OLED TECHNOLOGY ISSUE

Official Monthly Publication of the Society for Information Display • www.informationdisplay.orgSeptember 2009

Vol. 25, No. 09

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Phosphorescent OLEDs | White OLEDs | Transparent OLEDs | Top-Emission OLEDs | Flexible OLEDs

2 EditorialThe Potential for Change

Stephen P. Atwood

3 Industry NewsJenny Donelan

4 Guest EditorialThe Value Proposition of OLEDs

Julie J. Brown

6 President’s CornerKorea on My Mind

Paul Drzaic

8 Disruptive Factors in the OLED Business EcosystemAMOLEDs have several key, potentially disruptive elements in both displayand lighting technology.

Antti Lääperi

14 OLEDs – Promises, Myths, and TVsMuch work remains before OLEDs can be considered a player in the displayand lighting markets. But the trends are positive. OLED performance for TVsis outstanding and power consumption is low. Moreover, OLED lightingoffers new opportunities. If the companies practicing the technology followthrough with their plans, we should begin to see new competition for TFT-LCDs and LED lighting in the next 3 years.

Barry Young

18 Emerging Technologies for the Commercialization of AMOLED TVs Advances in AMOLED materials, device structures, and manufacturing arepaving the way for a new generation of TVs that will be interactive, ultra-lightand slim, eco-friendly, and more.

Hye Dong Kim, et al.

24 Back to School with Tablets Embedded in Digital Desks A digital-desk pilot program in Brazil uses a unique display design to providean interactive interface developed to enhance education and minimizeergonomic concerns.

Victor Pellegrini Mammana, et al.

30 Journal of the SID September and October Contents

32 Sustaining Members

32 Index to Advertisers

For Industry News, New Products, Current and Forthcoming Articles,see www.informationdisplay.org

SEPTEMBER 2009VOL. 25, NO. 9

COVER: OLED TV on the horizon. Shown is (top)Sony’s 21-in. OLED TV prototype featuring a peakluminance of 600 nits, WXGA resolution (1366 ×RGB × 768), and a color gamut of over 100%NTSC; (middle) Samsung’s 31-in OLED TV featur-ing a peak luminance of 600 nits, full HD resolu-tion, and a color gamut 107% NTSC; and (bottom)LG Display’s 15-in. OLED TV prototype featuringa peak luminance of 450 nits, HD resolution (1366× RGB × 768), and a color gamut greater than92% NTSC.

Next Month inInformation Display

Mobile Display Technology Issue• Evalution of Mobile Displays• Polarizer-Free Ultra-Low-Power

Reflective LCDs• The Emergence of MEMS-Based

Displays• Challenges of Incorporating Haptic

Interfaces• Journal of the SID November Contents

INFORMATION DISPLAY (ISSN 0362-0972) is published eleventimes a year for the Society for Information Display by PalisadesConvention Management, 411 Lafayette Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10003; Leonard H. Klein, President and CEO.EDITORIAL AND BUSINESS OFFICES: Jay Morreale, Editor-in-Chief, Palisades Convention Management, 411 Lafayette Street, 2ndFloor, New York, NY 10003; telephone 212/460-9700. Sendmanuscripts to the attention of the Editor, ID. Director of Sales:Michele Klein, Palisades Convention Management, 411 LafayetteStreet, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10003; 212/460-9700. SIDHEADQUARTERS, for correspondence on subscriptions andmembership: Society for Information Display, 1475 S. Bascom Ave.,Ste. 114, Campbell, CA 95008; telephone 408/879-3901, fax -3833.SUBSCRIPTIONS: Information Display is distributed withoutcharge to those qualified and to SID members as a benefit ofmembership (annual dues $100.00). Subscriptions to others: U.S. &Canada: $55.00 one year, $7.50 single copy; elsewhere: $85.00 oneyear, $7.50 single copy. PRINTED by Sheridan Printing Company,Alpha, NJ 08865. Third-class postage paid at Easton, PA.PERMISSIONS: Abstracting is permitted with credit to the source.Libraries are permitted to photocopy beyond the limits of the U.S.copyright law for private use of patrons, providing a fee of $2.00 perarticle is paid to the Copyright Clearance Center, 21 Congress Street,Salem, MA 01970 (reference serial code 0362-0972/09/$1.00 +$0.00). Instructors are permitted to photocopy isolated articles fornoncommercial classroom use without fee. This permission does notapply to any special reports or lists published in this magazine. Forother copying, reprint or republication permission, write to Societyfor Information Display, 1475 S. Bascom Ave., Ste. 114, Campbell,CA 95008. Copyright © 2009 Society for Information Display. Allrights reserved.

Information Display 9/09 1

CREDIT: Cover images provided by Sony Electronics, Inc.;Samsung Mobile Display Co., Ltd., and LG Display.Co., Ltd.

Cover design by Acapella Studies, Inc.

InformationDISPLAY

Executive Editor: Stephen P. Atwood617/306-9729, satwood@azonix.comEditor-in-Chief: Jay Morreale212/460-9700, jmorreale@pcm411.comManaging Editor: Jenny Donelan603/924-9628, jdonelan@pcm411.comAdministrative Assistant: Ralph NadellSales Manager: Danielle RoccoSales Director: Michele Klein

Editorial Advisory Board

Stephen P. Atwood, ChairCrane/Azonix Corp., U.S.A.

Bruce GnadeUniversity of Texas at Dallas, U.S.A.

Allan KmetzConsultant, U.S.A.

Larry WeberConsultant, U.S.A.

Guest Editors

Display MetrologyTom Fiske, Rockwell Collins, U.S.A.

LEDsDavid DeAgazio, Global Lighting

Technologies, U.S.A.

Ultra-Low-Power DisplaysRob Zehner, E Ink, U.S.A.

3-D TechnologyBrian T. Schowengerdt, University of

Washington, U.S.A.

OLED TechnologyJulie J. Brown, Universal Display Corp.,

U.S.A.

LCD TechnologyShin-Tson Wu, University of Central

Florida, U.S.A.

Display ManufacturingGreg Gibson, NexTECH FAS, U.S.A.

The Potential for Change

by Stephen Atwood

We have all been watching the turbulent developments inorganic light-emitting-diode (OLED) technology for a longtime now. If you scan the Information Display archives,you will find numerous articles covering the evolution ofOLED materials, the designs for manufacturing, the prob-lems that existed such as packaging and sealing, and the

many examples of work on substrates and active-matrix components, including poly-Si TFTs. Each small evolution has fueled more innovation and investment, but the road has had its challenges as well, both from a business and a technical perspective.

Most of us remember the flurry of discoveries and innovations achieved by scien-tists at Pioneer and Kodak, as well as at Universal Display Corp. (UDC) and Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) over the last decade. Kodak soon partneredwith Sanyo, but the effort was unfortunately cut short by economics. CDT and UDCcontinued on to be joined by Samsung, Sony, LG, Dupont, and many others to formthe backbone of the enabling technology we have today.

Unfortunately, as Barry Young points out in his article “OLEDs – Promises, Myths,and TVs,” most of the early startups focusing on passive-matrix technology floun-dered for several technical and business reasons, but in the end it usually came downto the problem every new technology faces: will consumers pay a reasonable premiumfor the benefits of a new technology long enough for the infrastructure to becomemature and the economies of scale to properly develop? If an emerging technologytruly addresses an unfulfilled need or it can realize real economic advantages overexisting technology, then it has at least a chance to become mainstream.

I think the prospects are a lot brighter for active-matrix OLED technology, and asyou can read in our feature article, “Emerging Technologies for the Commercializa-tion of AMOLED TVs,” by Hye Dong Kim, et. al. from Samsung, the advantages ofAMOLED technology for TV applications are numerous and highly promising.Promising enough, in fact, that I think this will be a much more disruptive technologythan plasma, at least in comparison to the TV marketplace. While liquid-crystal technology is unlikely to be totally unseated in TV products, I do think there is the realpossibility that cell phones and other mobile devices could be using exclusivelyAMOLED displays within the next 10 years. This prediction is supported by authorAntti Lääperi in his article, “Disruptive Factors in the OLED Business Ecosystem,”although Antti is more cautious than I am. He predicts a limited or partial disruptionin certain key applications such as hand-held devices. I think the disruption will bebroader, but with the timing somewhat uncertain. Product manufacturers such asNokia and device manufacturers such as Samsung do not enter into these endeavorswithout a great deal of analysis and investigation. If they choose to make a strategicdecision to develop AMOLED products with their considerable resources at hand,they probably understand the end-game potential pretty well.

Our Guest Editor this month is Julie Brown, CTO of Universal Display Corp. Juliehas lived the path of innovation in OLED materials for many years now and has beena key force in developing a very successful IP portfolio at UDC. As pioneers, Julieand UDC can bear witness to the real challenges of developing new technologies andthe problems caused when the hype gets ahead of the substance. As such, there are

editorial

2 Information Display 9/09

The opinions expressed in editorials,columns, and feature articles do not neces-sarily reflect the opinions of the ExecutiveEditor or Publisher of Information DisplayMagazine, nor do they necessarily reflectthe position of the Society for InformationDisplay.

Information

DISPLAY

(continued on page 28)

Greener Manufacturingby Jenny Donelan

Whether a company manufactures toothpicksor twin-engine aircraft, that company isalmost certainly “greening up” its operationsthese days – or at least thinking about it. These efforts run the gamut from simplechanges such as using long-life light bulbs tomajor transformations such as overhaulingproduction lines. For the display industry,green efforts that go beyond general opera-tions include making products more energyefficient, utilizing better packaging, replacingenvironmentally hazardous materials withmore benign ones, and using less wastefulmanufacturing methods.

Top of list for these companies is probablymaking products more energy efficient. Thisinitiative is driven as much by customerdemand as by other factors, according to Kim-berly Allen, principal of the San Jose basedPañña Consulting. Allen recently completedan environmental issues survey of displaymanufacturers for market-research companyiSuppli Corp. Seventy-three percent of the520 survey respondents reported that energyefficiency of products was a priority. “Thistends to be aligned with a company’s goalsanyway,” says Allen, “because consumersexpect that every year, battery life willincrease.” In order to meet these goals, com-panies are continually optimizing the back-lighting, glass, and other components of dis-plays so that they will drain batteries less.Just one example across much of the industryhas been the gradual replacement of CCFLbacklighting with more energy-efficientLEDs.

Packaging is another major focus for envi-ronmental initiative. Although displays arefragile, thoughtful packaging design can pro-tect equipment while also minimizing envi-ronment impact – and helping the bottom line:“If you can pack 500 TVs into a shippingcrate instead of 300, you’ve saved quite a bit,”notes Allen. Last year, Hewlett-Packard tookthis pretty far, shipping its HP Paviliondv6929 Entertainment Notebook to Wal-Martand Sam’s Club stores in padded messengerbags instead of conventional boxes. Accord-ing to Allen, this represented an approximate97% reduction in the amount of packaging.HP also won Wal-Mart’s Home EntertainmentDesign Challenge as a result.

Removing hazardous materials from dis-plays is also an ongoing effort at many com-panies. Allen’s survey revealed that 80% ofrespondents are working on replacing thesematerials with less harmful ones. Here again,the replacement of CCFLs, which containmercury, with LEDs is a step in the environ-mentally friendly direction. In terms of dis-play glass, Corning has been one of the com-panies at the forefront of removing heavymetals. Materials such as arsenic and anti-nomy are fining agents used to remove airbubbles from molten glass, explains PeterBocko, Chief Technology Officer, East AsiaCorning Display Technologies. Barium helpswith melting. And halides are sometimes sub-stituted by manufacturers as fining agentswhen the heavy metals are eliminated. Thesematerials are not only less-than-ideal sub-stances to have around during the glass-mak-ing process; they can end up in landfills whenthe displays get thrown out, and also make itdifficult to recycle the glass. The goal, saysBocko, is to be green “before, during, andafter use.” Corning introduced the first LCDglass with no added heavy metals or halides(such as chlorine or fluorine) in 2006.

Other efforts at reducing the environmentalimpact of display-making include solution-based processing techniques that can be per-formed at lower temperatures than conven-tional deposition methods – “without all thoseheaters and pumps going,” says Allen. Thisprocess can be wasteful as well, she says, not-ing that the trick is to collect and reuse thesolutions. If that can be worked out, thencompanies reap the benefits of dramaticallylower energy bills.

In fact, while companies tend to be moti-vated to go green for multiple reasons, amongthem the urge to do the right thing and gainthe appreciative eye of the consumer, thechance to cut costs may be the most power-ful. “Saving money is key,” says DavidHsieh, DisplaySearch’s Vice President ofGreater China. “If you can save some costand also take away some hazardous sub-stances from your products and manufactur-ing processes, why not?” However, Allennotes that green manufacturing only reallysaves money when it is carefully and proac-tively implemented. “The smarter companieshave figured out to go upstream and useDesign for Environment (DFE) practices,”she says. “It does require a bit of strategicinvestment.” Companies that implement

“end of pipeline” changes may find thosevery expensive indeed, she adds.

