news archive
Swedish
LCD Center Readies New Prototype/Pre-production LCD Line
Kobe, Japan, November 30 -- In a conversion here today,
Kent Skarp, Managing Director of The Swedish LCD Center in
Borlänge, Sweden, told IDOL that the center's
continuous prototype and pre-production LCD manufacturing
line is nearing completion and currently running test panels
in Borlänge. The line is optimized for passive displays of
up to 4 inches, and will have a production capability of 50
to 100 thousand units per year, said Skarp.
The LCD Center focuses on passive reflective LCDs, and
aims to establish facilities for custom design and modeling
of TN, STN, FLC, and cholesteric LCDs. In addition, academic
courses are offered in LCD technology on the Master's level,
and a web-based system of LCD courses are being developed.
Information: www.lcdcenter.se
The Sharp LCD-TV Conundrum
Kobe, Japan, December 1 -- Some time ago Sharp Corp.
announced its attention-grabbing goal that all Sharp TV sets
would use LCDs by 2005. No CRTs. With that as a corporate
goal, it is puzzling that Sharp would allow its flagship
LC-28HD1 28-inch wide TFT-LCD TV to have video problems that
made it a subject of conversation in at least one elevator
in the Portopia Hotel and at the hotel’s Tajima
teppan-yaki restaurant during IDW 2000, held here Nov. 29 -
Dec. 1.
In the slow-moving digital High Vision video shown in the
IDW demonstration, slow pans across finely patterned areas
(such as the multiple windows in long shots of New York City
skyscrapers) and diagonal lines produced significant
artifacts. The chief technology officer of one U.S. LCD
company could not believe that this was the best the unit
could do. Thinking that the artifacts had to be due to a
temporary signal problem, he made a point of returning
several hours later with the expectation that the problem
would be corrected. But nothing had changed, and the people
staffing the Sharp booth did not suggest that anything was
wrong or apologize for the unit’s performance. In addition
to the artifacts associated with panning across patterns and
diagonals, the moving hands and head of a drummer in a
jazz-group sequence smeared significantly, echoing
fast-video smearing seen on a similar unit at last May’s
SID Display Technology Showcase.
It is generally agreed that TFT-LCDs still have
limitations as video display devices, but the state of the
art permits better performance than seen in the Sharp booth.
Panasonic was showing its new EDTCF08 WVGA 22-inch TFT-LCD
module that uses OCB mode for a specified optical response
time of 16 ms. Despite claiming that such a fast response
time was an industry first, Panasonic still hedged its bets
by showing video that featured slow pans of scenery and
flowers. Some smearing and edge effects were noted, but with
a luminance of 450 cd/m² (with the help of a 6-CCFL
backlight), contrast ratio of 400:1, and well-saturated
colors, this was a pleasing display to watch.
At IDMC in Seoul in September, Hyundai showed its
HT118E22 18.1-inch SXGA video monitor with Fringe Field
Switching™ technology, The video looked good, without much
smear, despite modest specifications for optical response
time. And a Fujitsu MVA TFT-LCD in a PC/video monitor made
by U.S. Electronics boasted credible video performance when
it was evaluated by Information Display some months
ago.
It’s not that Sharp has forgotten how to make LCDs in
general. Reflective 3.9- and 11.3-inch HR-TFT-LCDs shown at
IDW were extremely impressive. The 3.9-inch had a specified
reflectance of 40 percent and contrast ration of 25:1. The
11.3-inch claimed 30 percent and 20:1. And a 28.3-inch QSXGA
(2560 x 2048) TFT-LCD module with four-channel TMDS
interface exhibited startlingly photograph-like still images
that elicited admiring looks and comments.
Which still leaves us with the puzzle of Sharp’s
28-inch TFT-LCD TV. It’s a conundrum.
Philips And LG Join Forces In CRT And PDP
Activities
Seoul/Amsterdam, November 27 -- Royal Philips Electronics
of the Netherlands and LG Electronics of South Korea
announced today the signing of a Letter of Intent through
which the companies will merge their respective cathode-ray
tube (CRT) businesses into a new joint-venture company. The
transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2001
and is subject to customary regulatory approvals. Upon
closure of the transaction, LG will receive an amount of
$1.1 billion from the new company to close the difference in
valuation.
The 50-50 joint venture in display technology concerns
all CRT activities and key components. Both companies will
include their glass activities in the final agreement, and
also aim to include their Plasma technology (PDP)
activities, following valuations. With expected annual sales
of nearly US $6 billion and approximately 36,000 employees,
the new company will be the global leader in the CRT market.
