FUTURE OF DISPLAYS: WHEN WILL NEW TYPES BECOME ECONOMICALLY FEASIBLE

WHEN WILL NEW TYPES OF DISPLAYS
BECOME ECONOMICALLY FEASIBLE
AND THUS BEGIN TO DIFFUSE?
5TH SESSION OF MT5009
A/Prof Jeffrey Funk
Division of Engineering and Technology
Management
National University of Singapore
For information on other technologies, see http://www.slideshare.net/Funk98/presentations

What is the
future of
displays?
How big
will these
displays be?
And how will
we interact
with them?

Will We Use
Our Hands
i.e., Gesture
Interfaces?
Or something
else? (session 8)

How About Our Homes? What will they be Like?

Another View of Future Displays
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkHpNnXLB0
 Can you write down all the applications that you
see

What’s Driving the Emergence of these New
Applications?
 Falling cost of LCD displays
 Increasing performance of LCD displays (e.g., 3D
displays)
 Rising performance and falling cost of OLED displays
 New forms of displays such as e-ink and holograms
 Session 8 discusses touch displays as part of human-
computer interfaces
 Many improvements are being made here and will impact on
smart phones, tablet computers, and other forms of mobile
devices

Session Technology
1 Objectives and overview of course
2 How/when do new technologies become economically feasible?
3 Two types of improvements: 1) Creating materials that better
exploit physical phenomena; 2) Geometrical scaling
4 Semiconductors, ICs, electronic systems
5 Sensors, MEMS and the Internet of Things
6 Bio-electronics, Wearable Computing, Health Care, DNA
Sequencers
7 Lighting, Lasers, and Displays
8 Roll-to Roll Printing, Human-Computer Interfaces
9 Information Technology and Land Transportation
10 Nano-technology and Superconductivity
This is Seventh Session of MT5009

Some of the applications in the Videos
 Photovoltaic glass, Touch screen displays on closets,
in cars, phones, tablets, automobile windows, tables,
walls (classrooms), 3D displays, in middle of air, in
forest, augmented reality
 PV glass, mirror, refrigerator, counter table, autos
(GPS), MRT maps, retail clothing, eBook readers

Outline
 Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs)
 Cost reductions from increases in scale of LCD
substrates (and production equipment)
 3D LCD displays
 Organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays
 Electronic paper
 Holographic displays

Composition of LCD Panels
http://www.ercservice.com/learning/what-is-tft-lcd.html

Another Breakdown of LCD TV
CCFL Backlit LCD TV CCFL Backlight
Diffusers
To ensure a uniform brightness across
panel
Polarizer
To ensure that the image produced is
aligned correctly
LCD Panel
An LCD panel is made up of millions of
pixels filled with liquid crystals arranged
in grid, which open and shut to let the
backlight through and create images
Antiglare Coating
Provides a mirror-like finish, making the
backlight appear brighter
Display Screen
CCFL (cold
cathode
fluorescent
light)
(78.6 mm)
backlight has
been replaced
with white-
light LEDs
(29.9 mm)

“LED Television”
 Not really an LED television
 An LCD television that is backlit by white LEDs
 Lower energy costs, higher contrast, variety of
advantages
 But can’t make television only from LEDs because
different color LEDs require different materials and
those materials cannot be placed on the same
substrate (at least currently)

Other Improvements in LCD Televisions
Source: AUOSource: OLED Summit Preview, San Francisco, September 27-29 Barry Young, Young Market Research, February 18, 2013

Outline
substrates
 3D LCD displays
 Electronic Paper

 Nishimura’s Law:
 The size of LCD substrate grows by a factor of 1.8 every 3
years, doubles every 3.6 years (large panels are cut into
appropriate sizes for electronic products)
 Less than half the time for IC wafers to double in size (7.5
years)
 Odawara’s Law:
 Costs fall by 22-23% for doubling in cumulative production
 Kichihara’s Law: every three years
 Power consumption decreases by 44%
 Panel thickness and weight are reduced by one-third
 Number of bits needed per screen increases fourfold
Display Panel Trends – towards larger and
cheaper panels
Source: http://metaverseroadmap.org/inputs.html, US Display Consortium (USDC)

http://www.economist.com/node/21543215 Source: Television Making: Cracking Up, Economist, January 21st, 2012, p. 66

