PAST MEETINGS

3/16/2017

MinnTS (Minnesota Technical Symposium) 2017

Topic:   Virtual and Augmented Reality; Speakers, Michael Nowak and Mehdi Mekni

Date:   Thursday, March 16, 2017

Location:  Schuman Research Facility, 655 Lone Oak Drive, Eagan, MN 55121

Time:   Tours of the Ecolab facility will begin at 4 PM and 5 PM, with social hour beginning at 5 PM, dinner from 6-7 and talks from 7-9.

For details and latest information, please check the MinnTS web (www.minnts.org).

1/12/2017

On Thursday, January 12th, 2017, Mr. Richard Pokorny of 3M gave a presention on the topic of Super Durable Cover Lens Film.  Dinner and social gathering was provided before the meeting with the presentation following. 

Presentation Slides:  Super Durable Hard Coat4-3.pdf

11/2/2016

On Wednesday, November 2nd, 2016 Speakers, Robert F. Dunhouse, Jr. and Dan G. Gutierrez, gave a presentation titled, Displays - AMOLED & PCAP Generation 2 Technical Overview.  

Dinner and social gathering was provided before the meeting with the presentation following. 

Schedule of events:

6:00 – 6:45 – Dinner Served; Social meeting

6:45 – 7:30 – Presentation

Meeting Location:  

PARK PLACE WEST  (Across from the Offices of HIGH TECH SALES)

6465 Wayzata Blvd. #100

St. Louis Park, MN 55426

Driving Directions: Exit Louisiana Ave. off of 394, take south frontage road (Wayzata Blvd) East 0.3 miles, on right. 

On-site Directions: Meeting to be held in Conference Room #100 across from HIGH TECH SALES room #120

From Main Entrance of the building, take a right down the hall, first door on right.

About the presentation:

Besides AM-TFT displays and PCAP products, Tianma also supports AMOLED.  Tianma AM-OLED is a joint venture by Shanghai Industrial Investment (group) Co., LTD., Shanghai Zhangjiang (group) Co., LTD., and Shanghai Tianma Microelectronics Co., LTD., founded in Pudong district of Shanghai, with registered capital of USD$150 million and the total investment of USD$230 million, and it covers about 120 thousand square meters.  It has a Gen5.5 AM-OLED production line, positioned for small-to-medium-sized display market, and the products mainly used in Mobile Devices, Wearable, etc. Tianma will be presenting a technical outline of AMOLED including flexible structures, wearable items and further future developments.  Demonstration of a flexible AMOLED and PCAP displays will be viewed.

Brief overview on Tianma’s PCAP Gen2 approach.  Wet & Glove PCAP models are able to be operated even when the screen is wet and the operator is wearing gloves. Furthermore, by tuning the controller, the touch screen can be operated when the operator is using various medical gels on the surface of the screen, or when the operator is wearing thicker, industrial gloves.  With this technology, PCAP touch panels are available to support high end display devices used in special conditions such as construction, marine or medical equipment.

About the speaker(s):

Robert F. Dunhouse, Jr. comes with over 30 years’ experience in the electronics industry.  His background started with his work in Research & development at Cincinnati Microwave (founders of ESCORT radar detectors).  He also opened a branch office in Sydney Australia for the company.  He founded US design and manufacturing company – Creative Circuits.  Today Bob is Sr. Manager, Engineering at Tianma NLT USA, previously NEC Electronics America.  He has been at TNU for the last 20 years involved in the company’s Active Matrix TFT display offerings supporting the industrial markets for those products.  Bob not only serves TNU as top technical spokesperson but he also has served as the company’s liaison in communicating the North American display market needs to his factories in Asia.   Bob enjoys not only technology but also the love for cars.  Owner of an original ’91 NSX one of his favorite cars is the Pagani Huayra.

Dan G. Gutierrez is a display engineer who has worked at three of the top display manufacturers from Japan and China.  He has over 25 years display experience with 19 of those now Tianma NLT USA, previously NEC Electronics America.  He has been involved primarily in the support of industrial displays including factory automation, medical, transportation, avionics, marine and many other non-consumer applications.  He has not missed an SID Display Week in the last 20 years.  In addition to numerous technical applications, he also has a great love for technology in general. His first BYOPC project was an old 8086 PC XT system.  