There is yet another factor behind thegreening of display manufacturing: legislationboth current and pending. Companies must becareful to comply with increasingly stringentenvironmental regulations both in the U.S.and abroad. The next installation in this seriesof news articles will focus on legislation suchas the EU’s RoHS (Reduction of HazardousSubstances) and WEEE (Waste Electrical andElectronic Equipment) that are affecting theway display companies do business now andin the future. �

Information Display 9/09 3

iinndduussttrryy nneewwss

Seattle, WA • May 23-28, 2010 • www.sid2010.org

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guest editorial

4 Information Display 9/09

The Value Proposition of OLEDs

by Julie J. Brown

As I set out this year to seek articles for the 2009 OLEDissue of Information Display, I was compelled to take a stepback and view the OLED industry as one not so intimatelyinvolved in it. I focused my thinking on the value proposi-tion for small-to-large active-matrix OLED flat-panel dis-plays (FPDs) and quickly realized the key was sitting rightin front of me in everyday life. We are living in an energy-

conscious or “green”-focused world at the same time that we have an ever-increasingdesire for information to be displayed to us on our hand-held, laptop, or wall-mounteddevices. This information is predominantly brought to all of us through FPDs. AndAMOLED technology fits right into this picture, being a low-power or green technol-ogy, with excellent image quality and a low-cost roadmap. From this starting point, I decided to reach out to industry experts to write about these opportunities forAMOLED FPDs past, present, and future. The responses I received were reallyintriguing as is evident from the cover-page collage of images of OLED-TV proto-types received from Sony (21 in.), Samsung (31 in.), and, the most recent player tojoin, LG Display (15 in.), along with the articles described below. It is going to be areal exciting and pivotal year for our industry.

The first article comes from Antti Lääperi of Nokia, who has taken it upon himselfto study the OLED ecosystem. He shares with us a thought-provoking perspective onhow this ecosystem is developing and ties his thinking into a discussion of disruptivetechnology. Lääperi identifies key potentially disruptive elements for OLED technol-ogy (as compared to TFT-LCD technology) to include the use of active materials, theability to achieve lower power consumption in 2009 (by addition of green phosphores-cence), and application to white lighting. His thinking is summarized by a keen focuson green aspects of the technology that will drive the OLED ecosystem.

The next article is from Barry Young, Managing Director of the OLED Association,who takes a hard look at the path of OLED FPD commercialization to date and laysout a set of challenges for the future. Young has an interesting perspective, havinganalyzed the display industry for a number of years now and having most recently created the OLED Association to help establish a common marketing platform andstandards for the growth of the OLED FPD industry. He takes us through what hecalls the “hype” and then the reality check for passive-matrix OLED displays. He thenfocuses on the AMOLED industry, which he believes will put the industry “on theright track.” He lays out the challenges for AMOLED industry growth with a focus on TV applications. This focus on OLED TVs is explained by the entrancing imagequality that AMOLEDs provide for this application. Young discusses the key areasfor continued technology improvement to include energy efficiency, operational life-time, yield, and manufacturing process scaling. He then touches on using OLEDs inflexible displays and lighting. The article ends with a great perspective: OLED FPDsshould not be viewed as a threat to TFT-LCDs but more as “an extension” of FPDsinto a new front place technology, namely OLEDs.

Finally, the third article was contributed by Hye-Dong Kim and colleagues fromSamsung Mobile Display (SMD). Today, SMD has taken on the leading position inthe area of mobile AMOLED displays with great intensity. There are now new prod-ucts announced on almost a weekly basis that advertise the use of OLED as the display. This is very exciting. The next potential product on the horizon for SMD isthe OLED TV. In this article, Kim shares with us a perspective on technology choicesand manufacturing vision for SMD’s OLED-TV business. He touches on key attributes driving the industry, including excellent image quality and low power consumption forgreen TV products. He then focuses much of the article on manufacturing process

(continued on page 28)

SID Executive CommitteePresident: P. DrzaicPresident-Elect: M. AnandanRegional VP, Americas: T. VoutsasRegional VP, Asia: S. NaemuraRegional VP, Europe: J-N. PerbetTreasurer: B. BerkeleySecretary: A. GhoshPast President: L. Weber

DirectorsBay Area: S. PanBeijing: B. P. WangBelarus: V. VyssotskiCanada: T. C. SchmidtDayton: D. G. HopperDelaware Valley: J. W. Parker IIIDetroit: J. KanickiFrance: J-P. ParneixHong Kong: H. LeungIndia: G. RajeswaranIsrael: G. GolanJapan: N. IbarakiKorea: K. W. WhangLatin America: A. MammanaLos Angeles: L. TannasMid-Atlantic: D. MortonMid-Europe: G. OversluizenNew England: S. AtwoodPacific Northwest: A. AbileahRussia: I. N. CompanetsSan Diego: T. StrieglerSingapore: C. C. ChaoSouthwest: S. O’RourkeTaipei: Y. T. TsaiTexas: Z. YanivU.K. & Ireland: I. SageUkraine: V. SerganUpper Mid-West: B. Bahadur

Committee ChairsAcademic: P. BosArchives/Historian: P. BaronBylaws: A. KmetzChapter Formation: Z. YanivConvention: D. EcclesDefinitions & Standards: J. MisceliHonors & Awards: C. KingLong-Range Planning: M. AnandanMembership: S. PanNominations: L. WeberPublications: B. GnadeSenior Member Grade: M. Anandan

Chapter ChairsBay Area: D. ArmitageBeijing: N. XuBelarus: V. VyssotskiCanada: A. KitaiDayton: F. MeyerDelaware Valley: J. BlakeDetroit: S. PalaFrance: J. P. ParneixHong Kong: H. S. KwokIndia: S. KauraIsrael: B. InditskyJapan: K. KondoKorea: Y. S. KimLatin America: V. MammanaLos Angeles: P. Joujon-RocheMid-Atlantic: Q. TanMid-Europe: A. JelfsNew England: B. HarkavyPacific Northwest: A. SilzarsRussia: S. PasechnikSan Diego: T. D. StrieglerSingapore/Malaysia: X. SunSouthwest: B. TritleTaipei: Y. TsaiTexas: S. PeanaU.K. & Ireland: S. DayUkraine: V. SerganUpper Mid-West: P. Downen

Executive DirectorT. Miller

Office AdministrationOffice and Data Manager: Jenny Bach

Society for Information Display1475 S. Bascom Ave., Ste. 114Campbell, CA 95008408/879-3901, fax -3833e-mail: office@sid.orghttp://www.sid.org

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president’s corner

6 Information Display 9/09

Korea on My Mind

Paul DrzaicPresident, Society for Information Display

I had the opportunity to spend a week in Korea a couple of months ago, and as usual came back from my visit to this country energized regarding the future of electronic displays. A large portion of my trip focused on visiting faculty members and students at Korean universities. In

this column, I’ll note some impressions around Korea’s university infrastructure.The primary purpose of my trip was to help Hanyang University celebrate the 70th

anniversary of its founding. Known locally as the “Engine of Korea,” Hanyang University was commemorating this anniversary by holding a series of lectures andpanel sessions on each of its seven different areas of focus. Electronic displays repre-sented one of those areas, due to this technology’s importance to the Korean economy.Professor Oh-Kyong Kwon organized the program on displays, and I was fortunate tobe one of those invited to speak.

During my talk, I tried to stress the importance of connecting technical achievementto the very human needs that drive the demand for electronic displays. I managed towork in a reference to the Korean near-obsession with the video game Starcraft, whichdrew appreciative laughs from the student audience. A large number of studentsshowed up to listen to a panel discussion held in English, and this group posed severalinsightful questions to me and the other speakers. These are smart young people,well-informed and eager to learn more.

I also had the good fortune to be able to visit Professor Jin Jang at Kyunghee University and see the superb infrastructure of students, equipment, and projects thathe has set up there. At Kyunghee, I also gave an extended lecture on electronic-papertechnologies to a group of faculty and students. The engagement by the students wasstrong, and once more, thoughtful questions came from that group. These are clearlypeople who are thinking hard about engineering new display technologies.

During the week, I also had great visits with leadership from Samsung and LG Display, which were both gracious hosts. There are amazing projects going on withinthese companies, spanning the gamut of hard-core product engineering to highlyadvanced research programs. I got a sense that these are enterprises that are not onlytaking care of near-term business, but also laying the groundwork for future advances.

Finally, I’ll note the discussions I had with the leadership of KIDS (Korean Infor-mation Display Society), which is an organization focused on promoting display tech-nology within Korea. SID and KIDS have been cooperating for several years now,primarily through the co-sponsorship of the yearly IMID (International Meeting onInformation Display) conference. I had great conversations with Professors Y-S. Kim,K-W. Whang, and H-J. Kim, in which we discussed several ideas for expanding therelationship between SID and KIDS, using SID’s international scope to connect morestrongly with the Korean-based engineers that form KIDS’ base. I look forward toanother chapter in the ability of SID to provide value to our members worldwide andto continue to strengthen our presence in Korea. �

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CLAYTON M. CHRISTENSEN isknown for his discussion of disruptive technology in books such as The InnovatorsDilemma,1 The Innovators Solution,2 and Seeing What´s Next.3 In these works, hedefines two cases of disruptions: “low-enddisruptions” and “new-market disruptions.”The first reshapes existing markets by deliver-ing relatively simple, convenient, low-costinnovations to a set of customers who havepreviously been ignored by industry leaders;the second creates new markets with new customers. Christensen also points out thatdisruptive innovations, at least in the near-term, have poorer product performance andunderperform established products in main-stream markets, but also offer other featuresthat new and existing customers value.

Disruptive innovations that have takenplace in the display industry include an histor-ical example that happened in two differentcountries in the 1970s. Researchers at Westinghouse in the U.S. and at Dundee University in Scotland separately were able todemonstrate the operation of liquid-crystalcells on glass-based TFTs. This enabled amajor breakthrough.

For some time, it seemed as though OLEDswere poised to become a disruptive technol-ogy. But, in fact, now it seems that OLEDs

have only some aspects of disruptive innova-tion as defined by Christensen. This articlewill examine this potential for at least partialdisruption in detail.

To evaluate the innovations that are contin-uing to take place in the display industry, wewill use the term “ecosystem thinking.”Ecosystem thinking, as discussed in recent literature, such as Judy Estrin’s Closing theInnovation Gap and Marco Iansiti and RoyLevien’s The Keystone Advantage,4,5 enablesone to see the importance of single innova-tions as building blocks of a bigger systemicinnovation framework. Using this concept,we will show that new OLED technology hasmany disruptive features, which are movingfrom the high-end side of the applicationspectrum to the mainstream flat-panel busi-ness. It is still too early to say whether or notthese new disruptive elements will be able totruly disrupt the current flat-panel ecosystem.OLED technology has not found a killerapplication in the last 10 years, although it isdirectly competing with TFT-LCD technologytoday in some areas.

TFT-LCD Flat-Panel Ecosystem CaseThe first target market for AMOLED disrup-tion involves small- and medium-sized LCDsand TFT-LCDs. These have been used inmobile phones and hand-held devices. Theoverall market-size estimation for these displays for 2009, according to severalsources, is about 1090 million units. Theshare of TFT-LCDs has increased rapidly

since their introduction in the early 2000s andexceeded 50% and 600 million display volumes during 2007.6 TFT-LCDs can compete with AMOLEDs in optical proper-ties; therefore, the market size of TFT-LCDsindicates the market potential for AMOLEDs.Samsung Mobile Display estimated in August2009 that AMOLEDs could take a 40% market share in the mobile-phone display market by2015. The AMOLED share is now 2.3%.7

Due to the increased need to save on battery life in power-hungry smart phones, AMOLEDs have the best chance of capturing the smart-phone market first, then moving to laptopsand then to thin, low-power TV screens.

OLED Ecosystem CaseIn the year 2000, strong hype began overpotential opportunities for OLED technology.With its excellent image quality, thinness, andresponse times, it was seen as a rapidlyapproaching challenger to existing TFT-LCDtechnology in small- and medium-sized displays. However, during the past 9 years,TFT-LCD technology has been able toimprove performance in image quality whileat the same time reducing costs dramaticallydue to big investments in large-sized TFT-LCD fabs. This somewhat decreased thepotential for OLEDs to become a disruptiveinfluence during that time.

Partly for the above reason, OLED technol-ogy has been without doubt less disruptivethan TFT-LCD technology thus far. How-ever, OLED technology does have some dis-

Disruptive Factors in the OLED Business Ecosystem

AMOLEDs have several key, potentially disruptive elements in both display and lighting technology.

by Antti Lääperi

Antti Lääperi is with Nokia Corp. located inHelsinki, Finland. He can be reached atantti.laaperi@nokia.com or antti.laaperi@ gmail.com.