Increases in Scale of LCD Substrates (and also IC
Wafers, Solar Substrates)
 Equipment costs per area of output fall as size of
equipment is increased, similar to chemical plants
 For chemical plants
 Cost is function of surface area (or radius squared)
 Output is function of volume (radius cubed)
 Thus, costs increase by 2/3 for each doubling of equipment
capacity
 For LCD Substrates, IC Wafers, and Solar Substrates
 Processing, transfer, and setup time (inverse of output) fall as
area of substrate increases since entire area can be processed,
transferred, and setup together

Another Benefit from Large Panels is Smaller Edge Effects
Panel
Equipment
Effect Effects: the equipment must be much
wider than panel to achieve uniformity
Ratio of equipment to panel width falls as the
size of the panel is increased

Increases in LCD Substrate Size
Source: www.lcd-tv-reviews.com/pages/fabricating_tft_lcd.php

Scale of photolithographic aligners (upper
left), sputtering equipment (top right), and
mirrors for aligners (lower left) for LCD
equipment
Source: http://www.canon.com/technology/
canon_tech/explanation/fpd.html

http://www.electroiq.com/articles/sst/print/volume-50/issue-2/features/cover-article/scaling-and-complexity-drive-
lcd-yield-strategies.html

 We can also see the falling cost of LCDs in the
falling price of LCD TVs, albeit some of the cost
reductions are coming from the falling costs of ICs

Outline
 Cathode Ray Tube
substrates
 3D LCD displays

Time-Sequential 3D with active 3D Glasses
(common in movies)
Sources for these
slides: Adapted
from published
paper in
Technology and
Society by Ng Pei
Sin and myself

Improvements in Frame-Rate are Occurring
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
1970s 1995 2008 2010
CRT
LCD
OLED/Plasma
 Increased frame-rate of content approaches Critical Flicker Fusion point (where higher frame rate
has no perceived benefit) – 60Hz.
 Increase frame rate gives smoother, flicker-free motion, especially in high-action videos
 Increased Frame-rate of Display
 Reaches 120Hz; surpasses critical flicker fusion point
 Surplus enables implementation of Time-sequential 3D without compromising improved frame rate
of content
 Improved LCD frame-rate due to improvement in Liquid Crystal structure, reduced cell-gap, and
improved methods to shorten liquid crystal response time
120Hz - Minimum screen frame-rate
for ‘flicker-free’ Time-sequential 3D
Frameperseconds(Hz)
Display Frame-Rate

Improvements in Frame Rate Increase the
Economic Feasibility of Time Sequential 3D
 Improvement in Liquid Crystal
response time enable:
 High frame-rate in LCD display and in
active 3D glasses
 Economical
 Estimated cost of adding 3D to LCD
display range from 10% to 30% the
cost of panel
 Falling costs from larger substrate size
can offset these higher costs
 But glasses are a big
disadvantage……….

Auto-Stereoscopic Displays Do
Not Require Special 3D Glasses
 Panel pixels are divided into two
groups
 one for left-eye images
 another for right-eye images
 A filter element is used to focus
each pixel into a viewing zone
 In order to view television from
different places in the room,
multiple viewing zones are
needed

 Improvements in photolithographic equipment enable increases in
pixel density
 lags resolution in ICs by many years
 Sometimes called Kitahara’s Law, improvements of about 4 times
occur every 3 years
 These increases in pixel density
 Enable high definition television
 But will exceed the resolution of our eyes
 Thus, these increases can be used to assign different pixels
 to right and left eye and
 to different “viewing” zones
Increases in Pixel Density, i.e., Resolution

