More consultant analyses...
The Flat Panel Display Hotline is written by William C. O'Mara, O'Mara &
Associates, 445 Cambridge Avenue, Palo Alto, California 94306. You can contact
Dr. O'Mara at 415-323-2175, or wcomara@ix.netcom.com.
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I. K&T Reports
Here's some more from the new "LCD Intelligence Update" monthly report from
K&T Institute.
By the end of March, 1996, the capacity utilization rate of all major LCD
manufacturers was increasing rapidly, and second tier suppliers were also
posting increases in orders. Although downward pressure on prices remains, the
industry is rebounding.
Several companies like Hoshiden, Matsushita and Fujitsu constructed TFT
manufacturing lines last year, while the 10.4" display was dominant. These
lines were sized to produce four of the larger, 11.3" displays per glass
substrate. However, by now it is clear that the 11.3" size is rapidly becoming
obsolete. ADI switched to 410x520 mm just before ordering the equipment for
their new line, and therefore emerged unscathed with a 4-up capability for
12.1". However, the other new lines can only make two 12.1" displays per glass
substrate.
Production of large displays for the calendar year 1995 is shown in the table
below. A total of 22 firms produced significant quantities of displays of
various types, including monochrome, color passive matrix and color active
matrix displays. The production of DTI, the joint venture company between
Toshiba and IBM, is included with Toshiba's other output. This may be the last
year of such combined reporting.
1995 LCD Production for Notebook PCs and Wordprocessors
(million units)
Firm Units
Sharp 4.9
Toshiba/DTI 1.7
Torisan (Sanyo) 1.3
NEC 1.0
Seiko Epson 0.8
Others (17 firms) 4.6
14.3
Source; K&T Institute
The "LCD Intelligence Update" monthly report and the "LCD Quarterly Alert" are
available in translation only from O'Mara & Associates. If you'd like more
information about these reports, please contact us directly, 415.323.2175
II. Industry News
The value of liquid crystal display production in Japan for March, 1996 was
54.1 billion yen ($505.3 mil), which was 13.6% less than the monetary value of
display production in March of 1995. Severe price pressures on displays,
especially for active matrix models have produced a year-on-year decline for
nine consecutive months. Data on LCD production in Japan is collected by the
Ministry of Trade and Industry, MITI.
Silicon Video has announced an infusion of $55 million in additional venture
capital funding for their company, bringing total outside investment in the
company to $155 million since 1991. $30 million of the new capital was
committed in the first quarter of this year.
Not only that, they've finally decided what to do with ATT's LCD equipment. Two
major pieces of front end TFT manufacturing equipment, the MRS stepper and the
TEL CVD system, will be transferred to Silicon Video. Both these items are the
property of ARPA, the Department of Defense' Advanced Research Projects Agency,
and are being transferred from one ARPA project to another. All that venture
money, and favors from ARPA as well... The rest of the front end equipment will
go to the University of Michigan's Center for Display Technology and
Manufacturing. Kent State University will get back end assembly equipment, and
will transfer their own back end equipment to the Univ. of Michigan. We heard
that Xerox (or Dpix) was objecting to any increase capability at the Univ. of
Michigan, which might possibly help OIS.
Web Howard, who was running the AT&T FPD effort, and who spent years developing
active matrix displays, has moved to FED Corp. as Director of Strategic
Technologies.
III. What's New in Akihabara
We were was in Japan last month, and we made our obligatory trip to Akihabara,
the neighborhood of Tokyo with all the electronic gadgets. We saw LCD monitors
from a company named Akia. Someone told us that the former president of Dell
Japan has started this company. Here's the thing. You won't believe the prices,
which are below $2,000 for 12.1" displays, and which are only going to go
lower. The wave has already started, and will pick up speed as fast as
suppliers can allocate capacity for this screen size. As an alternative, you
can have 11.3". It's hard to say whether this is a viable alternative on the
desktop (or in a portable for that matter). Some think that 11.3" is already
dead as a common product.
Anyway, here's the specs and prices for three monitors. We expect to see
monitors at prices like this in the States pretty soon. Who's going to be the
first to offer them?
Pricing of LCD Direct View PC Monitors from Akia
Model MD11S MT11S MT12S
Price Y98,000 Y138,000 Y168,000
Technology DSTN TFT TFT
Resolution 800x600 800x600 800x600
Size 11.3" 11.3" 12.1"
Power Consumption 3W 3W 4.5W
Brightness 70 cd/m2 70 cd/m2 70 cd/m2
Colors 256 65K 65K
Interface PCI bus PCI bus PCI bus
The design of the stand alone monitor is a typical kind of Japanese style,
often seen in wordprocessors and other electronic equipment that isn't exported
to the US. It's quite ugly. How did they take something so inherently stylish
and make it so hideous?