8 Information Display 9/090362-0972/09/2009-008$1.00 + .00 © SID 2009

disruptive technology

ruptive elements. The OLED stack structureis much simpler than the structure of a TFT-LCD and that offers cost-saving potential inthe long run. The amount of emissive organicmaterial that is needed in an AMOLED display is roughly 1% of the liquid-crystalmaterial needed for the same-sized TFT-LCD.There is no need for color filters and backlightunits, and color filters are a significant costcontributor for TFT-LCDs. Currently, costsfor equivalent AMOLED displays are higherdue to the price of emissive OLED materialand the capital costs of new production lines.However, the high OLED material costs com-pared to that of liquid-crystal material costsare mainly due to the huge volume advantagecurrently held by liquid-crystal materials.Also, the current method of depositing emis-sive OLED material uses evaporation tech-nology, which unfortunately wastes a lot ofexpensive emissive material (see Table 1).

AMOLEDs in Small- and Medium-Sized DisplaysAMOLEDs have been used in mobile-phonedisplays for 2 years now, and feedback fromconsumers has been relatively neutral. Themarketing message has been difficult to createfor companies that are otherwise mainly usingTFT-LCD screens in their products. At thispoint, AMOLEDs have not been able to offerconsumers any big improvement in image

quality or battery life. In fact, power con-sumption for AMOLED screens in web appli-cations has been higher than that in corre-sponding TFT-LCD screens. Outdoor read-ability has also been worse than for transflec-tive TFT-LCD screens. In order to marketAMOLEDs as a green technology for smartphones, the power consumption, includingweb applications, needs to be lower than thatfor TFT-LCD technology. This is, in fact,forecasted to happen by 2011.

Figure 1 shows the forecast for power con-sumption development by both TFT-LCDsand OLEDs in the years to come. The TFT-LCD power-consumpion reduction is mainlydue to improvement in the efficiency of LEDsused in backlight units, and it is estimated toimprove 10% per year. For AMOLED displays, the power consumption is dependenton content. Movie content typically uses only10% during maximum power consumption,while web applications typically use 80% atmaximum power consumption. In TFT-LCDs, power consumption has not been content dependent. However, it is possible toreduce the backlight while watching movieswithout creating noticeable artifacts in theimage, using algorithms to reduce the powerconsumption by tens of percentages. In webapplications, however, these algorithms do notprovide significant reductions in power consumption.

In Fig. 1, the algorithm for web content forTFT-LCDs has been used. The large powerconsumption reduction in AMOLEDs ismainly due to the introduction of green phos-

Information Display 9/09 9

Table 1: Major Features ofOLEDs. Source: DisplaySearch8

Feature Nature of feature

Material usage Amount of emissive OLEDmaterial equals 1% of theliquid-crystal material usedin TFT-LCDs.No color filters needed inOLED displays.

Material costs Emissive material expensivecompared to that of liquid-crystal material, but no needfor color filters andenhancement films.

Viewing angle Wide viewing angle with nodegradation of contrastratio.No color change due tochanging viewing angle.

Self-emitting No backlight unit needed.Additional cost-savingadvantage.

Response time Microseconds vs. millisec-onds in LCD technology.Response time remains fastunder sub-zero temperatureconditions.

Transparency OLED panel can be brightand transparent.Potential new markets

Flexibility Easier to make flexible thanLCDs. This may be thekiller application forOLEDs.

Power OLED power consumption consumption has been too high for web

applications, but is reachingcompetitive levels.

Lifetime OLED lifetime was tooshort 4 years ago for poten-tial mobile-phone cus-tomers, but is now muchimproved to competitivelevels.10

Fig. 1: Projected power consumption through 2011 shows AMOLEDs gradually using lesspower than TFT-LCDs.9

phorescent emissive material. The lifetime ofphosphorescent blue is not yet at commerciallevels. The absolute power consumption isdependent upon selected luminance levels,and therefore only relative figures are indi-cated. TFT-LCDs and AMOLED displays areadjusted to provide the same perceived lumi-nance. The pixel density in both displays isabout 250 ppi.

As shown in Fig. 1, the point at which thelines are estimated to cross each other corre-sponds to the point in time that the power effi-ciency of AMOLEDs should be made betterthan equivalent TFT-LCD efficiency. Weestimate that this can happen during 2010.

The power consumption of displays insmart phones is becoming more importantbecaue of two reasons. The first is that con-sumers prefer to look at the web from a biggerscreen (while still keeping it pocket-sized),and the other is the increased time that dis-plays need to be in active mode. This maymean hours per day. If no radical new inno-vations take place in TFT-LCD technology, itseems obvious that AMOLEDs will begin toachieve more and more market share in smart-

phone categories. And increased volumestypically will decrease costs and prices.

AMOLEDs for TV ApplicationsNormal TV applications are from a lifetimepoint of view different from mobile-phone applications. The TV screen primarily features moving and changing imagery, and for thatreason is not as susceptible to image stickingor the so-called “burn-in” phenomenon thathappens over time. Therefore, concerns aboutlifetime and burn-in do not seem to be show-stoppers for TV applications.

Lifetime is defined to be the time whenluminance has dropped to half of the originalvalue. In the case of OLEDs, different colorshave naturally different lifetime figures. Bluehas clearly lower figures than red and green. This can cause white-point movement overthe long run, and images become more green-ish. Panel makers can compensate for thelower lifetime by increasing the size of theblue cells. This reduces current density andtherefore increases pixel lifetime. However,the lifetime figures are already at such a levelthat this phenomenon is barely visible after

10 years of usage time. More problematic isthe handling of the burn-in effect. The humaneye is very sensitive when it comes to observ-ing differences in luminance levels of adjacentpixels. A 10% difference can be easily seen,while a 50% luminance reduction over the years of a screen’s lifetime is hardly noticeable.

Subtitled movies and broadcasts, however,present a different challenge. In some coun-tries, the white text is surrounded by a blackbox. This provides maximum contrast, but ismost problematic from a burn-in standpointand will require further studies and simula-tions. An initial attempt to understand thesensitivity of the text box and broadcaster’slogo for OLED applications was performedusing an OLED simulator developed formobile-phone applications. This simulator isdescribed in detail in the 2007 SID paper“OLED Lifetime Issues in the Mobile-PhoneIndustry.” 11 For the TV simulation, the“camera” image was used to represent subti-tled movies and broadcast logos and the center part of the same image simulates themoving content. Input and results are shownin Fig. 2.

10 Information Display 9/09

disruptive technology

10 hours/day 6 years’ usage8.5% degradation of R&G16% degradation of blue

30 years’ usage36% degradation of R&G59% degradation of blue

(a) TV Simulation, Input Image (b) TV Simulation

Fig. 2: This TV-application simulation shows (a) a test image and (b) two color-bar result images after 6 and 30 years of usage at 10 hours/day.The degradation values show how much luminance the worst pixels lost from the original.

All the following simulations use the life-time figures of 100,000 hours for red andgreen and 50,000 hours for blue. These fig-ures are already obtainable today in panelswith an output luminance of about 250 nits. It should be noted that much higher lifetimefigures have already been reported, and mate-rial development companies are investing agreat deal of research into increasing the life-time figures of blue.

In both cases in Fig. 2 the TV has been“on” for 10 hours a day with subtitled moviesplaying all the time. The first result wasobtained after 6 years of usage. A SID 2007 paper11 demonstrated that degradation levelsunder 5% are hardly noticeable. However, asshown above, the degradation value of 8.5%in red and green and 16% in blue cause anannoying burn-in effect. The “Camera,” “Options,” and “Exit” texts can be clearlyseen in the color bars. In order to limit thedegradation to 5% with subtitled movies, thelifetime should be 175,000 hours for all colorsor the size of the blue subpixels should begreatly increased.

The second color-bar image represents 30 years of usage. This example is mainly toshow how the burn-in effect can be seen over

a very long run. The tiny “2M” symbol at thelower corner of the “Camera” image and thefield-strength indicator at the upper left cornerare simulating the broadcaster logo. Thosestart to be visible in color-bar images after a usage of 30 years with today’s OLED materials.

The conclusion is that subtitled movies andimages, in which white text is presented in ablack box, seem to be too demanding fortoday’s OLED materials. To limit the burn-ineffect to less than 5% degradation, lifetimes of175,000 hours are needed for a usage time of6 years. It should be noted that black-textboxes are not used in all TV networks, but thisstudy was made from a worst-case perspec-tive. The broadcaster logo does not seem tobe problematic.

AMOLEDs in LaptopsThe killer application for TFT-LCDs was thelaptop computer. For AMOLEDs, the situa-tion is clearly different. Thus far, the powerconsumption of AMOLEDs in web applica-tions, which are very commonly used in lap-tops, has been higher than that for TFT-LCDs,and due to scalability limitations, the pricesfor AMOLED-based laptops have been far toohigh. The power-consumption obstacle looks

to be solved in the near future, as shown inFig. 1, but cost and price will remain issuesfor some time.

However, a preliminary simulation analysiswas performed to review the laptop applica-tion from both a lifetime and burn-in sensitiv-ity perspective. The simulator developed formobile-phone applications was used8 byselecting three input images and a color-barimage to show the results of a burn-in analy-sis. The test images and result images areshown in Fig. 3. The lifetime of emissivematerials were 100,000 hours for red andgreen and 50,000 hours for blue.

The resulting image suffers a maximum of4% degradation for red and green pixels and amaximum of 7% degradation for blue pixels.Burn-in effect in the resulting image (colorbar) is almost invisible. The correspondingfigures after 8 years of usage are 6% for redand green and 11% for blue. The burn-ineffect is slightly seen after 8 years of usage.The first and second test images representmenu screen and stationary text pages, respec-tively, and the third one represents movingcontent. This needs to be further analyzed inthe future, but this preliminary result alreadyshows that laptop applications are very valid

Information Display 9/09 11

(a) Laptop Simulation, Input Images (b) Laptop Simulation

1 hour/day 1 hour/day 7 hours/day

Result after 5 years4% degradation of R&G7% degradation of blue

Fig. 3: These laptop test images show results after 5 years of simulated usage.

for AMOLEDs, provided that scalabilityissues enabling price reductions are solved.

AMOLEDs in PC MonitorsPC-monitor applications are in many waysclose to laptop applications, except that powerconsumption is not so critical, and the PCmonitor business is more price-sensitive thanthe laptop business. Usage-time expectationsof PC monitors are longer than in laptops. InPC monitors, the screen typically goes toscreen-saver mode if there is no activity. Thisis a good practice from an AMOLED point ofview, as long as the screen saver is not using a stationary image. The same tool8 was usedto simulate PC monitor usage from anAMOLED burn-in perspective.

Degradation values have increased to 9%for red and green and to 16% for blue pixels.The runtime in Fig. 4 was 10 years. The burn-in effect caused by text input is now visible.The degradation results after 6 years of usageare 5% for red and green and 10% for blue.The burn-in effect is not easily noticeable.

OLEDs in LightingRecent developments in the efficiency ofemissive materials have opened totally new

applications to OLEDs. The linkage betweenAMOLEDs and emerging OLED-lightingecosystems is the development of highly effi-cient emissive materials and the optimal solu-tion to outcoupling efficiency issues. OLEDlighting will be in many ways a very disrup-tive technology, much more than OLEDs inthe display industry. It will afford architectsand interior designers totally new ways todesign lighting. Instead of point light sources,distributed light panels can be used, includingcolor variations. Also, this disruptive technol-ogy is coming from the high-end side, mean-ing that it does not involve the creation of newmarkets, but will disrupt the way in whichlighting is designed in homes and in publicplaces in the future. It can be assumed thatlifetimes over 100,000 hours will be obtained,resulting in 23 years of operational lifetime, ifthe lighting is used an average of 12 hours perday throughout the entire year. Maintenanceand repair issues need to be taken intoaccount, but those most probably will not beany kind of showstoppers. The reduction ofillumination to half its value might be observ-able, reducing the operational lifetime to 10years or requiring 200,000-hour half-lifetimes.We may even see OLED lighting used in the

backlight units of TFT-LCD TV screensbefore AMOLED scalability issues are solved.LED lighting will be used to replace lightbulbs and halogen lamps in the near future forpower-saving reasons, but OLED lighting willbring about a new way to design lighting.

ConclusionsTFT-LCD and OLED case studies have shownthat many elements of the industry follow orare forecasted to follow Christensen’s disrup-tive theory.9 To make the theory comply withcase studies for the display industry, an exten-sion – high-end disruptions – is proposed tobe added as the third element of the set of definitions concerning disruptive innovations.Examples from the display industry show thatdisruptive technology can come to the busi-ness ecosystem also from the high-end side,i.e., more expensive in the beginning, butoffering something customers appreciate andare ready to pay more for. For example, awall-mounted flat TV was a dream of peoplefor a long time, and TFT-LCD TVs were ableto come close to living that dream. Now,LED-based TFT-LCD TVs are flater, andOLED-based TV will bring even thinnerstructures, brilliant colors, and contrast with

12 Information Display 9/09

disruptive technology

(a) PC Simulation, Input Images (b) PC Simulation

1 hour/day 3 hours/day 6 hours/day

Result after 10 years9% degradation of R&G16% degradation of blue

Fig. 4: Test images demonstrate PC monitor results after 10 years of usage.

a wide viewing angle and low power consumption.