 At least128 million pixels/sq inch are needed
 8.3 million pixels needed for high-definition TV
 at least eight viewing zones needed to accommodate
head movements
 each viewing zone needs two sets of pixels
 8.3 x 8 x 2 = 128
 Best pixel density at Consumer Electronics Show
in 2011 was 8.3 million pixels/sq inch
 If pixel density continues to increase four-times every
three years, technical feasibility in 2017
 As for economic feasibility, this depends on incremental
cost of the higher densities. If the incremental cost is
small, they will probably become economically feasible
before 2020.
Auto-Stereoscopic Displays

But not much diffusion
 Not enough content?
 Not enough interest in 3D?
 One question is whether such content can be easily
created

 Standardization and
digitalization ease handling,
storing and presentation of 3D
videos
 Standardization reduces
complexity and cost of having to
produce 3D contents for multiple
competing formats
 Digital 3D formats build from
MPEG-4 video compression with
Multiview Video Coding (MVC)
encoding “Historical Progression of Media”, From: Three-Dimensional Television: Capture,
transmission, Display. By Haldun M. Ozaktas, Levent Onural
Other Factors Should Enable New Content:
Standardization and Digitization of Video

Other Factors Should Enable Better Content:
Better graphic processors
http://www.behardware.com/articles/659-1/nvidia-cuda-preview.html
“NVIDIA® TESLA® GPU COMPUTING”, Nvidia, 2010, http://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/43395/tesla-brochure-12-lr.pdf
 Improved Graphics processing unit (GPU) enables:
 More MPEG4 video compression
 Rendering of more realistic computer animation (more
polygon count and motion control points)
 Rendering of 3D models for stereoscopic video for 3D
displays
 Enable realistic stereoscopic computer animation
good enough for cinema screens presentation,
increasing contents in 3D

Outline
 Cost reductions from increases in scale of
LCD substrates
 3D LCD displays
 Organic light emitting diode (OLED)
displays

 OLED displays
 http://www.wsj.com/articles/lg-display-forges-
ahead-on-oled-tv-technology-1428701581

OLEDs have Some Advantages over LCDs
and their Sales are Growing
 Made of organic (Carbon
based) materials that emit
light when electricity runs
through them
 Fewer layers make them
thinner, potentially cheaper
 Flexibility comes from organic
materials and thinness
 Multiple colors can be roll
printed onto a substrate,
making them potentially
cheaper than that of LCDs
 Scaling up roll-to roll printing
will also reduce costs

Other Advantages of OLEDs:
Response Time, Viewing Angle, Grey Scale
Units AMOLED CCFL LED Edge LED Full Difference
Luminance cd/m2 None
Brightness cd/m2 Power
Contrast Ratio (CR)  1000:1 5000:1 6M:1 Dark Images
Ambient Contrast Ratio
@ 125 Lux ~1000:1 >2,000:1 >2,000:1 >2,000:1
High Lux
Black Levels cd/m2 <0.001 0.8 0.1 0.05 Dark Images
Viewing Angles CR 100% 3D
Response Time ms 0.001 5 3 3 Fast Moving
Gray Scale Performance
All Gray
Scales
Movies
Frame Rate Hz None
42" Power Consumption W 30 ~120 ~80 ~60 15
Lifetime hrs to 1/2
luminance
50K to
100K
~60K ~70K ~70K Initial LCD
Differential Aging Yes Strength
Image Sticking Some Strength
Form Factor mm 2 5 3 5
Thinner
>240
Poor Lower Gray Scales
Minor
None
TFT LCD
Same
OLED ~1.5X Brighter
20:1
Source: OLED Summit Preview, San Francisco, September 27-29 Barry Young, Young Market Research, February 18, 2013

Fewer Layers with OLEDs than with LCDs
LCD
 Complex structure
 Passes through light and thus
requires separate light source and
color filters
OLED
 Simple structure
 Makes its own light

What About a Wrist Display?
Can it conform to your wrist
using right materials?
Much better than a smart
watch

Flexibility Comes from New Materials (e.g.,
organic ones) and Thinner Ones
Moving to polymers requires low permeation rates, higher
transparencies, and low cost.