Philips is currently the Number 1 global supplier of
television tubes and the Number 5 supplier of computer
monitor tubes. It employs approximately 24,000 people in its
CRT business and has 12 CRT manufacturing sites throughout
Asia, Europe and the Americas. Philips Components' CRT
business posted revenues of US $3.0 billion in the year
1999, and EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Tax) of US $157
million.
LG is also a leading supplier of CRTs, both in television
and monitor tubes, where it holds a global Number 3
position. Already producing the highest yields in the
industry, LG has 5 CRT manufacturing sites, mainly in Asia,
and employs approximately 12,000 people. LG's CRT business
had revenues of US $2.2 billion in 1999, and EBIT of US $357
million.
Under the terms of the agreement, LG and Philips will
share equal control of the joint venture. The new company
will be legally established in the Netherlands, with
operational headquarters in Hong Kong. Philippe Combes,
currently CEO of Philips Display Components, will lead the
joint venture. LG.Philips LCD Co., the existing 50-50 joint
venture between Philips and LG in active matrix liquid
crystal displays (AMLCDs), remains unaffected by the
announced transaction.
LG and Philips will sign a Definitive Agreement following
further confirmatory due diligence, the receipt of necessary
regulatory approvals, and workers council consultations. The
transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2001.
Commenting on the agreement, Gerard Kleisterlee,
Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of
Royal Philips Electronics, said: "Together we can
provide more compelling solutions for our customers, more
value for the parent companies, their shareholders, and a
challenging environment for our employees. …Our combined
technological strength, together with Philips' market
leadership and LG's manufacturing expertise, is an extremely
powerful proposition."
John Koo, Vice Chairman and CEO of LG Electronics, said:
"The decision for the alliance was made in order to
become the Global leader amidst fierce competition".
Information: Philips Corporate Communications. Ben
Geerts, phone +31 20 59 77215; Pieter
Schaffels, phone +31 20 59 77242; www.news.philips.com
LG Electronics Communications. Sangbae Park, phone +82 2
3777-3635; www.lge.com.
EID 2000 Opens London’s ExCel Centre
London, November 23 – Now in it’s eighth year the UK’s
Electronic Information Displays (EID) exhibition moved to a
new venue and was the inaugural event at London’s new
ExCel Centre in the heart of London’s former docklands
when the event opened here November 21. The EID technical
conference is organized by the Society for Information
Display; the show is managed by Trident Exhibitions Limited.
ExCel, when complete, will be a
state-of-the-art facility occupying 90,000 square metres. It
will have hotels, cafes, bars, restaurants, crèche,
nightclub, and a business and media production centre. A few
minutes from London City Airport and served by three railway
stations, ExCel also boasts mooring for large vessels.
Regrettably, little of this was available when exhibitors
arrived. The set-up day saw as many hard hats as exhibitors,
but come the opening ExCel and EID were in good shape and
ready for business...
EID has been dominated by integrators and distributors.
This was less so this year but their presence remained
significant. There were 60 exhibitors. Although some of the
regulars from previous years were absent, new exhibitors
compensated. The presence of several of the big Japanese
display companies encouraged the organizers, who felt that
this development bodes well for the show’s future. Fujitsu
and NEC featured their breathtaking
high-definition plasma display panels (PDPs), and Mitsubishi
showed its superb projectors. There were a number of
start-ups present, such as ZBD Displays – DERA’s
first spin-off – with its Zenithal Bistable Device; Cam3D,
with its wedge-screen concept providing edge projection and
image magnification; EPICentre , a University of
Abertay spin-off providing measurement and evaluation
facilities for displays; and Elam-T, with its organic
phosphors (ELAMATES) for photoluminescent and
electroluminescent applications. (Elam announced at the show
that it had just received a $3 million private investment.)
The organizers intended this year’s EID to be a
re-launching that would reinvigorate the meeting at an
exciting new venue. But a combination of factors –
including the simultaneous holding of Electronica 2000 in
Munich, widespread weather-related problems with the British
rail system, and, ironically, possible confusion relating to
the new venue – kept the attendance to only 1300. If the
organizers decide that the location was part of the problem,
next year’s EID may not be in London.
--- George Isaacs
Luxell and IPS to Develop Manufacturing
Monitoring System
Toronto, Ontario, December 6 -- Luxell Technologies Inc.
(Mississauga, Ontario) announced today a strategic alliance
with Image Processing Systems Inc. (IPS), Markham, Ontario,
to develop a patented electronic monitoring system that will
be used for yield management and quality assurance in the
manufacturing of Luxell’s solid-state flat-panel displays
(FPDs).