The inventions that produced TFT on glassand combined that with liquid-crystal cellsformed a disruptive innovation in the late1970s. These innovations took place in theU.S. and in Europe, but Japanese companieswere still able to take the lead in TFT-LCDtechnology and disrupted the entire displayindustry in the U.S. and in Europe. The killerapplication for this disruptive technology wasnotebook computers. Costs at the time were much higher, but the flatness of the screen was something consumers would pay more for.TFT-LCDs disrupted the CRT business withlower quality, but with a higher cost structure.

AMOLEDs have disruptive elements andare challenging the TFT-LCD ecosystem fromthe high end with lower power consumption,brilliant colors, a wide viewing angle thatdoes not cause a loss in contrast ratio, and athin and simpler structure. Displays will befor some time more expensive, but in the longrun OLEDs seem as if they will be less costlyto produce than TFT-LCDs. The competitiveadvantages seem to support AMOLEDs intaking a substantial market share, first insmall- and medium-sized displays for hand-held devices. AMOLED power consumptionis, however, dropping below the correspond-ing TFT-LCD power-consumption figures indemanding web-page applications. This willenable manufacturers to create a green mar-keting message and will enable smart-phonemanufacturers to design AMOLEDs into theirproducts in larger volumes than that to date.

A further observation is that AMOLEDs areready to be used in laptops and in PC moni-tors as soon as scaling can enable cost reduc-tions. Lifetime and burn-in sensitivity areclose to acceptable levels based on the prelim-inary analysis reviewed here. However, morestudies and simulations with laptop-orientedcontent are required. The same observation isvalid in the case of the PC monitors. Lifetimeand burn-in sensitivity do not seem to beobstacles in taking AMOLEDs to this market.

A preliminary study was also performed forTV applications. Moving content and thelogo of the broadcaster do not seem to beproblematic from a lifetime and burn-in sensi-tivity perspective, but black text boxes withwhite letters will make the worst possible con-trast for the screen and will require a furtherincrease in the lifetime of the emissive mate-rial or a reduction in the contrast by some

other means in the smart receiver itself. In short, the key OLED technology ele-

ments with the potential for disruption (ascompared to TFT-LCD technology) are theuse of active materials and the ability toachieve lower power consumption by 2010.Another possible disruption may occur in thearea of lighting. All of this, of course, relatesto the green aspects of the technology, whichwill almost certainly drive the OLED ecosys-tem of the future.

References 1C. Christensen, The Innovators Dilemma(Harvard Business School Press, Boston,Massachusetts, 1997).2C. Christensen and M. Raynor, The Innova-tor´s Solution (Harvard Business SchoolPress, 2003).3C. Christensen, S. Anthony, and E. Roth,Seeing What’s Next (Harvard Business SchoolPress, Boston, Massachusetts).4J. Estrin, Closing the Innovation Gap.Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in theGlobal Economy (McGraw-Hill, New York,2008).5M. Iansiti and R. Levien, The KeystoneAdvantage. What the New Dynamics of Busi-ness Ecosystems Mean for Strategy, Innova-tion, and Sustainability (Harvard BusinessSchool Press, Boston, Massachusetts, 2004).6R. Young, USFPD Conference Presentation,March 2007; M. Portelliget and M. Robertson,Report (August 21, 2009).7DisplaySearch, Alternative Display Technol-ogy Report: OLED Technology (2006).8A. Lääperi, Discussions with leading emis-sive OLED material supplier and leadingAMOLED panel makers (2009).9A. Lääperi, “OLED lifetime issues from amobile-phone industry point of view,” J. Soc.Info. Display 16, No. 11 (2008).10A. Lääperi, I. Hyytiäinen, T. Mustonen, andS. Kallio, “OLED Lifetime Issues in theMobile-Phone Industry, SID SymposiumDigest 38 (2007).11A. Lääperi and M. Torkkeli, “DisruptiveInnovations and Innovation Ecosystems in theDisplay Industry,” ISPIM 2009 Conference(June 2009). �

Information Display 9/09 13

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• Manufacturing Large-Sized AMOLED TVs

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February 2007Vol. 23, No.2

OLED DISPLAYS AND LIGHTING ISSUE

� Sony’s 27-in. Prototype OLED TV

� Challenges for AMOLED Displays

� Transparent Electrodes for Flexible Displays

� The Digital-Video-Interface Disaster

� Journal of the SID February Preview

AMOLED DevicesContinue to Improve

IN THE EARLY 1950s, A. Bernanose andco-workers first produced electroluminescencein organic materials. Ching Tang and SteveVan Slyke of Kodak discovered how to produce this light efficiently in the 1980s.But organic light-emitting-diode (OLED)technology came to prominence in the late1990s when Pioneer delivered its initial product – an area-color display for a car radio– and Nobel Prize winner Dr. Alan Heeger,founder of Uniax, declared OLEDs to be thenext great disruptive technology. The avail-ability of a real product and the claims of highcontrast ratio, microsecond response time, lowpower consumption, fully saturated colors, low cost, and thin form factors set up enormous expectations for a technology that appeared tohave the potential to displace thin-film-tran-sistor liquid-crystal displays (TFT-LCDs) invirtually every market segment, includingsmall-to-medium and large-area displays and microdisplays. The early delivery ofcommercial displays set the stage for rapidgrowth as entrepreneurs in Taiwan and SouthKorea rapidly joined the field.

The Hype Phase: PMOLED Displays Between 1999 and 2005, more than 20 com-panies in the U.S., Europe, and Asia investeda total of over $2 billion to build and staff passive-matrix organic light-emitting-diode(PMOLED) fabs in the hopes of replacing LCDs with PMOLEDs. These companiesopened and closed faster than a swinging doorin their search for the elusive killer applica-tion and manufacturing process. Among theareas of focus were mobile phones, MP3s,MP4s, and automobile consoles, as well as theidea of printing on flexible backplanes. In theend, only five companies remained in theOLED business – Pioneer, RiTdisplay, TDK,Univision, and Nihon Seiki, all using vacuumthermal evaporation (VTE) on glass and making primarily monochrome and area-colordisplays 2 in. or less on the diagonal.

The PMOLED manufacturers were undoneby several factors, including a market limitedto 2-in. and smaller displays (due to the constraints of passive-matrix multiplexing),rapid price reductions for passive-matrixLCDs (PMLCDs) and active-matrix LCDs(AMLCDs) as competition peaked in 2005,and high voltages caused by the drivingmethod, which restricted battery life in mobileapplications. These passive-matrix displays

also brought about a long-term negative marketing effect because the high voltages(>10 V) and high current density (J) of low-efficiency early-stage materials led to shortlifetimes of ~5000 hours. These lifetimeswere not an issue for the types of productsthat were being fabricated, but created ongoing concerns about OLED lifetimes ingeneral. In fact, such concerns remain to thisday, even though lifetimes now exceed 50,000hours. Revenue for PMOLEDs peaked in Q1 ’04 (see Fig. 1) and has been on a down-ward trend ever since. Manufacturers are selling more displays for less revenue, vitiat-ing the Y/Y positive unit growth.

Display makers soon determined that themarket opportunity lay in high-end active-matrix displays, but for these, LTPS back-planes were necessary in order to meet themobility needs of OLEDs as well as theirhigh-current-density requirements. Earlyattempts to use a-Si failed. None of the LTPSmanufacturers were willing to sell backplanesat a “reasonable” price, so the passive-matrixmanufacturers were unable to change theirbusiness plans. (For additional discussion of backplane technologies, see “EmergingTechnologies for the Commercialization ofAMOLED TVs” in this issue.)

OLEDs – Promises, Myths, and TVs

Much work remains before OLEDs can be considered a player in the display and lightingmarkets. Among the necessary success factors are mass manufacturing that delivers highyields at competitive costs and a willingness on the part of companies to pursue the technol-ogy. But the trends are positive. OLED performance for TVs is outstanding and power consumption is low. Moreover, OLED lighting offers new opportunities in high efficiency,unique form factors, and “relaxing” color temperatures. If the companies practicing thetechnology follow through with their plans, we should begin to see new competition for TFT-LCDs and LED lighting in the next 3 years.

by Barry Young

Barry Young is Managing Director of theOLED Association (http://www.oled-a.org/). He can be reached at barry@oled-a.org.

14 Information Display 9/090362-0972/09/2009-014$1.00 + .00 © SID 2009

OLED overview

Only TFT-LCD manufacturers had the capital and/or the facilities to make low-temperature polysilicon. But their road wasnot without constraints. To begin with, thestart-up volumes were low due to the use ofsecond-generation fabs. Next, the appeal of higher performance and thin form factors came at a price premium, and new OLED fabs had to compete with fully depreciated TFT-LCD fabs, which increased the cost premium of OLEDdisplays by ~20% compared to that of LCDs.

Kodak recognized this situation early onand developed a multi-phase strategy thatincluded entering into an alliance with Sanyo,one of the leading LTPS suppliers; developingnew materials that included device architec-tures, new deposition tools, and solutions toLTPS yield problems; and creating barriers toentry from other parties by setting the licens-ing and royalties at unsustainable levels.Sanyo/Kodak gave up in 2005 after failing toachieve its goal of US$500 million in sales.Sanyo elected to minimize the damage andsell its fabs to Epson, while Kodak retrenchedinto selling material and licenses.

Making HeadwayThese days, AMOLED display makers are onthe right track, having resolved the yieldissues for LTPS and also having achieved production know-how for full-color displays.Samsung established a new venture to concen-trate on AMOLEDs and staffed the new com-pany with senior managers from its LCD and

other groups. Samsung Mobile Display (SMD) is now the industry leader with the only fourth-generation LTPS facility for AMOLEDs and ahalf-fourth-generation (730 × 460) OLED fab.SMD produces small-to-medium displays formobile phones, digital cameras, personalmedia devices, and netbooks up to 5 in. on the diagonal. The production capacity is 1.5million 2-in. displays per month and that willbe extended to 3 million 2-in. displays permonth in 2009, and possibly 5 million dis-plays per month in 2010.

Sony, LG Display, and Chi Mei EL(CMEL) also produce AMOLED displays buthave a limited capacity of fewer than 100,0002-in. displays per month. These companiesare expected to expand their capacity in 2009and 2010. TMDisplay, AUO, TPO, and Panasonic will also likely initiate productionof AMOLEDs over the next 1–3 years as theysharpen the practice of making high-yieldhigh-performing OLED displays.

Reality and TVsThe long-term opportunity for AMOLEDtechnology is TVs, where OLEDs shine.Sony, Panasonic, LG Display, and SMD havedemonstrated TV prototypes of 25 in. andlarger. What has particularly intrigued indus-try watchers is the potential created withSony’s late 2007 release of the XEL-1, an 11-in. OLED TV that titillates the visual taste buds of both photonics experts and consumers. Virtually without exception, any-

one seeing this TV compared to a TFT-LCDor plasma-display-panel (PDP) TV found thatit outperformed these technologies by a widemargin in terms of both image quality andform factor. It has by far the thinnest of formfactors in the industry. In addition, OLEDTVs appear to have the deepest blacks, thehighest contrast ratio, the fastest responsetime, the widest viewing angles, and the low-est power consumption.

In short, the killer application for OLEDs isthe “old” TV. But to compete in the TV market, OLEDs have to continue to progressin the following areas of both technology andmanufacturing:

1. Scaling the backplane. Building a cost-competitive TV in the sweet spot of themarket (32–42-in.) requires a seventh-generation or larger substrate size andstarts of 50K units per month to meet theeconomic size constraints of displaymanufacturing. LTPS, which currentlymaxes out at fourth generation, willlikely top out at fifth or sixth generation.What is needed is a-Si or a comparablesubstitute (see “Emerging Technologiesfor the Commercialization of AMOLEDTVs” in this issue.)

2. Scaling the OLED deposition and patterning process. The only commer-cial process available today is VTEthrough a fine metal mask (FMM).These systems are currently no largerthan 730 × 460 (half-fourth-generation)and are also expected to max out at fifthor sixth generation. But new approachesin terms of printing and vertical substratehandling promise to overcome these limitations.

3. Improving the efficacy and lifetime ofthe blue material. The lifetime for material has been ~50K hours to T50(time to reach 50% of initial luminance).Material makers are demonstrating life-times in excess of 100K hours for redand green and greater than 50K hours for blue with an initial luminance of1000 cd/m2. TVs typically operate at500 cd/m2, so there is significant headroom. Techniques such as outcouplingand triplet emitters (phosphorescence)are being used to dramatically increaseenergy efficiency. White-OLED devicesand luminaires have already beendemonstrated that deliver >100 lm/W,which is competitive with inorganic

Information Display 9/09 15

Fig. 1: PMOLED US$ revenues peaked early in 2004 and have not caught up since. Source:DisplaySearch.