OLEDs Still Lag LEDs in Efficiency
Subsequent
improvements
have occurred
(see slides on
lighting)

• Average life span of 30,000 hours,
half of LCD TVs 60,000 hours
• a few molecules of oxygen or
moisture can kill display so need
better encapsulation (ink jet printing
of coating?)
• OLED displays are given blue tint
to offset faster degradation of blue
• Adding touch is also problem
because indium tin oxide is brittle
and will crack in touch display; can
carbon nano-tubes solve this
problem?
Source: http://www.differencebetween.info/node/707
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/529991/bendable-
displays-are-finally-headed-to-market/
Another Problem for OLEDs in TVs is Lifespan
Source: http://www.hdtvinfo.eu/news/hdtv-articles/oled-tv-
estimated-lifespan-shorter-then-expected.html (2008 data)

Another Problem is High Price/Cost, but falling
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
ASP(US$)
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
PricePremium
32" 1080p CCFL 32" 1080 LED Edge 32" 1080 LED Back
32" OLED 1920 x 1080 OLED Premium vs. Edge OLED Premium vs. Back

Costs Fall as Substrate Sizes get Bigger
2007 730x920
2011

New Techniques Required to Scale Process
 Making finely patterned sub-
pixels with small molecule
material requires use of
vacuum thermal evaporation
using a fine metal mask
 Size limits are defined the
sagging of the mask
 To achieve > 200 ppi,
AMOLEDs utilize Pentile
technology, which reduces
pixel size from 3 sub-
pixels to 2 sub-pixels/pixel.
To scale beyond ½ 4th Gen,
VTE must be changed from
positioning the substrate
horizontally to holding
vertically as implemented by
Tokki, Ulvac, Sunic and
AMAT
 New approaches include the
use of CNT by Unidym and
nanowires by Cambrios

Other Patterning Options Being Tried
 Alternative approaches include:
 Polymers and small molecule in solution which can be printed
 Laser induced thermal imaging (LITI) as developed by 3M and SMD
 Eliminating patterning by using white material with a color filter
 The most likely for the Gen 5.5 is vertically held substrates
 Beyond Gen 5.5 some form of printing will be required
 Ink Jet – Panasonic, Epson
 Slot – DuPont
 Roll to roll process – VTT, Fraunhofer

Many Believe Roll-to Roll Printing will Lead to
Dramatically Lower Costs
Vacuum deposition of
metals, dielectrics, &
semiconductors
5μ
Multiple mask
levels imprinted
as single 3D
structure
Patterning completed
w/ wet & dry
processes
deposition imprint etch
deposit
spin resist
align/expose
develop
strip/clean
etch
deposit etchimprint
etch
mask
Conventional Photo-Lithography SAIL
http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2011/HPL-2011-152.pdf
(Roll printing)

A Roll of Rolled OLEDs
http://deviceguru.com/euro-project-slashes-flexible-display-costs/
Konica is constructing a flexible OLED lighting R2R fab with a
monthly capacity of 1 million panels. Production will start in fall
of 2014 http://www.oled-info.com/tags/technical-
research/frontplane/roll-roll

LG’s OLED TV Business
 Claims it made big breakthrough in hi-volume
production of large screen OLED TVs
 Costs dropped from $25,000 USD in 2013 to
$15,000 in July 2015 on 55” TVs
 Planning on introducing transparent, foldable, and
curved screens
 Expects that within 5 years, 40% of world’s
smartphones will have flexbile OLED displays
 But not clear if profits will cover LG’s $3 Billion
dollar investment in OLEDs
Plucky Contender, Economist, July 4, 2015, p. 56