7/28/2016

4/12/2016

Dr. John Van Derlofske gave a presentation on April 12th titled, Achieving Rec 2020: How Close is Close Enough. Please send James Lupino your reservation by Friday, April 8. This presentation will be interesting and timely as wide color gamut and high dynamic range cameras, media, and displays enter our lives and change how we perceive image quality.

Date: April 12^th, 2016

Start Time: 6:00 PM

Location:  US ELECTRONICS

6250 Wayzata Blvd.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55416

(Building immediately East of Super 8; parking in rear.)

Achieving Rec 2020: How Close is Close Enough



One constraint on a complete transition to the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) BT.2020 broadcasting standard (Rec. 2020) is the limited availability of displays that achieve the recommended color space. However, several technologies are capable of coming close. 3M’s research addresses the question of how close the primaries must be to the standard to be acceptable for different applications (e.g. professional vs. consumer). In previous research, 3M measured color difference detection thresholds for colors along the Rec. 2020 boundary with simple test patterns. In our current study, we measured color discrimination rates for photographic images rendered in color spaces near Rec. 2020 in two tasks: (1) images viewed sequentially and (2) images viewed side-by-side. We discuss how to use these data to define tolerance criteria for different applications and examine if prototype quantum-dot enabled LCDs meet these criteria.

Speaker Bio: Dr. John Van Derlofske  

John Van Derlofske received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Alabama in Huntsville where he concentrated on illumination systems design. After graduation, he worked as head optical designer for Chrysler, developing automotive lighting and illumination systems. Van Derlofske spent the next eight years at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute heading the Transportation Lighting Group at the Lighting Research Center. Currently, Van Derlofske is a senior research specialist at 3M where he works on the design, manufacturing and application of light control films that make LCD systems brighter, more colorful and more efficient. His current focus is on improving LCD color by integrating quantum dot technology.

2016 MWC SID Meting - Rec 2020 How Close is Close Enough.pdf

Liquid Crystals (LCs) have become ubiquitous in everyday life. They are in the heart of small and large displays around us including smart phones, computer monitors, and TV’s.  On a much less pervasive scale yet quickly growing are LC-based photonic components and systems including spatial light modulators, electrically switchable lenses, and electronic beam steering systems. At the core of most of these devices is the practical problem of orienting the LC molecules into a suitable starting orientation between the confining substrates. To create boundary conditions that orient typical LC molecules, the surfaces of substrates are traditionally coated with a very thin polymer film followed by mechanical rubbing of the film. Nanoscratches caused by rubbing and/or alignment of the polymer chains are presumed to induce an anisotropy in the anchoring energetics  yielding an initially aligned surface of the anisotropic molecules (the molecules usually align parallel to the rub direction). The process, crude in its implementation, is still an art form and although studied extensively still uses ‘less than  precise’ scientific descriptors including rubbing length, rubbing strength, number of rubbings, etc. The disadvantage is that mechanical rubbing can generate dust and charges which diminish both the perfection of the initial cell and the long-term electrical stability. An alternative methodology of producing LC alignment by shining a polarized light on the substrates is being studied as a means to overcome the inherent disadvantages of rubbing. Every major display company is heavily invested nowadays in perfecting those so-called photoalignment materials aimed at achieving a set of specifications required for practical applications, particularly, for anchoring strength and stability. We recently observed that POLICRYPS (acronym of “alternation of POLymer−LIquid CRYstal−Polymer Slices”) structures, which is made of slices of almost pure polymer, alternated to films of well aligned NLCs, can themselves spontaneously align the LC perpendicular to the walls  upon phase separation. No special conditions are required to get high quality orientation. The use of interfering light beams to induce anisotropic phase separation and formation of polymer walls due to local polymerization offers a versatile suite of wall geometries, either planar or curved , allows different orientation states (perpendicular or parallel) depending on chemistry and cure conditions, and can be utilized to produce multi-dimension high resolution patterning. Electro-optical studies indicate fast switching responses