “world’s first”, or “world’s largest”, or the “world’s most advanced” at SID. But at this year’s SID, Samsung completely no show, no paper.  It seems Samsung is following Apple’s example: no show, no paper at SID.

Figure: Samsung’s booth at last year’s SID 2014 DisplayWeek.

Samsung OLED sid14

Photo by: Touch Display Research Inc.

More analysis about BOE, Samsung, Apple, OLED, quantum dot, metal mesh, and silver nanowire will be in the “Touch and Emerging Display monthly report”, June 2015 issue.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

SID 2015 Monday Seminar: from mainstream to emerging display

June 6, 2015

SID 2015 DisplayWeek is held in San Jose, California this week. I taught a seminar on Monday morning, titled “Display Market Forecast –LCD, OLED, e-paper and touch, from main stream to emerging display”.

When I arrived the seminar location at 8:15am, (15 minutes before it starts), the room is full of attendees already. I first listed the hot trends in display industry in 2015 and 2016. Then I provided the global display industry market forecast from 2015 to 2025. The overall display industry growth is slowing down but there are hot trends in many areas. The new opportunities in display market include:  quantum dot display, flexible and curved LCD display, high resolution, OLED display, e-paper display, embedded touch screens.

Figure: Dr. Jennifer Colegrove taught Monday Seminar at SID 2015 DisplayWeek.

Jenny SID 2015 seminar

Photo credit: Ogawa-san at Japan Display Inc.

More and more people joined the seminar, many of them had to stand for the one and half an hour seminar. (I feel grateful and honored.) From the questions the attendee asked at the Q&A session, many people are interested in 3 areas: quantum dot, high resolution, flexible display, touch screen.

More analysis can be found in the “Quantum dot 2015 report”, “Flexible, curved and foldable display 2015 report”, Touch and Emerging Display monthly report, June 2015 issue.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

SID 2014: quantum dot

Yesterday, we discussed this year SID DisplayWeek’s No. 1 trend: ITO-replacement.
Here we discuss about the No. 2 trend: quantum dot.
Over 10 companies showed quantum dot at SID 2014. Some are in the exhibition floor; some showed us through invitation-only meetings.
Touch Display Research was invited to Dow and Nanoco’s meeting in Marriott Marquis hotel on June 2, 2014. I had a chance to meet Mr. Lee, Director of Dow Electric Material. Dow has signed exclusive contract with Nanoco to mass produce its Cadmium-free quantum dot in 2012. Since 2012, Dow’s investment in engineering has further fine-tuned Nanoco’s Cd-free quantum dot technology.

Figure: Dow demo Cd-free quantum dot TV
Dow QD TV TDR
Source: Dow and Nanoco, photo by Touch Display Research, June 2014.

At SID 2014, 3M and Nanosys announced their QDEF design-win on ASUS’s notebook PC.
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.
In Touch Display Research’s recently published “Quantum dot display and lighting technologies and market forecast” report, we surveyed many quantum dot suppliers and found that the quantum dot display component market already surpassed $70 million in 2013. Over 30 companies are working on quantum dot display. We forecast that the quantum dot display and lighting component market will expand to $508 million in 2014, and reach $9.6 billion by 2023.

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

Samsung Gear Fit with curved displays at MWC 2014

February 25, 2014

At Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2014, Samsung announced its newest wearable device: Gear Fit. It has a 1.84” super AMOLED display, with 432X128 pixel format. (Please note, some website said it is 1.4”, which is wrong).

Figure: Samsung Gear Fit with curved display

gear fit

Source: Samsung, 2014

Samsung claims the Gear Fit is “the industry’s first curved, super AMOLED wearable device”. I think that is correct. Although there are a dozen smart watches entered the market recently, but most of them are using flat, rigid display. As Touch Display Research reported 4 months ago, we believe flexible and curved displays are more ergonomic for the wrist, and larger-sized flexible displays could fit better and show more information. The Gear Fit is what a smart watch should look like. We forecast 2 inch or larger curved display will be adopted in smart watch as well.

In the “Flexible and curved display technologies and market forecast” report, Touch Display Research forecasts 30 million units flexible and curved displays will be shipped for smart watch application by 2023.

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

Plastic Logic and Novaled OTFT backplane AMOLED

February 10, 2014

I just came back from the 2014 FLEX conference and the SID LA Symposium. There are many highlights in these 2 conferences. One of the exciting news is about the Organic TFT (OTFT) backplane AMOLED.

On Feb 6th, 2014, Plastic Logic’s director of research and partnerships, Mr. Mike Banach gave a presentation titled “A New Frontier for Flexible Displays”. At the same day, both Plastic Logic and Novaled announced their partnership and their demo of OTFT backplane AMOLED.

Their demo is a monochrome flexible AMOLED, targeting for wearable applications. Plastic Logic’s CEO, Indro Mukerjee, said, “2014 will be the year that wearable technology starts to go mainstream.”

Touch Display Research analyst agrees with that. 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.

Figure: Flexible and curved displays for smart watch application forecast to 2023

flexible curved smart watch

Source: Touch Display Research. “Flexible and Curved Display and Lighting Technologies and Market Forecast” report. September, 2013.

It is said Merck’s organic semiconductor material was used in the OTFT prototype.

As we covered in our “Flexible and Curved Display and Lighting Technologies and Market Forecast” report, Sony has demonstrated OTFT backplane AMOLED before.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Curved TVs flood the CES 2014

Jan 8, 2014

I’ve been at CES 2014 for 3 days by now. One big trend this year is: curved TV.

As we reported 2 days ago, Samsung showcased their curved TV and bendable TV at Monday’s press conference.

LG’s booth is also full of curved TVs. The most attractive one is the 77” 4K flexible OLED TV, which they claim is the world’s first 77” flexible 4K OLED TV. I think that is true.

Many other TV suppliers also showcased curved TV at this CES, such as Hisense, Haier, Konka, Panasonic.

Curved TVs provide a unique form factor and cinema-like immersive view. We believe the ecosystem of flexible and curved displays is maturing. Good progress has been made in many areas. TFT on plastic substrate is already commercialized; ultra-thin glass is commercially available; ITO-replacement material is in mass production; bond de-bond and roll-to-roll manufacturing processes and equipment used for flexible displays are more precise.

In our recently published Flexible and curved display and lighting report, Touch Display Research forecasts that the flexible and curved display market will reach $27 Billion by 2023.

More analysis can be found in our Touch and Emerging Display monthly report.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

CES 2014 Hisense showcase quantum dot 4K TV

Jan 7, 2014

I’m at Las Vegas for CES 2014 currently. Yesterday is the press release day. Today is the first day of the exhibition.

Hisense showcased a quantum dot 4K TV. It’s 85″ with wide color gamut and good optical efficiency.  I had a chance to meet Mr. Qiao, Chief Technology Supervisor at Display department of Hisense. He said “Our quantum dot TV is ready for mass production this year if we receive order.”

Quantum dot could improve the color gamut, color accuracy and reduce power consumption of LCD. Nanosys, 3M, QD Vision are already mass producing quantum dot material and components.

Touch Display Research forecast quantum dot display and lighting component market will reach $9.6 Billion by 2023.

More analysis can be found in our Touch and Emerging Display monthly report.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team