Recently the information display industry has been undergoing tremendous changes owing to innovations and advances in technologies and business environments. The main aim of IMID 2007 is to provide a forum for discussing the latest research and developments and to allow researchers and developers working on different aspects to get together and interact with each other.
IMID 2007 will include workshops starting August 31, tutorials from August 27, and a business forum held on August 27 as well. The business forum will be co-sponsored with DisplaySearch and will provide accurate market analyses and dependable predictions for future trends of information display. In addition, the IMID Exhibition in concert with KDIA will provide the best opportunity for exhibitors to reach a large and diverse audience of information displays.
The tutorial session and business forum are something of a preview for the event as a whole. The tutorials held on August 27 will include instructional lecture tracks in four distinct categories. The first will be Devices for Active Matrix Displays, the second PDP Discharge and Driving Waveforms, the third is Understanding OLED Fundamentals From Basic Principles to Devices, and the last track is Digital Color and Display Electronics.
The Business Forum also held on August 27 is co-organized by KIDS and DisplaySearch to provide attendees with accurate market analysis including future plans from leading flat panel companies, insight into the worldwide FPD market with the latest DisplaySearch industry forecasts and numerous networking opportunities.
The specific program topics of the Business Forum include such topics as Samsung's Technology and Business Approach for the Next Generation of LCD and Changes in the Competitive Structure of the TFT LCD Industry. Topics on the PDP market outlook and small display market forecasts will also be presented.
The formal IMID conference will kick off on August 28 with two keynote addresses by noted men in the field of information display. The first keynote speech will be by Mr. Walker Zywottek of Merck KGaA in Germany, who will give a speech entitled Liquid Crystals - A Key Component in LCDs. The second keynote address will be by Dr. Lee Hee-gook, President and Chief Technology Officer of LG Electronics Inc.
450 papers in 14 categories
The keynote speeches mark the beginning of the Conference portion of IMID 2007. This four-day technical session features more than 450 papers, including 101 invited presentations in 57 sessions. Following the keynotes, speeches, oral presentation of the large amount of papers will start immediately and continue in six parallel sessions until Friday. The poster session on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon should promote interactive presentations in more details. Author interview sessions will be held at each afternoon during the Conference period.
The Conference will be divided into 13 distinct categories, many of which will have papers presented on multiple days.
Active-Matrix Devices are one category, which includes advances in the innovative development and implementation of active-matrix electronics in displays such as Active-Matrix LCDs for LCD-TV, Notebook PCs and monitors. Presented topics also include novel Active-Matrix display devices and addressing and transparent TFTs.
A second category for the Conference is Liquid Crystal technologies and other non-emissive displays. This category will include talks on advances in the development of liquid-crystal materials, electro-optical effects, and devices. Speakers in this category will also touch on new materials development in nonemissive display technologies such as LC materials, modeling, and alignment.
The third category deals with plasma display panels, more specifically new developments in the design and manufacturing, performance characteristics, and driving methods and circuitry of plasma display panels. Speakers will also focus on fundamental discharge mechanisms, luminous efficiency improvement, and low cost driving circuits and systems.
If that wasn't enough, the fourth will also be a category for Organic Light- Emitting Diode (OLED) displays. It will include all aspects of OLEDs, including advances in organic materials, electrodes, device structures, fabrication processes, driving methods, encapsulation techniques, optical enhancement techniques, full color techniques, and many other specifics of OLED manufacture.
A fifth category will be the hot new technology of flexible displays and plastic electronics. This is a special session co-organized by the Korea Information Display Society (KIDS) and the USDC. All aspects of flexible displays and plastic electronics will be covered here including advances in organic materials -- both small molecules and polymers -- phosphors, electrodes, device structures, fabrication processes, driving methods, characterization and analysis of the device performances.
The sixth category will include topics on field emission displays. Recent developments in field emission displays will be covered including advances in emitter materials, phosphors, device structures, driving methods, characterization and analysis of the device.
Ultra slim CRTs will be the seventh category. Recent developments in the structure, components, materials, and performance of ultra slim CRTs from 17 inches to 32 inches will be discussed. Also, the optical aspects, simulation and modeling, emission physics and beam characteristics of CRTs will be included in this session.
The eighth category focuses on projection display systems. Key components and materials for applications such as TV sets, game systems, electronic cinema, desktop monitors, business presentations and training, commercial and military simulations and medical imaging will be illustrated. All the technical details of projection systems will be outlined with great care. This category will also include novel large area display experiments.
The ninth category in the IMID Conference is for display electronics, systems and applications. Presenters will speak about progress in driving methods, driving electronics, and system design technologies for display devices and new display applications. Speakers will also point out all other display electronics technologies and new applications.
Applied vision will be the tenth category, including 3D displays and the human factor. All aspects of vision, perception, and human factors in the design, image quality, and usability of all types of visual display systems, 3D display and imaging processing, novel methods of information transfer, the impact of ambient lighting on display performance, and spatial-temporal interactions in displays will also be covered in this category.