LEDs that have efficacies of >100 lm/Wfor devices but only approximately halfthat for luminaires. Unlike inorganicLEDs, the OLED luminaire delivers thesame efficacy as the device because forOLEDs the device effectively is theluminaire.

4. Developing more-efficient materialdeposition and patterning tools. Thecurrent VTE process with a FMM yieldsonly 3–4% of the material. Most of itremains on the mask because the typicalprocess uses one mask each for red,green, and blue, putting the maximumutilization efficiency at 33%. Today’ssingle-point source also wastes muchmaterial because of the distance from themask. While the low material utilizationefficiency is not an issue for small dis-plays, it is a significant cost issue forlarge ones. Costs for components suchas color filters, electronics, and back-lights do not scale with size, but organicmaterial does. Several solutions arebeing developed, including replacing thesingle source with multiple sources toreduce waste, printing only the exactamount of material required for each subpixel, and eliminating the FMM andusing white with a color filter.

5. Gathering the capital. Perhaps the mostchallenging issue for the industry is con-vincing management that an investmentof US$1–3 billion or more will have apayoff, especially in the current environ-ment of excess capacity and falling prices.

6. Expanding into other large-area appli-cations. One of the advantages TFT-LCDs have over PDPs is the wide prod-uct range. Although TFT-LCDs enjoy ahigher price per square inch for note-books, monitors, and small-to-mediumdisplays, the price per square meter issignificantly less for TV panels in orderto compete with PDP displays that oper-ate in only one high-volume market –TVs. The specifications for notebooksand monitors offer significant challengesto OLEDs due to the use of applicationssuch as Word, Excel, the Internet, and e-mail, where 60–70% of the image iswhite space. This puts the power con-sumption for OLEDs at a significant disadvantage. TV applications use verylittle white space and average less than30% of white across the image.

The forecast for OLED-display revenues isdependant on the number of suppliers that willproduce large-area displays and invest in generation six and larger fabs. The small-to-medium market is expected to grow fromapproximately US$800 million in 2008 toover US$4 billion by 2015. But the large-areamarket is dependent on the actions of SMD,CMEL, Sony, LG Display, Panasonic, andAUO. The following forecast shows the revenue based on up to five of these six companies entering the market. If five doenter the market, the revenue could reachalmost US$14 billion by 2015 (see Fig. 2).

Reaching MaturityOLEDs are now reaching maturity and shouldbegin to achieve their early market promise.The keys to growth in OLED market captureare continuous improvement in the following:

• Efficiency: This is currently at 20–30 cd/Aand growing to 50–60 cd/A, which willreduce the switching voltage and there-fore the power consumption. A typical3-in. OLED display for a mobile phoneuses ~250 mW, but by increasing theefficacy to 50–60 cd/A, the power consumption will decrease to <150 mW,which should compete favorably with the300–400 mW of TFT-LCDs.

• Lifetime: Lifetimes for saturated colorsare 250,000 hours for red, 150,000 hoursfor green, and 50,000 hours for blue.These lifetimes are forecast to grow over

the next 3 years, putting lifetimes at>100,000 hours at 1000 cd/m2; signifi-cantly exceeding the performance ofeither LC or PDP displays.

• Printing: New approaches to makingsmall-molecule material soluble areexpected to lead to slot-printing tech-niques, which have been demonstrated tobe over 70% effective in material utiliza-tion, and ink-jet printing may yet proveproductive for polymer materials in thisnew environment.

• Backplanes: a-Si is beginning to lookmore feasible as demonstrated by IGNISInnovation, which has developed propri-etary compensation techniques thatadjust for both TFT and OLED perfor-mance reductions in real time, and Samsung Mobile Display, which hasdeveloped inorganic devices that havesufficient mobility, reliability, and uni-formity to support OLEDs.

Other Uses for OLEDsPerhaps the kicker in the future will be the useof flexible substrates, which will allow newdisplay formats that can be curved or evenrolled, creating new uses for displays. It islikely that lighting, not displays, will be thefirst application for flexible OLEDs becausethe backplane requirements are significantlyless stringent. OLEDs may soon enter thefast-growing solid-state-lighting market, withcomplementary tools and device architectures

16 Information Display 9/09

OLED overview

Fig. 2: OLED revenue forecasts increase steeply as additional companies enter the market.Source: OLED Association.

such as roll-to-roll manufacturing with flexi-ble substrates as demonstrated by GE, low-temperature white panels from Philips andOSRAM, and new outcoupling techniquesthat double the useable light.

OLEDs are expected to join inorganicLEDs as replacements for incandescent, fluo-rescent, and high-brightness lighting applica-tions. LEDs have a significant lead in termsof maturity and are strong producers of spotlighting, but can be configured for area light-ing. OLEDs are excellent area-lightingreplacements for fluorescent lighting becausethey are more efficient than fluorescent bulbs,last longer, and contain no toxic material, i.e., mercury.

There have been some announcements oforganic solar-energy usage to compete withsilicon and thin-film photovoltaics, but theefficiency is well below existing silicon orthin-film approaches. It appears to be tooearly to judge whether OLEDs can be compet-itive in this application.

Summary: Learning the ManufacturingGameMuch work remains before OLEDs can beconsidered a player in the display and lightingmarkets, but demonstrated performance interms of black level, contrast ratio, efficacy,and lifetime is competitive in today’s environ-ment and should improve by 2–4 times over

the next 10 years. What remains is for mass manufacturing to deliver high yields at competitive costs and for companies to bewilling to pursue the technology.

In reality, OLED displays are not a threat toTFT manufacturers; they are just an extensionof thin-film technology. OLEDs replace theliquid crystal in a display but keep the expen-sive thin-film technology and the electronics.OLEDs are just another level of device archi-tecture growth, the way VA and IPS improvedupon TN-LCDs. TFT manufacturers shouldthus reap the benefits of a range of new tech-nology created by chemists and chemicalengineers. ■

Information Display 9/09 17

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SINCE THE FIRST market emergence of black-and-white CRT TV in 1937, the evolution of TV technology has acceleratedwith increasing demands for better picturequality and realistic image reproduction. It took more than 30 years for color TV toreplace black-and-white CRT TV. Then 20years later, demands for larger and flatterscreens resulted in flat CRT and projectionTV being introduced to the market. About 15 years later, the high-end market was revolutionized with the launch of flat-paneldisplays based on plasma and liquid crystals.In particular, LCD technology, which dominates the TV market these days, is further evolving with the adoption of high-speed driving and LED backlights that enableslim TVs with low power consumption.

Active-matrix organic light-emitting diodes(AMOLEDs) are ideally suited for future TVapplications because of their superb imagequality, digital addressing, and self-emissivenature. AMOLEDs are rapidly expandingtheir market share for small-sized mobileapplications since their mass productionlaunch in 2007. In addition, exhibitions ofSony’s 27-in.1 and Samsung’s 31-in.2 and

40-in.3 AMOLED TV prototypes have resulted in massive “wow factor” recognition fromexperts and the public.

In this article, we will review the tech-nological challenges with regard to mass commercialization of AMOLED TVs, as wellas the emerging technologies that will over-come these challenges.

AMOLED: The Ultimate Solution forFuture TVThe basic and most important feature of TV isthe ability to faithfully reproduce real images.With the launch of high-definition digitalbroadcasting, viewers can now enjoy a vividpresence from large flat-panel-TV screens.As a result, perceptual image quality, which isthe reproduction of real color and motion features, has become more important thanmeasures such as contrast, luminance, andcolor gamut. Because AMOLEDs are self-emitting, light emission can be controlled foreach pixel at extremely high speed. There-fore, AMOLEDs are intrinsically capable ofexpressing high contrast, blur-free motion features, vivid colors, and wide viewingangle. Old color-gamut models cannotexpress these perceptual image qualities; thus,new standards, such as CIECAM02, the mostrecent color appearance model ratified by theC.I.E. (http://www.cie.co.at/index_ie.html),have been suggested. Figure 1 compares the

perceptual image qualities of OLEDs andLCDs. AMOLEDs can produce more vividimages at low brightness due to their highcontrast ratio and peak luminance. Theseadvantages result from the deep-black back-ground and self-emitting nature of OLEDs.

The global environmental crisis has gainedattention recently, and for geopolitical andeconomic reasons, many countries are legis-lating green policies. Naturally, TVs are alsorequired to be eco-friendly. The environ-mental compatibility of flat-panel displays canbe categorized into each of the areas of com-ponents, manufacturing processes, and powerconsumption. AMOLEDs offer advantages ineach of these areas.

From a component point of view, AMOLEDsare intrinsically eco-friendly because they donot contain backlights or color filters and donot require many other optical components.Removal of the backlight provides the addi-tional advantage of a slimmer and more light-weight panel, creating a more eco-friendlyproduct as a result of reduced energy con-sumption for transportation. In addition,AMOLED panel components are free fromtoxic materials, such as Hg and Cd, whoseapplication is prohibited by RoHS regulations.

For the manufacturing process, the key toeco-friendliness lies in minimal production ofwaste by-products. For example, wet-etchand spin-coating processes waste large

Emerging Technologies for theCommercialization of AMOLED TVs

Advances in AMOLED materials, device structures, and manufacturing are paving the way for a new generation of TVs that will be interactive, ultra-light and slim, eco-friendly, and more.

by Hye Dong Kim, Hyun-Joong Chung, Brian H. Berkeley, and Sang Soo Kim

The authors are with the OLED R&D Center,Samsung Mobile Display Co., Ltd., San #24Nongseo-Dong, Kiheung-gu, Yongin-si,Gyeonggi-do 446-711, Korea.

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commercializing AMOLEDs

amounts of chemicals, whereas ink-jet print-ing results in good material usage efficiency.OLEDs are advantageous from an environ-mental point of view because their manufac-ture makes use of direct-patterning processessuch as shadow masks and printing.

In terms of power consumption, AMOLEDshave a great advantage over LCDs built with“always-on” CCFL or edge-lit-LED back-lights. In an AMOLED, each pixel is individ-ually controlled, and light is only generated ifit is actually needed for the display. Further-more, there is still significant opportunity forfurther reduction in AMOLED power con-sumption. For example, phosphorescent light-emitting materials represent an exciting recentdevelopment in OLED technology. If phos-phorescent emitters can replace current fluo-rescent emitters, an extremely power efficient(<15 W) 40-in. TV could be possible by 2012,according to Universal Display Corp. (Fig. 2).

Technological Challenges forAMOLED TVIn recent exhibitions, Sony and Samsung displayed the potential of AMOLED TV by

making the largest size possible on their pilotlines (27-in. for 3G and 40-in. for 4G, respec-tively). For mass production, however,AMOLED TVs must be manufactured at acost that competes with LCD TVs. CurrentAMOLED mass-production lines employ anexcimer-laser-annealing (ELA) based poly-SiTFT backplane, a shadow mask for color patterning, and edge sealing for encapsulationon a 3.5G-sized (460 mm × 730 mm) mother-glass.

The biggest hurdle for commercially viablelarge-sized AMOLED TV is the need toincrease the motherglass size. In order tocompete with the cost of LCD TVs, multiplepanels must be fabricated on a single mother-glass, and 8G (2200 mm × 2500 mm) or largerglass is desired. Existing mass-productiontechnologies, however, face limitations inscaling up to this size; therefore, new methodsare required.

Emerging Backplane TechnologiesOLEDs are current-driven devices, whichplaces additional requirements on the back-plane, including precise control of current and high-threshold-voltage stability. Low-temperature poly-Si (LTPS) TFT backplanesfabricated by ELA are currently employed in

Information Display 9/09 19

Fig. 1: Perceptual contrast-length comparison of LCDs and AMOLEDs expressed onCIECAM02 color space. The luminance values of LCDs and AMOLEDs are 256.3 and 189.9cd/m2, respectively. It is notable that only 110.9 cd/m2 is required for AMOLEDs to achieve thesame perceptual contrast length as LCDs. Source: Samsung.

Fig. 2: Above is a power-consumption roadmap for a 40-in. AMOLED panel based onexpanded incorporation of phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED) technology over approximately 5 years. Source: Universal Display Corp.

300CIECAM02 Color Space

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the mass production of AMOLEDs, owing totheir excellent TFT performance and devicestability. However, uniformity and scalabilityissues create challenges for the use of ELA inlarge-area applications. For example, laser-power fluctuation can cause image non-uniformity, and a finite laser-beam lengthrestricts process scalability. Moreover, ELA-based LTPS TFTs require many (8–11) maskscompared to the number of masks required forLCDs (4); thus, ELA-based LTPS is less cost-effective and less eco-friendly.