LCD
+ Full color
- Harder on the eyes
+ Can display video
(movies)
- Takes more power (battery
doesn’t last as long)
+ Backlit, so you can read in
the dark
- Hard to read outdoors or
in bright sunlight
Early e-Ink
- Black & white
+ Easy on the eyes; like
paper
- Can’t display full video
+ Takes very little power
(battery lasts longer)
- Can’t be read in the dark
(like a regular book)
+ Easy to read outdoors, the
more light the better
+ Very crisp and sharp
E-Ink has advantages for reading

That Become Obvious When You Look at this Picture

Improvements in E-ink Electrophoretic Displays
Color is now available
E Ink
Vizplex 1
E Ink Vizplex
2
E Ink Pearl E Ink Triton E Ink
Spectra
E Ink
Carta
Announce
ment Year
2006 2007 2010 2010 2013 2013
Cost $70 (estimated )
Based on Sory
prs 500: $350
$60 (Estimated )
Based on Sony
prs 505: $300
$30.5 (2011)
Sony prs T1:
$150
$26
Based on Sory
pr-t2: $130
Color/
Greyscale
4-level gray
scale
8 level gray
scale
16 levels of
gray
16 shades of
gray, 4096
colors
2-bit
(B/W/R)
Contrast 7:1 10:1 10:1 15:1 15:1
Refresh
Rate
• 1200ms
• 500ms for 1
bit mode
• 740ms for
grayscale
• 260 ms for 1-
bit mode
• 600 ms for
grayscale
• 120 ms for
1 bit mode
• 120ms -
980ms,
• 120 ms
Resolution •170 dpi 600
× 800
•170 dpi
• 600 × 800
•Up to 300
dpi 600x800
•200 dpi
•768x1024
•(212 ppi)
1024 x
758
•> 300 dpi
•768x102
4

And Costs of Color Displays are Falling
7” diagonal display has
0.15 cm2 area
$426 per m2, much less than LCD

Will this make Wall Displays Economically Feasible?

Another option for a
Smart Watch?
The CST-01, the
thinnest watch in the
world, is less than
1mm thick and
weighs less than 5
pennies.

Holographic Systems
 Present a real 3D image
 LCD-based 3D systems present an “illusion” of three
dimensions
 Time-Sequential 3D with active 3D Glasses
 Auto-Stereoscopic Displays
 Holographic Systems present a real 3D image and thus
one that can be more aesthetically appealing

A Better Hologram in Total Recall

How About a Hologram for a Phone Key Pad?
If it is a Hologram?

A Little Different – But How about Projecting
a Display onto ones Hand?
This can be done with a Pico-Projector in a Samsung Phone
http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/samsung-beam-halo-hands-on/

Looking at Light Source and Holographic Media in more Detail:
The Film/Media Records both the Reference and Object Beams
http://www.holostar.com/Frame1.html

 When might such a system become technically and
economically feasible for some application and
some set of users?

Conclusions and Relevant Questions for Your
Projects (1)
 New displays continue to emerge and experience
improvements
 New materials that better exploit the relevant physical
phenomena (e.g., materials for OLEDs that have higher
luminosity per Watt or longer lifetime)
 Falling costs from increases in the scale of substrates and
production equipment
 Improvements in components for holographic displays
 Improvements in frame rate and pixel density for 3D
displays

Conclusions and Relevant Questions for Your
Projects (2)
 How many further improvements are likely to occur?
 When will their costs become low enough or
performance high enough to be economical for
specific applications?
 Can we identify those applications, the order in which
they will become economical, and the specific needs
of each application?
 What about higher-level systems; can we identify ones
that might become economically feasible due to
improvements in displays and other “components”?
 What kinds of analyses can help us answer these
questions?

FUTURE OF DISPLAYS: WHEN WILL NEW TYPES BECOME ECONOMICALLY FEASIBLE

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