May 2005

news archive

VESA to Develop New Digital Display Interface Standard; Open Standard to Unify Internal and External Interfaces for all Display Applications

Milpitas, California, May 9 - The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced the development of a new digital display interface specification for broad application within most forms of displays, including LCD, plasma, CRT and projection displays, as well as PCs and other sources of image content.

Known as DisplayPort™, the interface specification will accelerate the adoption of protected digital outputs on PCs to broadly support viewing of high-definition and other types of protected content through an optional content-protection capability, while enabling higher levels of display performance.

A group of industry leading companies - ATI Technologies, Dell Inc., Genesis Microchip, Hewlett-Packard, Molex Incorporated, NVIDIA, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, and Tyco Electronics - are close to completing the development of a detailed proposal. It is the goal of this group to submit a comprehensive version of the DisplayPort interface proposal to VESA in the third quarter of 2005. Pending ratification and adoption by VESA, the group intends that the DisplayPort interface standard be available to the industry as an open, extensible standard. Administration by VESA, a recognized industry standards organization, will ensure that the specification is maintained and will provide a forum for future standard revisions.

"The member companies of VESA have worked exceptionally well together over many years to develop a significant and important set of standards for the industry, and we will approach this new proposal with the same high level of energy and expertise," said Ian Miller, chairman, VESA. The standard will be designed to enable a common interface approach across both internal and external display connections. Internal connections include display interfaces within a notebook PC or within an LCD display.

External display connections include the interface between a source device such as a desktop PC, set-top box, DVD player or game console, and a display device such as a direct view flat panel or projection display for viewing video and graphics. The DisplayPort standard will also include an optional digital audio capability allowing streaming of high definition digital audio-video content over the interface, and provides performance scalability to enable the next generation of displays featuring higher color depths, refresh rates, and display resolutions. The standard will feature a small, user-friendly connector that is optimized for use on thin profile notebooks in addition to allowing multiple connectors on a graphics card.

The PC industry needs a ubiquitous digital interface with optional content protection that may be deployed widely at minimum cost to enable broad access to premium content. The DisplayPort standard addresses this need by providing an optional secure method to protect both image and audio content.

Information: Bill Lempesis, VESA. Tel: (408) 957-9270, email: bill@vesa.org, www.vesa.org.

Motorola Labs Debuts Nano-emissive FPD Prototype; Will Discuss Details at SID 2005 in Boston

Schaumburg, Illinois, May 9 - Motorola Labs, the applied research arm of Motorola, Inc., today unveiled a working 5-inch color video-display prototype based on proprietary carbon nanotube (CNT) technology - a "breakthrough technique" that could create large, flat-panel displays with superior quality, longer lifetimes and lower costs than current offerings, according to a company news release. Optimized for a large-screen high-definition television (HDTV) that is less than 1 inch thick, this first-of-its-kind nano-emissive display (NED) prototype harnesses the power of CNTs to fundamentally change the design and fabrication of flat-panel displays (FPDs), the release said.

The development of this display is based on Motorola Labs NED technology, a scalable method of growing CNTs directly on glass to enable an energy-efficient way of emitting electrons. The cost-effective process and design provides Motorola with the potential to create longer-lasting NED flat panel displays with high brightness, excellent uniformity, and color purity, the company said.

"With over 15 years experience and 160 patents in CNT and flat-panel displays, we have developed a technology that could enable the next generation of large-size flat-panel displays to deliver an extraordinary visual experience at a fraction of current prices," said Jim O'Connor, vice president, Motorola technology incubation and commercialization. "We now look forward to aligning with display manufacturers and enabling them to further this technology and develop commercially available solutions."

"Motorola's NED technology is demonstrating full-color video with good response time," said Barry Young, VP and CFO of DisplaySearch, a leading FPD market research and consulting company. "And according to a detailed cost-model analysis conducted by our firm, we estimate the manufactured cost for a 40-inch NED panel could be under $400."

Motorola's proprietary CNT growth process provides excellent precision in designing and manipulating a material at its molecular level to produce high-definition images, the company said. The electron-emission performance demonstrated by the technology exceeds that achieved to date with the application of the CNT to the cathode via an organic paste, the process used by other companies.

"Motorola has proven its NED technology to be fully video capable," said Kimberly Allen, Director Display Technology and Strategy for analyst firm iSuppli. "CNT direct growth on glass appears to have advantages over CNT paste/printing approaches and has potential for larger and more sophisticated displays."

The prototype is formatted as a 5-inch section of 42-inch, 1280x720, 16:9 HDTV display. The panel thickness is 3.3 mm, and the panel uses low-cost drive electronics that are similar to that used for LCDs.

More details of Motorola's NED performance will be discussed at the 43rd annual Society for Information Display (SID) International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition in Boston, May 22-27.

Information: www.motorola.com.

GDS Initiates New Commercial Trials of In-Floor Display

Bingley, West Yorkshire, UK, May 3 - Global Display Solutions (GDS) has recently embarked on significant trials involving its Moving Floor Display, including an installation in a financial institution, with parallel trials being carried out by Flasma in shopping malls, to gauge customer reaction to this innovative marketing device. This ground-breaking display is set into the floor, making it a highly noticeable information and point-of-sale advertising tool for commercial environments, including shopping centers, department stores, airports, and train stations.

Initial results collected from a recent building society trial indicate that customers are significantly more likely to notice any advertising within the branch when the Moving Floor Display is present. Results also showed that those customers queuing in the vicinity of the Moving Floor Display had the highest recall of the specific message being shown.

For an ongoing shopping mall trial, Moving Floor Displays have been installed specifically to promote products, services, special offers, and provide information for shoppers via moving images. The notion behind the installation is that it will enable retailers located in the shopping center to communicate directly with customers before they have even reached the stores' front doors. Space for promotional activity within shopping centres is limited, as the walls are largely taken up with shop fronts, so any new technology able to increase advertising potential is extremely valuable.

Marco Cohen, Marketing Manager at GDS, comments: "The retail industry is an arena that can take full advantage of tapping into floor space for marketing and advertising purposes. The display can be strategically placed according to where the highest footfall is, and can be used for a number of purposes, potentially making it a very powerful medium. We are very excited about the shopping mall trial and eagerly await the outcome. However, it is already clear from the results of the building society trial that the innovation of the Moving Floor Display is advantageous for this type of application."

GDS's first-of-its-kind Moving Floor Display is the result of a collaboration with Flasma Ltd, pioneers of the in-floor moving image concept. The new Moving Floor Display from GDS is a unique product, ideal for retail and promotional use in various commercial environments. Retail floor space is an untapped marketing medium in the UK - the market is already worth $100 million in the US and is growing rapidly.

Information: www.gds.com.