Because laser equipment is expensive andcan present maintenance problems, generally,non-laser crystallization techniques arebelieved to have greater potential for large-sized AMOLEDs. One of the simplest non-laser methods to increase mobility of amor-phous-Si (a-Si) film is conventional solid-phase crystallization (SPC). But SPC usuallyrequires high-temperature (>650°C) annealingfor a relatively long time, and thus can beharmful for large-area glass substrates. Oneway to reduce the crystallization temperatureis to apply metal atoms as crystallizing seedson the a-Si surface. However, these metalseeds can contaminate the channel area andthus may result in large current leakage.Moreover, the grain size from this method isusually small and irregular, resulting in lowermobility and high grain-boundary-inducedleakage current. In order to circumvent these

drawbacks, the super grain silicon (SGS)method has been suggested.4 SGS employs asacrificial capping layer on the a-Si layerbefore seeding metal deposition, followed byannealing to diffuse metal atoms to the a-Sisurface through the capping layer. However,the application of SGS is challenged by itscomplicated process and production yield.

Amorphous-oxide TFTs have great poten-tial to scale up size. Basically, oxide TFTscombine the merits of a-Si and LTPS TFTs.5

For example, oxide TFTs are free from thenon-uniformity problem that comes from thepolycrystalline nature of LTPS, while theirdevice performance is reasonably good withlarge carrier mobility (~10 cm2/V-sec) andexcellent sub-threshold gate swing (down to0.20 V/dec). Moreover, the channel layer canbe formed by a simple sputtering processwithout further crystallization steps; thus, thefabrication process can basically be identicalto that of a-Si TFTs for LCDs. For this rea-son, existing a-Si production lines can easilybe converted without significant change. Inaddition, oxide TFTs can be deposited at roomtemperature; thus, cheap soda-lime glass orflexible plastic substrates can be used in prin-ciple. However, device instability issues needto be addressed in order for oxide TFTs to beused for AMOLEDs. As is well known, oxidesemiconductors are sensitive to oxygen andmoisture, and for this reason they have long

been used as sensor materials. Therefore,environmental control during the productionprocess and proper passivation techniques arerequired for oxide TFT fabrication.

Emerging OLED PatterningTechnologiesShadow-mask technology, also known as fine metal mask (FMM), is currently beingemployed in the mass production ofAMOLEDs. However, FMMs are prone tosagging problems when applied to large-sizedmotherglass because the masks are made bymetal films that are too thin (50 µm) to beused over a large area. In addition, FMMshave other issues such as pixel-size variationby ±10 µm, shadow effects due to non-zerometal thickness, and alignment accuracybetween the mask and substrate. Frequentmask cleaning is also required to maintainpattern quality. An alternative solution couldbe to use white OLEDs with color filters.However, the white-OLED approach sacri-fices some of the advantages that come fromthe self-emissive nature of OLEDs; thus, thisapproach is not an optimized solution forlarge AMOLEDs. For this reason, emergingOLED patterning technologies, including ink-jet printing, nozzle printing, and laser-inducedprinting, are receiving a great deal of attentionfor potential application to large AMOLEDs(Fig. 3).

Among the laser-induced printing tech-niques, laser-induced thermal imaging(LITI),6 radiation-induced sublimation trans-fer (RIST),7 and laser-induced pattern-wisesublimation (LIPS)8 are currently under devel-opment for mass production. These technolo-gies are in principle very similar in the sensethat the patterns are transferred from a donorsubstrate to the active-matrix backplane bylocal heating using laser beams. The majordifference is that LITI transfers the OLEDlayer from a conformable donor film by localmelting, whereas RIST and LIPS use a glassdonor substrate and the transfer occurs bysublimation of materials while the gapbetween the donor and the active-matrix back-plane is in vacuum. Current issues from theselaser technologies are thermal damage, process stability, and process yield.

Direct-printing methods, such as ink-jet andnozzle printing, use solution-based OLEDmaterials. These approaches have the poten-tial to be the most cost-effective and eco-friendly because they exploit complete use of

20 Information Display 9/09

commercializing AMOLEDs

Fig. 3: AMOLED color patterning technologies include evaporation, solution printing, laserprinting, and white and color filters.

the OLED materials. However, solution-based OLED materials are often very expen-sive. Compared to evaporation-based materi-als, solution-based materials face a seriousdisadvantage, which is that OLED lifetime isextremely sensitive to impurities, film quality,and environmental conditions. The develop-ment of high-performance soluble OLEDmaterials is the biggest challenge for the useof printing for OLED patterning.

Encapsulation IssuesFor reliable operation and long-term perfor-mance, OLEDs must be encapsulated. Forsmall-sized AMOLED devices, edge-sealingencapsulation is adequate for the fabricationof reliable panels. However, for largedevices, edge sealing has some serious prob-lems, including delamination, sagging, andbreaking of the encapsulation glass by exter-nal stress. In order to prevent breakage and toimprove mechanical reliability, new tech-niques are currently under development,including filling the gap between theAMOLED and encapsulation glass and theuse of non-etched glass. Challenges for thesetechniques include the development of liquidfiller material and film-lamination technology.

Thin-film encapsulation (TFE) can provideanother interesting solution for large-areaencapsulation.9 Instead of using encapsula-tion glass, TFE employs layer-by-layer depo-sition of thick films with compensating diffu-sion barrier properties. The biggest merit ofTFE is that it enables a single glass display, inturn enabling extremely slim and flexible panels. Challenges for TFE include materialoptimization, minimization of stacking layers,and applicability to large-sized motherglass.

Circuit IssuesIn AMOLEDs, the active-matrix circuit liesbeneath each pixel, and the circuit is com-prised of power-supply lines and power-control TFTs. For each AMOLED pixel, atleast two transistors (switching and driving)and one capacitor are required. However,because the OLED pixel luminance is directlychanged by the current, subtle variations inthe TFT current result in brightness differ-ences from pixel to pixel. As a result, even aslight non-uniformity in TFT performance cancreate serious image-quality problems. Forthis reason, most AMOLED panels incorpo-rate compensation circuits to correct this problem.

Two types of compensation circuits, currentprogramming and voltage programming, havebeen suggested. The-current programmingmethod compensates TFT threshold-voltageand mobility differences, whereas voltage programming compensates only for thethreshold-voltage differences.10, 11 However,for large-area applications such as TV, thevoltage-programming method is more usefulbecause of its ability to work over large areasand for compatibility with LCD driver ICs.

AMOLED Prototypes UtilizingEmerging Backplane TechnologiesSamsung has demonstrated a 40-in. AMOLEDTV prototype by combining an SGS-basedLTPS TFT backplane and FMM OLED tech-nologies.3 A 12-in. AMOLED notebookpanel has also been prototyped and exhibitedby the use of amorphous-oxide TFT back-planes and FMM OLED technologies.12

Figure 4 shows images and specifications ofthese demonstration panels.

ConclusionDue to fundamental advantages in displayquality, underlying cost, and eco-friendliness,

we believe a new era of AMOLED TV isinevitable. In this article, technological chal-lenges have been discussed from the point ofview of the active-matrix backplane, OLEDpatterning, and encapsulation processes. Inorder to effectively compete with LCDs,AMOLEDs need to realize their full potentialboth in terms of eco-friendliness and pricecompetitiveness. The best future AMOLED-TV solution may incorporate a combination ofa-Si TFT-like backplane, printing-basedOLED patterning, and thin-film encapsulationtechnologies.

AMOLEDs are ideally suited to become theTV of the future – not only due to their superbimage quality and eco-friendliness, but alsobased on their potential to expand the scope ofdisplays. Indeed, the use of AMOLEDs hasalready resulted in real displays, includingtransparent, bendable, foldable, and flexibledisplays that were previously only conceivedof in science-fiction movies. As convergencetechnology and interactive interfaces becomeincreasingly important, the need for vivid andintuitive displays will certainly grow, andthese changes will transform the concept andexpectation of future TVs. AMOLEDs pro-

Information Display 9/09 21

Fig. 4: 40-in. full HD and 12.1-in. WXGA AMOLED displays have been displayed by Samsung.

vide special capabilities and will inspire com-pletely new applications that are not yet con-ceived, thus revolutionizing the future TVindustry.

References1Exhibited at CES in 2007.2Exhibited at CES in 2008.3Exhibited at FPD International in 2008.4H.K. Chung and K.Y. Lee, SID SymposiumDigest 36, 956–959 (2005).5J. K. Jeong, J. H. Jeong, J. H. Choi, J. S. Im,S. H. Kim, H. W. Yang, K. N. Kang, K. S.Kim, T. K. Ahn, H.-J. Chung, M. Kim, B. S.Gu, J.-S. Park, Y.-G. Mo, H. D. Kim, and H. K. Chung, SID Symposium Digest 39, 1–4(2008).5S.T. Lee, M.C. Suh, T.M. Kang, Y.G. Kwon,J.H. Lee, H.D. Kim, and H.K. Chung, SIDSymposium Digest 38, 1588–1591 (2007).6M. Boroson, L. Tutt, K. Nguyen, D. Preuss,

M. Culver, and G. Phelan, SID SymposiumDigest 36, 972–975 (2005).7T. Hirano, K. Matsuo, K. Kohinata, K. Hanawa, T. Matsumi, E. Matsuda, R. Matsuura, T. Ishibashi, A. Yoshida, and T. Sasaoka, SID Symposium Digest 38,1595–1595 (2007).8A. B. Chwang, M. A. Rothman, S. Y. Mao,R. H. Hewitt, M. S. Weaver, J. A. Silvernail,K Rajan, M. Hack, J. J. Brown, X. Chu, L. Moro, T. Krajewski, and N. Rutherford,SID Symposium Digest 34, 868–871 (2003).9Y. Matsueda, D. Y. Shin, K. N. Kim, D. H.Ryu, B. Y. Chung, H. K. Kim, H. K. Chung,O. K. Kwon, IDW ’04 Digest, 263–266(2004).10N. Komiya, C. Y. Oh, K. M. Eom, J. T.Jeong, H. K. Chung, S. M. Choi, and O. K.Kwon, IDW ’03 Digest, 275–278 (2003).11Exhibited at SID 2008. ■

22 Information Display 9/09

commercializing AMOLEDs

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PROVIDING high-quality education is important everywhere, but in Brazil, in parti-cular, education has become a top priority because of its importance in the fight against social and economic inequality. For this reason, the Brazilian Federal Government has been encouraging R&D with regard to information technology for education and digital inclusion. One of the approaches currently being pursued is the intensive use of computers inside class-rooms. While computer labs and laptops – the latter especially as provided by the One Laptop Per Child program – go far toward providing anenriching technology experience in the class-room, digital desktops are an additional and intriguing educational option.

One of the foremost researchers in the fieldof education and technology is SeymourPapert from MIT, who has explored opportu-nities related to the use of computers with afocus on math teaching.1 He later extendedthis exploration to other disciplines. In 2005,the MIT program “One Laptop Per Child”(OLPC) proposed by Nicholas Negropontewas presented to the Brazilian Government asa way of transferring the ideas of Dr. Papertand other educational gurus from the aca-demic scene to reality. The proposal byNegroponte2 was based on the idea that allschool children should experience so-called“one-to-one technology,” i.e., each childwould have his own laptop, provided by thefederal government. In practical terms,approximately 45 million laptops would berequired to supply the Brazilian public schools. Although the ideas included inNegroponte’s proposal have evolved from2005 to the present, the main concepts of theOLPC program – free distribution of laptopsto kids and teenagers with full access to theInternet – still remain vivid in the heads ofpolicy makers all over the world.

Many programs based on the intensive useof computers in the classroom have shownexcellent results – in the appropriate environ-ment. However, when the environmentincludes individuals with a variety of educa-

tional, social, economical, and political back-grounds, results are more mixed. We will notgo further into this here; however, the mainfocus of this article is to discuss some of theaspects of different types of computer systemsinside classrooms. The issues presented hereare in part based on the results of a study ofthe OLPC program that was conducted by the authors on behalf of the Brazilian government.

Computer LabsThe most common approach to introducingcomputers into schools in Brazil is with a separate room called the “computer lab” thatcontains about a dozen systems. Such a roomis shared among all students of a given school.In many cases, a group of students shares amouse and keyboard and each student mayactually use the computer for only a few min-utes. On several occasions, we heard educa-tional experts state that computer labs remainlocked most of the time. Although we did notquantitatively examine such statements, itappears that the locked computer lab is not amyth. Through visits and interviews withadministrative staff and teachers in Brazilianprimary schools, we collected statements suchas “children break computers” and “I don’twant trouble if the computer lab breaks.” Ifintensively used, the “computer lab” poses afurther concern: the existence of a display

Back to School with Tablets Embedded inDigital Desks

A digital-desk pilot program in Brazil uses a unique display design to provide an interactiveinterface developed to enhance education and minimize ergonomic concerns.

by Victor Pellegrini Mammana, Cynthia Yukiko Hiraga, Ana Maria Pellegrini, Daniel den Engelsen, Luiz Alberto Castro de Almeida, Alexandre Cândido de Paulo, Gustavo Junior Alves, Miguel Joao Neto, Carlos Ignacio Zamitti Mammana, and Antonio Carlos Camargo do Amaral

Victor Pellegrini Mammana, Daniel denEngelsen, Luiz Alberto Castro de Almeida,Alexandre Cândido de Paulo, and AntonioCarlos Camargo do Amaral are with theRenato Archer Information Technology Cen-ter (CTI). Cynthia Yukiko Hiraga is with theEscola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades,Universidade de São Paulo (USP). AnaMaria Pellegrini is with the Instituto de Bio-ciências, Universidade Estadual Paulista(UNESP). Gustavo Junior Alves, MiguelJoão Neto, and Carlos Ignacio Zamitti Mam-mana are with Associação Brasileira deInformática (ABINFO).