The eleventh category will focus on display materials and components. Newly developed materials and components for displays including new substrate materials, active and passive materials, their properties, and fabrication methods will be covered.
The twelfth category will include all the presentations on display manufacturing measuring equipment. The development and application of new designs of equipment for testing and measuring display manufacturing issues will be outlined. Any breakthroughs in the display performances, cost reduction, and throughput will also be explained in this section.
The thirteenth and final section will include all novel and future display designs. The development of new and novel displays, new applications for displays, novel image processing and prototype active-matrix devices will be spoken about here.
Futuristic trends in futuristic displays
TFT-LCD
The market of TFT-LCD has expanded very fast showing enormous growth of its revenue and size of display with diverse applications such as TVs, monitors, notebooks, and mobile applications. According to Professor Kim Jae-hoon of Hanyang University, recent rapid growth of the LCD market is mainly led by TV which is driven by user benefits and related environmental changes.
To fulfill such requirements, LCD TVs with higher resolution, better contrast ratio and brightness, and faster response at larger screens of appealing design are developed for upcoming full HD broadcasting. Another emerging market for LCDs is portable applications such as notebooks and mobile devices. Key issues in this field are developing higher resolution displays with improved brightness and low power consumption. Professor Kim says that to achieve these, major display companies have been developing various technologies such as field sequential imaging, low-temperature poly-Si (LTPS) and LED backlights.
PDP
In the area of PDP, 45 excellent papers covering key PDP issues will be presented at six oral sub-sessions and two poster sessions. Professor Kim Yong-seog of Hongik University mentioned that the oral sessions include discharge physics, discharge efficiency and structure, protective layer, materials and manufacturing process, driving waveform and circuit, and image quality.
Among advancements reported in those works, improvements in luminous efficiency of AC PDP are most notable. Professor Mikoshiba from the University of Electro-Communication in Japan reported 6 lm/watt in white using spatial positive column discharge in his presentation entitled High Efficacy and High Speed Addressing of a Spatial Positive Column Discharge PDP. Professor K.C. Choi from KAIST in Korea announced his record breaking luminous efficacy of 12 lm/watt in green by applying dual auxiliary pulses during the sustaining period.
In addition to these efforts, the research activities to reduce processing and materials costs are going to be presented by Mr. McGuire from 3M and Ms. M. Y. Lee from Hongik University, respectively. At the image quality session, Mr. Kawahara from Matsushita Electric Co. will report moving picture resolution of PDPs in comparison with TFT-LCD. His results indicated that the typical LCD shows only 1/3 of PDP performance. In addition to those outstanding results, there are many high quality presentations covering basic and applied aspects of AC PDP, shedding light for future developments of AC PDP.
OLED
The IMID 2007 is a timely event for OLED technology since this year is a turning point for the OLED industry moving from the current passive matrix OLEDs to active matrix OLED displays. Professor Lee Chang-hee mentioned that first mass production of AMOLED products is scheduled this year by Korean major display companies such as Samsung SDI and LG Electronics. During this extended four-day conference recent research results on every aspects of OLED technology will be presented; to name a few, new device structure for high efficiency, low driving voltage and long lifetime, new OLED materials such as high efficiency organic phosphorescent materials, backplane technologies such as polycrystalline Silicon, a-Silicon, oxide and organic TFTs, manufacturing technologies and equipment, mass-production processes, and applications of OLEDs for displays and lighting.
In particular, new ideas and advanced research results will be presented for overcoming production costs and lifetime obstacles for OLED displays. Moreover, recent advances of OLED flexible displays and general illumination applications will attract a lot of attentions. Therefore, the OLED session of the IMID 2007 will address important OLED issues and provide a forum for comprehensive discussions on critical issues facing OLED technology.
Flexible Display
Professor Kim Jae-hoon of Hanyang University mentioned the better application of the ubiquitous area. Diverse flexible displays such as plastic LCDs, OLEDs, and e-Paper are increasingly researched since it has ultra slim and super light features, and consumes less power. Developing flexible displays covers various technological aspects including materials technology for flexible substrates, organic transistors, electrodes and interconnections. It also includes processing technology for patterning, wiring, bonding, transfer, and modes for flexible displays.
Especially major companies and institutes are focusing on developing materials and processing technologies for producing stable organic transistors which is the key feature to realize rollable displays. And, according to Professor Kim, the issues in flexible displays with LCDs mode are how to get stable structure for LC alignments with plastic substrates. In the case of electronic papers with electrophoretic mode, the key issues are generation of full color and realizing moving images.
