It's a Wrap for Display Week 2008--SID's 46th Annual International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition Leaves Display Industry Asking for an Encore

The Society for Information Display (SID)—the leading global organization dedicated to the advancement of electronic display technology—today announced that its 46th annual International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, called Display Week 2008, received rave reviews from attendees and exhibitors alike. More than 7,600 attendees converged on Los Angeles the week of May 18 to see and hear about the latest display technology innovations being developed around the globe. Display Week 2008 featured more than 500 presentations and 250-plus exhibitors spanning industry giants to small, yet innovative startups showcasing the latest advancements in areas such as 3D, e-paper, LCD, microdisplays, OLED, plasma, projection, green display solutions and beyond.

According to newly elected SID President, Paul Drzaic, Display Week is where the display industry’s best and brightest around the world come together to demonstrate their latest display innovations. “This year’s event didn’t disappoint—and proved once again that Display Week is the hotbed for showcasing the technologies that will shape the future. As we anticipated, 3D, touchscreen innovations and the latest TV display technologies were some of the headliners, but e-paper and OLEDs also had starring roles. It is so exciting for me, and the Society at large, to see the tremendous achievements our industry continues to make,” said Drzaic. He added, “While we certainly set the bar high this year, we’re already looking ahead and feverishly working on raising it up another notch for next year in San Antonio.” {Note: Display Week 2009 will be held in San Antonio, Texas, May 31 – June 5. More information can be found at www.sid2009.org/.}

SID Goes Green

According to Drzaic, it was noteworthy that this year’s show coincided with the Green West Conference and Exhibition, which was held simultaneously at the Los Angeles Convention Center. One of the hottest topics at the SID show was green (environmentally friendly) display technology. Drzaic noted that SID is committed to helping its members and the display industry at large accelerate innovation around more energy-efficient display technologies and greener manufacturing techniques. These approaches include developing new materials, lighting sources and system designs in order to lower energy consumption, reduce waste and toxic materials, and save our natural resources. Display Week’s history of showcasing and promoting innovation in the electronic display industry makes it a natural home for this work.

To this end, all three of the morning keynotes on Tuesday, May 20, included a green element. Paul (Shuang-Lang) Peng of AU Optronics Corp. spoke about the evolution of green products within the manufacture of TFT-LCDs. Sony’s Yoshito Shiraishi touched on the green theme, telling audience members that the company’s new, and world’s first, OLED TV offers low power consumption among its many benefits. During her address, Mary Lou Jepsen of Pixel QI unveiled pictures of the second-generation prototypes of the one laptop per child (OLPC) machine—featuring a touch-screen keyboard and user interface. The OLPC 2, which will cost $75, is designed to drive the laptop power usage to unprecedented low levels for portable computers.

Beyond the keynote addresses, a number of companies within the FPD industry supply chain showcased the significant strides they have made to manufacture or help enable the manufacture of more environmentally friendly display technologies and components and, ultimately, greener consumer electronic devices.

3D Hits a Theater or Home Near You!

Display Week’s first-ever 3D in Cinema Session was also one of the stars of this year’s event and provided audience members with a look at what 3D innovations have come or are coming soon to theaters. Kicking off Wednesday’s luncheon, Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Andy Hendrickson, vice president of technology, announced publicly for the first time that it will be releasing a new 3D animation film later this year called Bolt. He went on to describe the importance of display technology in animation, and sent out a call to action to the display community to further improve display resolution to the point where it can one day mirror the fine detail that is only possible today by animation artists’ own hands. The highly anticipated 3D in Cinema Special Session immediately followed the luncheon and rocked the house, literally, with clips of recent 3D projects including the music band U2. Attendees also saw other 3D illustrative clips, including from the movie Beowulf and even 3D tests of Kung Fu Panda. More developments in the 3D space were provided by experts at DreamWorks Animation, Dolby Laboratories, Quantel, Real D, Sony Pictures Imageworks and 3ality Digital Systems. The technical seminar and symposium tracks of the conference were heavy with 3D content, and several exhibitors demonstrated their latest 3D wares, including Chi Mei, ELDIM, eMagin, LG Display, NEC, Pavonine, Planar, PureDepth, QPC and Samsung.

Key Exhibitor Highlights and Show-related Announcements

SID’s Display Week 2008 proved once again that it is the ideal venue for showcasing the display technology of the future—technology that one can expect to see in several years at leading consumer shows, like CES. Below is a sampling of what some companies announced or featured during Display Week. More information can be found on each company’s respective website, and via SID’s very own Information Display Magazine (www.informationdisplay.org), which launched some exciting new features during the show as well.