24 Information Display 9/090362-0972/09/2009-024$1.00 + .00 © SID 2009

pilot program

between the student and other individualsinside the classroom (including the teacher)can provide an undesirable element of segregation.

LaptopsThe one-to-one computer strategy as proposedby Negroponte is a way of circumventing thetragedy of the locked computer lab because itgives children full access to computers any-time. This strategy obviously has the poten-tial for mobility if sufficient battery time isprovided; otherwise, dependence on multipleoutlets in the classroom is unavoidable. TheOLPC program has focused on a solution thatminimizes power consumption, which alsolimits the display’s maximum size and proces-sor performance because the LCD backlightsare responsible for a significant part of thepower consumption in laptops. The bill-of-material of a laptop indicates another limita-tion to display size: it is one of the mostexpensive parts of the computer. For a projectsuch as OLPC, weight, cost, and powerexpenditure needed to be minimized, leadingto laptops that originally had display sizes ofabout 7 in.2

Finding a sufficient number of outlets topower the laptops, and using the outlets with-out creating a tangle of confusion during theschool day, can be a challenge in the typicalBrazilian public school. In more organizedpilots, such as the one sponsored by BradescoSchools in the city of Campinas, the laptopbatteries are charged during break time, thusproviding a mobile experience for two periodsof 2 hours each day.

Another potential drawback for laptops isthat of ergonomics. Recently, we have stud-ied the use of laptops by children and weagree, in general, with Hedge’s statement3 that“laptops are intrinsically non-ergonomicbecause the display and the keyboard are inte-grated into a single piece.” In other words,when the display is adjusted to fit the positionof the user’s eyes, the keyboard is in an unnat-ural position. When the keyboard is adjustedto fit the user’s hands, the display is in anunnatural position. However, all statementsrelated to ergonomics are subject to investiga-tion and debate. For instance, it is reasonableto accept that many activities of children arenon-ergonomic, such as “watching TV in awrong posture, intensive sporting, intensivemusic practicing, video gaming, and evenhand writing”.4 This is not, of course, to dis-

miss consideration of ergonomics as a meretrifle.

In the evaluation of the OLPC program, wealso analyzed the cognitive consequences ofsmall displays by comparing quantitativelythe user performance among displays of 15,10, 8, and 7 in. In this study, tasks demandinginteraction with displays were performed bytwo groups: 18 children from 6 to 12 years oldand 20 adults from 19 to 29 years old. Thetime required to perform the same task in eachdisplay size was used as an indication of theuser’s effort to achieve the interaction goals.We believe longer times needed to performthe same tasks indicated higher levels of diffi-culty that resulted from a less-comfortableinterface. For the adult group, there was aconsistent trend of longer times for smallerdisplays; for the children’s group this trendwas not statistically significant. We attributethis difference to the fact that the group ofchildren in the test had very little experiencewith computers in general and mice, in partic-ular, leading to longer times to perform thetasks regardless of display size. We believethat if the two groups had possessed similarcomputer experience they would have bothperformed more quickly on the systems withlarger displays.

Conventional Input Devices The discussion of whether intensive keyboardand mouse use can cause occupational hazard,pain, or other physical complaint is an ever-green in the literature. Keir et al.5 reportedthat “the carpal-tunnel pressures measuredduring mouse use were greater than pressuresknown to alter nerve function” in 14 healthyindividuals evaluated in their work. However,a study conducted by Andersen et al.6 involv-ing thousands of individuals indicated an unlikely connection between keyboard use and risk for developing carpal-tunnel syndrome.Again, controversy is present. Our decision touse a tablet in a digital desk instead of a con-ventional input device stemmed from a differ-ent motivation: we believe that with a key-board, touch pad, or mouse the informationsurface (display) is separated from the pointsof motor interaction, leading to a less attrac-tive and intuitive experience than the one offered by touch screens and transparent tablets.

TabletsWe define a tablet as a device constituted by aflat surface that is capable of identifying the

position of one or more styli that touch its sur-face or “hover” over it. We have developed anew type of low-cost tablet that is based on aresistive principle (one of our authors has aU.S. patent for it). As opposed to conven-tional resistive touch screens, ours does notrequire two layers separated by spacers. Wedo not use ITO conductive layers, but SnO2

instead, which costs much less and can bedeposited at atmospheric pressure. Hightransparencies can be obtained in the 90%range in our tablet, while robustness is guar-anteed by the outstanding tribological charac-teristics of SnO2 on glass.

Figure 1 shows the working principle of aresistive tablet, in which the position is deter-mined by measuring the voltage drop using aconductive stylus along a uniform resistiveand transparent film. It is assumed that thevoltage is approximately linear with the posi-tion (actually linearization algorithms are

Information Display 9/09 25

Fig. 1: The tablet has a general workingprinciple similar to many other resistive solutions: the measured voltage is linear withposition. Instead of having conductive layersin parallel, we use a single film for X and Y bychanging the direction of the current fromcycle to cycle. This solution reduces cost substantially.

Vol

tage

Con

duct

or

Con

duct

or

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+

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required to make the tablet work appropriately). In our tablet, we manage to obtain “X” and “Y” by switching the current in perpendiculardirections in the SnO2 film, and that is whyonly one layer is required. The current designallows control of the cursor when the stylus isnot in contact with the surface.

Digital DesksDuring the last two SID-sponsored LatinDis-play conferences in Campinas (November2007 and 2008), the small Brazilian city ofSerrana participated in exhibitions showing anew technology that provided one-to-oneexperiences within classrooms; i.e., each student using a computer integrated into aschool desk (Fig. 2).

The technology is basically a low-costmetallic school desk with a display integratedinto the table top, which consists of a robustand transparent plate, such as thick glass.This plate has a stylus-based tablet technol-ogy, or alternatively a touch-screen technol-ogy, applied to it, allowing the direct interac-tion with the desk display image. The tabletop can be used in the horizontal position, asindicated in Fig. 2, or vertically, or in anyintermediate position. Two models are nowavailable: a PC board integrated into the tablettop and a multi-terminal version, in which fivedesks are connected to a single computer,allowing independent operation by each user.

We believe that this Digital School Desk isa way to overcome the challenges of conven-tional computer labs and laptops as mentionedearlier in this article. First, if the DigitalSchool Desk is made available in the regular

classroom, there is no need to lock it in acomputer lab. Next, the table top of the Digital School Desk can be positioned hori-zontally, enabling an open line of sightbetween students and teachers, and it has atransparent tablet or touch-screen integrated on the table top, allowing direct interactionwith the display image. The Digital School

Desk can also substantially increase the num-ber of hours spent by children with computersthat offer less health risk (although an educa-tional program based on digital desks will alsorequire measures to guarantee their rationaluse in order to further reduce risks). This typeof desk has more options to circumvent healthhazards through ergonomic optimization thanlaptops. Because there is no limitation onpower, large displays can be used, offeringbetter options of visual interaction for stu-dents. Last, making the desk furnitureadjustable is easier than making laptopsadjustable, so multiple-sized devices can beavoided.

On the downside, the Digital School Deskcannot offer the mobility of laptops, whichimplies that it can only be used in the class-room. Digital School Desks are also designedto be connected to power outlets on a perma-nent basis, which will require the rewiring ofthe classroom. (This, however, is also thecase for intensive laptop usage at school, sincebattery life constantly reduces as the recharg-ing cycles increase). Making laptops reallymobile in Brazilian schools may require fre-quent battery substitution, a challenge for

26 Information Display 9/09

pilot program

Fig. 2: One of the first versions of the “Digital Desk” was demonstrated at Latin Display 2007.The child is using the stylus to interact with the display image.

Fig. 3: This Serrana public classroom is fully equipped with Digital Desks, air-conditioning, and a digital board at the front of the room. Students in this picture are using the multi-terminal version: one computer is a server for five desks. The digital board at the front of the classroomis based on a projector (courtesy of the city of Serrana). The table tops can also be put in hori-zontal position during operation, to ensure a clear line of sight between teacher and student.

which our cities are not prepared with regardto supply and environmentally responsibledisposal.

Figure 3 shows the first classroom fullyequipped with the multi-terminal version ofthe desks. The full concept in the city of Serrana includes a digital white board and air-conditioning, which is rarely present inBrazilian public schools. The use of air-conditioning itself may be a key factor inimproving education because it can providethermal comfort for kids in very hot areas,although we do not have quantitative data onwhich to base this statement yet.

It is too early to evaluate the impact of thedesks on the learning performance of the stu-dents at Serrana, but according to the com-ments of the teachers involved with the pilotstudy there, the new technology certainly hasalready changed their attitude toward theschool environment, increasing attendance

and motivation. We believe that digital deskscan serve as key components not only towarda more satisfying technology interface, buttoward a better educational outcome overall.

Acknowledgments The development and evaluation of the Brazil-ian Digital School Desk is the work of manyindividuals. We would like to thank all of them for their contributions. Daniel den Engelsen acknowledges the financial support from FAPESP. We would like to acknowledge the support from SECIS/MCT and thank Prof.Afira Ripper from UNICAMP for his helpfuldiscussions.

References1S. Papert, Mindstorms: Children, Computers,and Powerful Ideas (Basic Books, New York,1993).2N. Negroponte, Brazil Plan – One Laptop

Per Child (OLPC) (The Media Lab, Massachussetts Institute of Technology andOLPC non-profit Association, 2005). 3A. Hedge, “Tips for using a laptop com-puter,” retrieved Nov. 2008 from http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/culaptoptips.html. 4G. Panagiotopoulous, K. Christoulas, A. Papanckolaou, and K. Mandroukas,“Classroom furniture dimensions and anthro-pometric measures in primary schools,”Applied Ergonomics 35, 121-128 (2004). 5P. J. Keir, J. M. Bach, and D. Rempel,“Effects of computer mouse design and taskon carpal tunnel pressure,” Ergonomics42(10), 1350-1360 (1999). 6J. H. Andersen, J. F. Thomsen, E. Overgaard,C. F. Lassen, L. P. A. Brandt, I. Vilstrup, A. I.Kryger, and S. Mikkelsen, “ComputerUse and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome,” Journalof the American Medical Association 289, No.22, 2963-2969 (2003). �

Information Display 9/09 27

Society for Information Display, Los Angeles Chapterhttp://sidla.org/

“Technologies for Custom LCD Modules”

� Sources of LCD Panels, Backlights, Touch Screens �

� Surface Treatments, Smart LCD Controllers �

� Packaging for Vibration, Altitude, Shock, and Temperature �

� Product, Market, & Business Assessments Plus Exhibits �

Venue: Costa Mesa Country Club, Costa Mesa, CaliforniaDate: February 5, 2010 – 8:00 am – 8::00 pm (Registration & Breakfast 7:00 am)

Program Chairman: Jim Kennedy, VP Sales, Vertex LCD, Inc.j.kennedy@vertexlcd.com

Description: Advancement of state-of-the-art LCD technology continues to push the custom displays into new levels of per-formance. With rapidly growing applications, many new business opportunities are emerging.

Registration Fee: $150 before the 8th of January 2010 / No refunds after 22nd January 2010Note: Additional Fee of $50 for late or onsite registration. Early registration is encouraged as space is limited.

❥ Includes: Parking; Continental Breakfast; Buffet Lunch; A Hardcopy & CD of Lectures; List of Advanced Registrants❥ Website for the complete program: www.CustomLCDModule.com or http://sidla.org/❥ Online registration and credit card payment: https://www.sid.org/conf/lcdled/regform.html.

SIDSOCIETY FOR INFORMATION DISPLAY

For 40 Years — A Continuing Series of Symposia

One Day Focused Technical and Business Conference

few people in the industry with as much per-spective and experience, which is why we welcome Julie back for another year as ourGuest Editor for our OLED issue.

Now that September is in full swing, andmany children around the world are back inschool, it seems like a good time to look atdisplay technology that may not be at the cutting-edge corporate-funded level likeOLEDs, but that also has potential to bringabout important changes. Some of the peoplein our Brazil SID chapter have been focusingon the methodologies of effectively integrat-ing technology into the classroom, recogniz-ing that computer literacy and technologyeducation are key elements for the success ofthe next generation’s young people. In orderto integrate computers into schools, the costmust be low, and in the case of the typical laptop and tablet PC, the display is still one ofthe most expensive components. As you canread this month in their article “Back toSchool with Tablets Embedded in DigitalDesks,” there are many challenges to achiev-

ing a fully electronic educational setting, butthe authors have been exploring some veryinteresting ideas with regard to digital desk-tops. This type of focus in integrating educa-tion with computers and displays will surelybring about needed changes, not only in Brazilbut in the rest of the world. Those of us atInformation Display look forward to these andcountless other developments that displaytechnology continues to make possible. �

selection for both backplane and frontplanetechnologies that are required to realize a successful OLED-TV business. The article isrounded out by a stunning image of SMD’smost recent 40-in. FHD-TV prototype, whichhas been drawing crowds at exhibitions.