"At IMID2007," said Kim, "the stateof- the-art products including 100 inch full TFT-LCD and the most recent technological advances in TFT-LCD and flexible displays will be presented at special sections of tutorial, workshop and four-day's presentations." For AMLCDs, one can experience the crystallization issues using LTPS, sequential lateral solidification, and other annealing techniques. To enhance the quality of LCDs, various modes like advanced MVA, polarizer-free LCD, and single layer color cholesteric mode will be discussed. The stability of poly-Si TFT and enhanced characteristics of a-Si TFT will be presented also.
Challenges for large size LCD manufacturing will be reviewed, introducing the recent advances in processing technology for flexible displays including highly reliable inkjet printing, hybrid printing techniques, nano-imprinting lithography and self-aligned imprint lithography. In a special session of flexible displays, performances of OTFTs using wettability patterning or printing process and stability issues will be dealt with.
The possibility of flexible OLED will be presented with a roadmap and recent development of 4-inch displays. And also, the essence of e-Paper and plastic LCDs with micro-structure will be introduced in the conference.
e-Paper
The electronic paper display is a display that offers all the same characteristics of paper such as a contrast appearance, ultra-low power consumption, and a thin, light form. Suh Kyung-soo of ETRI says that the main goal of electronic paper developers has been to allow the content be rewritten while maintaining or improving the viewing experience and animation.
Recently, LG.Philips LCD (LPL) announced an A4 sized flexible color e- Paper display, which may produce a maximum of 4,096 colors and can be viewed from a full 180 degrees. Fujitsu showed off a PDA equipped foldable color electronic paper. The electronic paper display as a major candidate for the flexible displays has been attracted enormous.
There are several modes in realization for the e-paper, severe competition to grab the crown of the electronic paper display market is now happening. The most promising technology is the electrophoretic display which a non-emissive device based on the electrophoresis phenomenon of charged pigment particles. E-ink has synthesized the microcapsules as the electrophoretic ink container, SiPix has been using the microcup for the ink container, and Xerox trap the twisting ball in the dielectric fluid. Meanwhile, Bridgestone substitutes air for dielectric oil as the particle fluid medium. These technologies have the advantage in mass manufacture and good bistability.
Therefore many companies are trying to get in on the commercialization, E-ink has been furnishing out his image sheet to setup companies. Seiko Epson presented a watch which is capable of being a fashion accessory. USDC has been making an effort for army services in notebooks, e-paper, PDAs, and so forth. Polymervision is focusing on the development of rollable display devices. At present, Japanese companies have been leading the commercialization of the electronic paper.
Korean companies sit on the fence in spite of the fact that they have been leading the manufacturing of TFT, LCD, and PDP. To maintain leadership in the display market, more investigations must be carried out in the materials, flexible substrate, and devices for e-paper.
DisplaySearch Analyzes Technology, Market Trends for Korea
Recently, the display industry has turned into a battlefield and there's a lot of combat between each display camp, especially LCD vs. PDP. They fight against each other for survival in the DTV market.
Surviving from this combat, LCD and PDP overcomes their own handicap and adopts or learns strong points in performance and quality from each other.
High brightness and low power consumption are the dual grails of the display industry, and the ratio between them is called luminous efficiency. Until recent years, according to its high luminous efficiency, it was normally said that LCD is superior to PDP in efficiency.
But in the realm of TV it is said that PDP is superior to LCD in smooth and natural image regeneration because of its response time, contrast, and color.
LCD struggled and fought to solve these problems and got results. LDC companies developed new technologies such as the 120hz driving technique and LED BLU and adopted that to their products. With 120Hz driving, doubling frame numbers from 60 to 120, LCD gets a more smooth and natural image even in high speed moving pictures. And with LED BLU, the displays realize a wide color gamut and dynamic contrast. So, LCD already overcame its handicap.
In addition to that, LCD is aggressive for expanding FHD (1080p) product from 37" to larger size because LCD has a merit for high resolutions. By this reason, 1080p LCD becomes a main display in TV market and fascinating customers.
Against LCD, although the step forward to improvement is slower than LCD's, PDP also keeps its way of improving. For example, PDP has a weak point in FHD (1080p) due to its discharging mechanism. According to that, the discharging space is smaller making FHD (1080p) get harder. But from 50" 1080p PDP of Panasonic and Pioneer 2006, finally main size zone 42" 1080p PDP TV of Panasonic came to market in April 2007. And the same time, another weak point, bright room contrast was also improved by colored barrier-rib panel and enhanced PDP optical filters.
Due to the struggle of LCD and PDP it's hard to find out which one is PDP or LCD TV in the shop although it was easily figured out 1 or 2 years ago. The gap of LCD and PDP in view of basic performance is almost gone, so they focus on natural image processing technology. Natural image processing technology means picture quality which is not measured, just felt by human eyes. The factors that affect this are smooth grayscale expression, comfortable feeling image for human eye, and vivid color regeneration.
But cost reduction is the most important thing since the competition between LCD and PDP has gotten harsh. Main cost reduction methods for LCD are reducing Driver IC, reducing optical sheets in BLU, and recently combining the same functions in TV Sets and modules.