• 3M launched its new Vikuiti™ optical films, and demonstrated a 20-watt monitor and 60-watt LCD TV enabled by these new-generation films
• AUO unveiled the world’s first curved TFT LCD (curved radius 100mm)
• Corning showcased Gorilla™ glass—offering device manufacturers a highly durable, scratch-resistant LCD cover
• DuPont and Dainippon Screen announced they are jointly developing printed OLED technology
• E Ink demonstrated displays with fast screen response and flexibility using E Ink’s Vizplex™ imaging film
• eMagin showcased its latest innovations in power-efficient OLED microdisplays
• Fujitsu expanded its line of standard, wide-aspect ratio touch panels
• Kent Displays exhibited a variety of cholesteric LCD modules and electronic skins products, as well as introduced plastic substrate displays manufactured on a new roll-to-roll production line
• Light Blue Optics demonstrated miniature projection systems based on its proprietary holographic laser projection technology
• LG Display offered demonstrations of its line of next-generation displays
• Merck KGaA launched breakthrough OLED materials
• Microvision unveiled advancements in its ultra-miniature PicoP display engine
• N-trig unveiled DuoSense™ technology, which offers full multi-touch capabilities designed for large-format displays
• PVI announced a new touch-control e-paper solution
• Qualcomm showcased the industry’s first IMOD color display
• Samsung Electronics showcased the world’s largest commercial LCD TV (82-inches) and a 15-inch “Blue Phase” LCD prototype
• Seiko Epson Corp. unveiled a 13.4-inch (A4-size) e-paper device with 385 pixels per inch
• Sharp introduced its new 8.4-inch VGA landscape LCD module
• Stantum unveiled the first commercially available all-in-one multi-touch development kit for creating unlimited multi-touch user interfaces for OEM integrators
• Toshiba America Electronic Components showcased an array of next-generation displays and display technologies for industrial markets, mobile phone and portable electronics, automotive, and mobile computing markets
• Universal Display showcased OLED technology advances and universal PHOLED materials
• UniPixel debuted TMOS display technology for mobile devices
• Wacom and E Ink announced a partnership to deliver pen input to e-paper displays

Other Highlights

Beyond the exhibits, information-rich technical symposium, keynotes and 3D in Cinema session, there were a number of other events that proved to be show stoppers. This included an evening panel on TV entitled, “AMLCD World Domination: Does Anything Stand in the Way?” Panelists from some of the most prominent display technology companies around the world represented different camps and numerous perspectives on what technology will emerge as the heavyweight. This session brought about much heated debate, with no clear consensus on what technology will achieve the same dominant position that CRTs had for more than 30 years. It will be a wait and see as each of the technologies—be it LCD, plasma, OLED, projection or others—continue to improve performance and resolution, reduce power consumption and price, and more.

Display Week 2008 was also home to a special Display Applications Special Session, co-hosted by Avnet, which focused on how to optimize display technology for myriad applications. The intent of this session was to create a better understanding of how to choose the best display for a particular application, how to enhance the performance of a display through various additional features, and how to optimize the electronic interface of a display with the core product. A broader understanding of sourcing and applications issues is an area where SID expects to have a greater influence in the coming years.

SID-Specific Display Week News

Display Week also served as the forum for SID to announce its newly elected leadership team, which comprises display experts spanning the entire globe, including:

• Paul Drzaic, President (Unidym)
• Munisamy Anandan, President-elect (Organic Lighting Technologies LLC)
• Brian Berkeley, Treasurer (Samsung)
• Amal Ghosh, Secretary (eMagin)
• Tolis Voutsas, Regional VP, Americas (Sharp Microelectronics of America)
• Jean-Noel Perbet, Regional VP, Europe (Thales Avionics)
• Shohei Naemura, Regional VP, Asia (Merck Ltd.)

SID uses Display Week as the opportunity to honor the pioneers of the electronic display industry through its major awards. The 2008 Major Honors and Awards recipients included Professor Tatsuo Uchida (Slottow-Owaki Prize), Dr. Louis D. Silverstein (Otto Schade Prize), Dr. Richard Williams (Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize) and Dr. Shin-Tson Wu (Jan Rajchman Prize). In addition, SID bestowed the title of fellow to six individuals, and gave special recognition awards to another five display experts during its annual Awards Banquet, which was held Monday night, May 19. More information on this year’s award winners can be found on SID’s website.

In a highly anticipated yearly event, SID publicly recognized the winners of its 13th annual SID Display of the Year awards during a luncheon held on Wednesday, May 21. This year’s honorees represent exciting advances in providing consumers with a superior viewing experience—whether handheld, in the home or on the big screen—and are as follows:

ABOUT SID

The Society for Information Display (SID) is the leading international professional society exclusively devoted to the advancement of electronic-display technology, manufacturing, and applications. Its international headquarters are located at 610 South Second Street, San Jose, Calif. Visit SID online at www.sid.org.

Contacts:

MCA
Kelly Picasso
650-968-8900, ext. 127
kpicasso@mcapr.com
or
SID
Tom Miller
480-502-9334
tmiller@sid.org