Category Archives: Conference Review

CES 2014 Samsung Showcased Curved 4K TV and Bendable TV

Jan 6, 2014

I’m at Las Vegas currently for the CES 2014. Today at the Samsung’s press release event, Samsung showcased curved 4K TV, which they claim is the world’s first curved 4K TV.

I think that is true. As we analyzed in our “Flexible and Curved Display and Lighting Technologies and Market Forecast” report, the curved TV first entered the market in 2013, they are just FHD resolution. Touch Display Research forecasts the flexible and curved display market will reach $27 Billion by 2023.

In the same press event, Samsung then showed the “bendable TV”. Pictures and more analysis will be reported in our “Touch and Emerging Display” report 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

 

E Ink Flexible and Color Displays Leap Ahead at SID 2013 Displayweek

May 23, 2013

I’m in beautiful Vancouver, BC this week to attend and give a speech at the SID 2013 Displayweek conference.

At E Ink’s exhibition booth, their director of product management Giovanni showed me several flexible electrophoretic display products and color displays. As I blogged in January, flexible and color displays were the main focus of E Ink at the Flextech Alliance’s Flexible Display 2013 conference, but at this SID is one big leap ahead. The flexible display jumped from a 4.3” active matrix announced in January, to 13.3” flexible active matrix in this May demonstration. The color display added the three color pigment, which they called “Spectra.”

Figure: E Ink booth at SID 2013 Displayweek conference

E ink spectra

Source: Jennifer Colegrove

How does E Ink’s “Spectra” work, and how fast does it switch? When will E Ink’s flexible active matrix display be on the market? What’s the technology used in the 13.3” flexible active matrix display? What’s the flexible active matrix display roadmap through 2015? A detailed analysis will be in the upcoming “Touch and Emerging Display Monthly Report”, May 2013 issue.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Plastic Logic Shows Flexible Displays, Video, and Watch

plasticlogic01

February 9, 2013

At FlexTech’s 2013 Flexible and Printed Electronics conference, Plastic Logic demonstrated several flexible electrophoretic display products, including a flexible active matrix display for watches. Here are two video clips I produced about Plastic Logic demos. The first features Daniel Baum, Application Engineer at Plastic Logic, who introduced to me the large-sized flexible products and a 12 fps animated video. The second is Rachel Lichten, Head of Marketing Communications at Plastic Logic who introduces the flexible display watch.

Video: Plastic Logic large displays at 2013 FlexTech Conference. Produced by Jennifer Colegrove.

Video: Plastic Logic flexible display watch at 2013 FlexTech Conference. Produced by Jennifer Colegrove

What’s the comparison between flexible display watches on the market or coming in the future? What’s Plastic Logic’s manufacturing status? What’s the flexible active matrix display roadmap till 2014? Detailed analysis can be found in the Touch and Emerging Display Monthly Report, February 2013 issue.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Plastic Logic: www.plasticlogic.com

Flexible LED Lighting at 2013 FlexTech

Screen Shot 2013-02-05 at 3.12.08 PMFebruary 5, 2013

At FlexTech’s 2013 Flexible and Printed Electronics conference, Nth Degree Technology demonstrated several types of printed LED lighting. Here is a video I took with their creative director, Andrew Dennis.

Source: Jennifer Colegrove

The flexible blue LED lighting is built on a plastic substrate, then a phosphor layer is added on top of the blue LED lighting to achieve a white light.

What kind of application will this flexible LED lighting be used for? When will this lighting be in the market? What’s the comparison of printed LED lighting vs. OLED lighting vs. EL lighting? A detailed analysis will be in the upcoming issue of Touch and Emerging Display Monthly Report, February 2013.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Flexible LED Lighting at the 2013 Flexible and Printed Electronics Conference

Jan 30th, 2013

Today is the second day of FlexTech’s 2013 Flexible and Printed Electronics Conference. It’s very popular with about five hundred attendees and sixty exhibition booths (flexconference.org).

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At Nth Degree Technology’s booth they demonstrated several types of printed LED lighting. One is a transparent blue LED light, two are flexible white LEDs (see image below), another is used as a signage.

jan30_2013

Source: Nth Degree Technology, photo by Jennifer Colegrove

The construction process for the printed LED lighting:

  1. First, tiny blue LEDs were built using traditional wafer fabrication technologies.
  2. Then the tiny LEDs were mixed into a special ink.
  3. The ink was applied using a high-speed printing method onto conductive substrates (plastic or glass).
  4. If there is a need to change colors,  a phosphor layer is added on top of the blue LED lighting.

What kind of application will this flexible LED lighting be used for? What is the time-frame for this this lighting to come to market?  What’s the comparison of printed LED lighting vs. OLED lighting vs. EL lighting? A detailed analysis will be in the upcoming Touch and Emerging Display Monthly Report, Feb 2013 issue.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Microsoft Jeff Han keynote about touch and pen technologies

Jeff Han keynote with cr2I volunteered for SID (Society of Information Display) Bay-Area chapter, and helped with organizing the first 1-day “Display and Touch Technologies of the future 2013” conference as a conference co-chair. After 5 months of preparation, the 1-day conference was held on Jan 16th, 2013, and it was overwhelmingly successful with 160 attendees.

Microsoft’s Jeff Han and Intel’s Achin Bhowmik gave keynote presentations.

I had the honor to introduce the morning keynote: Jeff Han, General manager of Microsoft office division. Jeff Han was famous about promoting multi-touch since 2006, 1 year before the Apple’s iPhone in the market. Han was the CEO, founder and chief scientist of Perceptive Pixel since 2006. Han was named to Time magazine’s listing of the 100 Most Influential People in The World in 2008. His company was acquired by Microsoft mid-2012.

Jeff Han brought a 50” touch screen display demo to this 2013 conference. In his keynote, he first showed the video of touch being used by CNN for the president election news. Then he introduced some advanced research that Microsoft is doing. He walked to his touch display and demoed the touch and pen writing. He said, “When you are in the drawing mode, then you want to go to the next page, you do a swipe. But the screen shows you a line. Now you realized that you are in the drawing mode, not the touch mode. Then you have to go here, click this button to switch to touch mode. You see, that break the flow.” He emphasized that with simultaneous touch and pen technology, user can have the smooth flow.

As Jeff Han emphasized that with simultaneous touch and pen technology, user can have the smooth flow to work on the touch display.

Another touch company has touch and pen technology is N-trig. N-trig’s DuoSense had been adopted in several notebook PCs, such as the HP’s touchsmart 12.1”. DuoSense also was adopted in the HTC’s flyer tablet.

The most successful (with the high volume sold) touch and pen device might be the Samsung’s Galaxy Note. It’s a hybrid of phone and tablet (some people call this phablet). The Galaxy Note’s touch is the combination of an on-cell projected capacitive AMOLED with a wacom digitizer pen beneath the OLED display. Samsung reported that the original Galaxy Note sold 10 million units in 10 months. The Galaxy Note II is even more popular, with 5 million units sold in 2 months.

Thanks for reading.

Jennifer and team

Touch Display Research Inc.