I hope you enjoy reading these three arti-cles and that the information is helpful indeveloping your own image of AMOLED displays today and into the future. It is trulyan exciting time for this industry and anopportunity to join forces to build the OLEDecosystem by driving technologies forwardand participating together in entities such asthe OLED Association. On a personal note, I cannot wait for my 40-in. OLED TV! �

Julie J. Brown is Senior Vice President andChief Technical Officer at Universal DisplayCorp., 375 Phillips Blvd, Ewing, NJ 08618;telephone 609/671-0980, fax -0995, e-mail:jjbrown@universaldisplay.com.

28 Information Display 9/09

guest editorial

continued from page 4

editorial

continued from page 2

DISPLAY WEEK 2010The SID International Symposium, Seminar & Exhibition

Washington State Convention and Trade Center, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.May 23–28, 2010

Seattle is famous for technology as well as great foodand drink—and of course for its stunning Pacific North-west location. This exciting, eclectic city is an idealplace for the electronic display community to cometogether to share inventions and ideas.

Display Week is the once-a-year, can’t-miss eventfor the electronic information-display industry. Theexhibition is the premier showcase for global infor-mation-display companies and researchers to unveilcutting-edge developments in display technol-ogy. More display innovations are intro-duced year after year at Display Weekthan at any other display show in theworld. Display Week is where theworld got its first look at technologiesthat now shape the display industry, such as: HDTV,LCD, Plasma, DLP, LED, and OLED, to name just a few.First looks like these are why over 6,500 attendees willflock to Seattle for Display Week 2010.

For daily display

industry news, visit

www.informationdisplay.org

http://www.IDTechEx.com/SanJose

The following papers appear in the September 2009 (Vol. 17/9) issue of JSID.

For a preview of the papers go to sid.org/jsid.html.

The influence of unilateral acceleration on color-gamut propertiesof a TFT-LCD (pages 697–700)

Simon Grbec, Kolektor Group, Slovenia; Janez Diaci, University ofLjubljana, Slovenia

A dual-cell-gap transflective liquid-crystal display with identicalresponse time in transmissive and reflective regions (pages 701–704)

Jian-De Zhang, et al., Sichuan University, China

Reducing image sticking in AMOLED displays with time-ratiogray scale by analog calibration (pages 705–713)

Dong-Yong Shin, Seoul National University and Samsung MobileDisplay, Korea; Jong-Kwan Woo, et al., Seoul NationalUniversity, Korea; Keum-Nam Kim, et al., Samsung MobileDisplay, Korea

Reading dynamic Chinese text on the go (pages 715–720)Yu-Hung Chien, Ming Chuan University, Taiwan

High-performance high-efficiency LED-backlight driving systemfor LCD panels (pages 723–734)

Gang-Youl Jeong, Soonchunhyang University, Korea

Effect of source/drain overlap region on device performance in a-IGZO thin-film transistors (pages 735–738)

Dong-Ho Nam, et al., Chungnam National Laboratory, Korea; Jae-Kyeong Jeong, Samsung SDI Co., Ltd., Korea

Thin-film barriers using transparent conducting oxides for organiclight-emitting diodes (pages 739–744)

Ho Nyeon Lee, et al., Soonchunhyang University, Korea

Fabrication of IZO transparent conducting thin films by the useof magnetron sputtering equipped with ion-beam system (pages 745–750)

Jae-Hye Jung and Se-Jong Lee, Kyungsung University, Korea;Hyeon Seok Hwang and Hong Koo Baik, Yonsei University,Korea; Nam-Ihn Cho, Sun Moon University, Korea

Zinc oxide by ALD for thin-film-transistor application (pages 751–755)

Woon-Seop Choi, Hoseo University, Korea

Electron-beam curing of color filters for flexible-display applica-tions (pages 757–763)

Jeong Seog Kim, et al., Hoseo University, Korea; Byoung Cheol Leeand Young Hwan Han, Quantum Optics Lab, Korea

Electron-beam deposition of MgO on plastic substrate and manu-facturing flexible flat fluorescent lamp (pages 765–770)

Jung Min Cho, et al., Hoseo University, Korea; Nam In Cho, SunMoon University, Korea

Dynamic adaptation model and equal-whiteness CCT curves forthe choice of display reference white (pages 771–776)

Eun-Su Kim, Sun Moon University, Korea

The following papers appear in the October 2009 (Vol. 17/10) issue of JSID.

For a preview of the papers go to sid.org/jsid.html.

Anode-voltage-controlled circuit for compensation of luminancedeterioration (pages 779–784)

Naruhiko Kasai, et al., Hitachi Central Research Laboratory, Japan

Digital-to-analog converter with gamma correction on glass substrate for TFT-panel applications (pages 785–794)

Tzu-Ming Wang, et al., National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

A single-substrate multicolor cholesteric liquid-crystal displayprepared through ink-jet printing (pages 795–799)

Jhih-Ping Lu, et al., ITRI, Taiwan; Fang-Chung Chen, NationalChiao Tung University, Taiwan

Speckle-noise suppression due to a single ferroelectric liquid-crystal cell (pages 801–807)

Alexander A. Andreev, et al., Lebedev Physical Institute of theRussian Academy of Science, Russia

A rugged display: Recent results of flexible cholesteric liquid-crystal displays (pages 811–820)

Jyh-Wen Shiu, et al., Janglin Chen, ITRI, Taiwan

A polarizer-free flexible display using dye-doped liquid-crystal gel(pages 821–826)

Yi-Hsin Lin, et al., National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan; Yung-Hsun Wu, Innolux Display Corp., Taiwan

Zig-zag electrode pattern for high brightness in a super in-plane-switching liquid-crystal cell (pages 827–831)

Hyunchul Choi, LG Display, Korea; Jun-ho Yeo and Gi-Dong Lee,Dong-A University, Korea

Cell-parameter measurement system for a liquid-crystal cell byusing a telecentric lens (pages 833–839)

Marenori Kawamura and Takumi Sano, Akita University; S. Sato, AkitaResearch Institute of Advanced Technology, Japan

Novel light-extraction film (pages 841–847)John C. Brewer and Ronald J. Sudol, SKC Haas Display Films (USA),

USA

A broadband wide-incident-angle reflective polarization converter(pages 849–852)

Yan Li, et al., University of Central Florida, USA

Active-matrix and flexible liquid-crystal displays with carbon-nanotube pixel (pages 853–860)

Axel Schindler, et al., Universitaet Stuttgart, Germany

Fluorescent-based tandem white OLEDs designed for display andsolid-state lighting applications (pages 861–868)

Jeffrey P. Spindler and Tukaram K. Hatwar, Eastman Kodak Co., USA

Thin flexible photosensitive cholesteric displays (pages 869–873)Nithya Venkataraman, et al., Kent Displays, USA; Lisa Green and

Quan Li, Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, USA

SOCIETY FOR

INFORMATION

DISPLAY

SIDSOCIETY FOR INFORMATION DISPLAY

Journal of the

To submit a nomination, download an application from www.sid.org/awards.dya.html. Once complete, email your submission to Michele Klein at mklein@pcm411.com.

The deadline for nominations is December 31, 2009.

The 2010 Display of the Year Awards will be announced and presented at Display Week 2010: The SID International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, which will take place in Seattle, Washington from May 23 – 28, 2010.

Award winners will be profiled in the SID Show Issue of Information Display Magazine; as well as included in SID’s comprehensive global publicity efforts surrounding the show.

What are the most excitingand innovative displays,display applications and

components of 2009?

You tell us!

You are invited to submit your picks for the Society for Information Display (SID) 2010 Display of the Year Awards.

Now in its 15th year, the annual Display of the Year Awards are the industry’s most prestigious prize. Both SID members and non- members can nominate a product, so long as it was introduced into the marketplace between January 1 and December 31, 2009.

Display of the Year Award Granted for the display with the most novel and outstanding features.

Display Application of the Year Award Granted for a novel and outstanding applica- tion of display, where the display itself is not necessarily a new device.

Display Component of the Year AwardGranted for a novel component that significantly enhances the performance of a display.

THE BESTC

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

sustaining members index to advertisers

Applied ConceptsApplied PhotonicsAstra Products, Inc.AU Optronics Corp.autronic–Melchers GmbH

BigByte Corp.

California Micro DevicesCanon, Inc.CDT, Ltd.Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp.Chunghwa Picture Tubes, Ltd.Corning Japan K.K.Cytec Industries

Dawar Technologies, Inc.Dontech, Inc.DTC/ITRIDynic USA Corp.

Endicott Research Group, Inc.ENEAEpoxy Technologye-Ray Optoelectronics Technology

Co. Ltd.

FIMI

Global Display Solutions

HannStarHimax Technologies, Inc.Hitachi, Ltd.

IDTIGNIS Innovation, Inc.Industrial Electronic Engineers, Inc.

(IEE)Industrial Technology Research

InstituteInstrument Systems GmbHIST (Imaging Systems Technology)iSuppli Corp.iTi Corp.

Japan Patent Office

Kent Displays, Inc.Kuraray Co., Ltd.

LG Display Co., Ltd.Luminit LLCLXD, Inc.

Micronas GmbHMicronic Laser Systems ABMicrosemi Corp.MicrovisionMicrovision, Inc.Mitsubishi Chemical Corp.Mitsubishi Electric Corp.

Nano-Proprietary, Inc.National Physical LaboratoryNEC Corp.NextWindowNippon Seiki Co., Ltd.Nitto Denko America, Inc.Noritake Itron Corp.Novaled AGNovatek Microelectronics Corp., Ltd.

Optical Filters, Ltd.

Panasonic Plasma Display Laboratoryof America

Parker Chomerics/Silver CloudPhoto ResearchPlanar SystemsPlaskolite, Inc.Polytronix, Inc.Prime View International

QualCommQuantum Data, Inc.

Radiant ImagingReflexite Display Optics

Sartomer Company, Inc.Schott North America, Inc.Shanghai SVA-NEC Liquid Crystal

Display Co., Ltd.Sharp Corp.Sharp Microelectronics of the

AmericasSiPix ImagingSLENCIL Co.Sony Chemicals Corp.Sony Chemicals Corp. of AmericaSupertex, Inc.

Tannas ElectronicsTechnology Research Association for

Advanced Display Materials(TRADIM)

Teijin DuPont Films Japan, Ltd.TFD, Inc.TLC InternationalToshiba America Electronic

Components, Inc.TPO Displays Corp.Trident Microsystems, Inc.

Universal Display Corp.

Vero Veria Corp.

Westar Display TechnologiesWhite Electronic Designs, Inc.WINTEK Corp.

3M.......................................................C4Aixtron AG..........................................23Astra Products.....................................C3Display of the Year Awards.................31Display Week 2010 .............................28ELDIM S.A. ........................................22

IDTechEx 2009 ...................................29LA Chapter Conference.......................27Merck Chemicals...................................5OSD Displays ........................................7SAES Getters.......................................17Universal Display Corp. .....................C2

Business and Editorial OfficesPalisades Convention Management411 Lafayette Street, 2nd FloorNew York, NY 10003Jay Morreale, Managing Editor212/460-8090 x212 fax: 212/460-5460jmorreale@pcm411.com

Sales Office – EuropeGeorge Isaacs12 Park View CourtThe Paddock, Eaton FordSt. Neots, CambridgeshirePE19 7SD U.K.+44-(0)-1480-218400george@gandg.demon.co.uk

Sales Office – China & TaiwanJoy WangACE Forum, Inc.3F-2, No. 5, Sec. 1, Pa-Te Rd.Taipei 100, Taiwan+886-2-2392-6960 x204fax: +886-2-2393-0667joy@aceforum.com.tw

Sales Office – U.S.A.Palisades Convention Management411 Lafayette Street, 2nd FloorNew York, NY 10003Michele Klein, Director of Sales212/460-8090 x216fax: 212/460-5460mklein@pcm411.com

Sales Office – Korea Jung-Won SuhSinsegi Media, Inc.Choongmoo Bldg., Rm. 110244-13, Yoido-dongYoungdung-gu, Seoul, Korea+82-2-785-8222 fax: +82-2-785-8225sinsegi-2@sinsegimedia.info

32 Information Display 9/09

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110 �� Yes 111 �� No

2. What is your principal job function? (check one)

210 �� General / Corporate / Financial

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310 �� Cathode-ray Tubes

311 �� Electroluminescent Displays

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317 �� Display Manufacturing Equipment, Materials, Services

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6. What is the subject area of your highest degree?610 �� Electrical / Electronics Engineering611 �� Engineering, other612 �� Computer / Information Science613 �� Chemistry614 �� Materials Science615 �� Physics616 �� Management / Marketing617 �� Other (please be specific)

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