This first-of-its-kind system will apply IPS’s patented
e-Vision technology to the exacting inspection and
yield-management demands of manufacturing inorganic and
organic FPDs at high volume.
"We expect the joint effort to provide us with an
unparalleled ability to maintain high yields and obtain
consistent 100-percent inspection in our FPD manufacturing
processes," commented Brian J. Kennedy, President and
CEO of Luxell. "It will also … strengthen our
ability to promote and showcase the impressive advantages of
our patented Black Layer technology by demonstrating them to
other global FPD manufacturers in a real-Iife, in-plant
setting."
Information: www.luxell.com
and www.ipsautomation.com.
More LCDs Seen at RSNA
Chicago, Illinois, December 1 -- The Radiological Society
of North America (RSNA) holds a giant meeting here every
autumn, this year from Nov. 26 to Dec. 1, in which extensive
short courses and lectures are presented in parallel with a
large trade show and a large collection of poster papers.
The trade show runs to large, expensive exhibits,
generously staffed. A continuing trend at the show is the
use of flat-panel displays – currently almost entirely
LCDs – in place of CRTs. Even the worlds of radiography
and mammography are beginning to see inroads by electronic
displays, although here the CRT is competing with direct
viewing of film. LCDs are generally considered inferior in
terms of gray scale, resolution, and luminance. Plasma
panels are being used primarily as trade-show items; I saw
none embodied in equipment.
A particularly interesting LCD was the 22-inch LCD shown
by Apple. Made by LG (Korea), it is landscape-oriented, with
1600X1024 resolution, a "proprietary" single-cable
connection between display and computer, and excellent
luminance, contrast, and viewing angle. Another was the big
LCD made by IBM, with 2048X1536 resolution in monochrome and
a claimed intrinsic contrast of 800:1. These displays are
extraordinary in their resolution, contrast, and viewing
angle. They are also still very expensive, although all of
the flat-panel vendors claim that in terms of ownership
cost, LCDs are highly competitive to CRTs since they last
longer and require much less-frequent calibration.
I saw only one example of a head-mounted display, but it’s
an interesting one. Terason, a spin-off from MIT, makes a
very compact ultrasonic system which can be driven from a
laptop or a belt-mounted computer. The probe itself uses a
transducer with 64 segments, which are driven as a phased
array to shape and steer the ultrasonic beam. The resulting
image is brought to a head-mounted display. The result is an
extraordinarily compact device that has been tested in
Kosovo for field medical care and has also been used in a
demonstration to send ultrasonic images from a flying
airplane. Although several other companies were showing
compact ultrasonic systems and digital beam-forming, none
that I saw was this light, compact, or inexpensive.
Another interesting trend is the use of multiple
displays. Radiologists conventionally use light boxes that
show several films simultaneously, and this approach is
being transferred to electronic imagery. Image Technology
Laboratories, a young company in Kingston, New York, was
showing arrays of four or more LCDs. The combination of the
multiple displays and the company’s highly intuitive
software makes it possible for the radiologist to compare
images taken at different times or from different
viewpoints; move, expand, or rotate images independently or
together; make measurements on the display; and generally
manipulate the multiple images to provide a great deal of
flexibility. In one system being demonstrated, four or five
vertically mounted LCDs were coupled with a large horizontal
LCD equipped with a touch screen, and almost all the
commands to the software were given via the touch screen.
All-digital radiography – from solid-state x-ray
sensors, through image manipulation and storage, to the
final display – is coming, although much more slowly than
its ardent proponents (and vendors) would like. Although
major advances in medicine are generally biological and
chemical, they frequently rely on electronics to make them
work effectively. The use of electronics, and electronic
displays, will continue to grow.
--- Alan Sobel
LG.Philips LCD Sells One Million
15.1-inch Monitor TFT-LCDS in a Year
SEOUL, South Korea, December 11 -- Shattering an industry
record, LG.Philips LCD Co., Ltd. today announced it has sold
over one million of one of the company's products within a
calendar year. In fact, it sold one million 15.1-inch
TFT-LCD units within a ten-month period from January to
October. This industry milestone was reached nearly
three times faster than the previous record set by the
company – one million units sold in 28 months from
December 1997 to March 2000 -- and is further evidence that
15.x-inch modules are quickly becoming the standard size
for consumers and businesses wanting an LCD-monitor
solution. According to LCD market research firm
DisplaySearch (Austin, Texas), 15.x-inch TFT-LCDs hold a
76-percent share of the overall TFT-LCD monitor module
market.
Information: www.lgphilips-lcd.com.