Akihabara pricing for aftermarket car navigation equipment was under $2,000,
and below $1,000 for some models. Many are trying to get by with a 5" display.
The ones with 6-6.5" displays look better.
We also saw a portable GPS navigation system, like a big Walkman. You can hang
this around your neck and always know where you are. Made by Sanyo and called
the "Gorilla", it's priced at $1,300.
IV. SID in San Diego
We were wondering why we had to spend a week in San Diego at the SID meeting,
since we seem to be nothing but meeting-goer-to-er's these days. San Diego
itself might be the answer. Just grab your surfboard and go. The weather is
just right for surfing. Except that there's actually not much surf, who needs
Hawaii?
However, the conference proved to be interesting. The overwhelming impression
about the active matrix liquid crystal displays is how very good they are
becoming. Aperture ratios are above 60%, and some are as high as 80%.
Unbelievable. This means that power consumption is down to 2 watts or less, in
some cases. At the same time, everyone is working on wider viewing angles.
Seems that for the larger displays of 12.1" or larger, the viewer scans a
significant viewing cone in looking from the keyboard of a computer up to the
top of the display, and this means that the vertical viewing angle has to be
increased.
Several methods are being pursued. Hitachi, NEC and Hoshiden are working on the
in-plane switching method, announced at Asia Display in October and reported
previously by us. In this method, the liquid crystal molecules are flipped with
both electrodes on the back glass plate, instead of one on the back and one on
the front, as is done usually. This produces a very wide viewing angle of 140
degrees in both the horizontal and vertical directions. However, the extra
electrode on the back plane takes up space and reduces the aperture ratio. This
makes the Hitachi 13.3" XGA display draw an average power of 18 watts. NEC had
a 20" prototype of their in-plane display at the show. Expect to see LCD
monitors on the market soon which use the in-plane switching method.
Fujitsu and Samsung are using dual domain processing, in which a picture
element or pixel is divided into two parts and the orientation of the liquid
crystal molecules is reversed in each sub-pixel.
We also saw an (IBM) OCB mode 12.1" display in the Nitto Denko booth. In the
OCB mode LC molecules bend, but don't twist. The off-axis viewing
characteristics are therefore improved.
Sanyo and Merck described a novel substitute for dual domain technology which
also increases the viewing angle. The structure consists of a TFT plus control
electrode on the backplane of the LCD cell, and a slit electrode on the color
filter side. The alignment film is structured to align the LC molecules in a
vertical direction. In each pixel, the molecules line up in a loop like a tiny
racetrack, and the tilt angles on each side of the track are opposed. It
requires a liquid crystal with negative dielectric anisotropy. Viewing angle is
spec'd at 100 degrees, horizontal and vertical.
Sharp has a wide viewing angle display based on a compensation film from Fuji
Film. Sharp also described a process using just 3 mask steps for production of
an 11.3" SVGA display. The process makes use of indium tin oxide, ITO, for
carrying the current to the thin film transistors' source contacts, and the low
voltage ITO sputtering process produced an ITO sheet resistivity less than 5
ohms per square. This process uses dry etching throughout the TFT array
formation sequence. The aperture ratio for the display was reported as 82%.
Development continues in LCD shutters for projection displays, including
reports on low temperature polysilicon devices from Fujitsu, and amorphous
silicon LCD light valves from Tompson, and NEC.
There's lots of work going on in reflective display technology, including
attempts at color displays. About two years ago there was a spate of
introductions of reflective displays, and to us, not much has changed in that
period of time in terms of the new, highly readable displays. With the very
high aperture ratio TFT active matrix displays now being made, the active,
backlit displays now consume very little power, and a lot of the advantage of
reflective displays in terms of low power consumption has disappeared.
Organic electroluminescence is hot. Pioneer described a 256x64 dot matrix
organic EL display that produced 100 cd/m2 light output. Pretty good looking.
Lifetime of the display was reported as 5000 hours to half brightness, which is
good enough to get going in the market.
Strangest places to come across a cellular telephone, continued... Sitting in a
large room during one of the technical presentations, we heard a cellular phone
start ringing. It stopped after a few rings, but we couldn't see whether anyone
had answered it or not.
This conference has convinced us that we need a very portable computer to carry
around for taking notes and updating our files. It can't weight much more than
the notebook it replaces, like the "Composition Book" 100 page, ~8x10" notebook
that we actually carry to meetings etc. It weighs less than two pounds.
Portable computers have become like carry-on luggage on the airplane we rode to
San Diego. Carry-ons now have wheels, racks for other carry-ons and whatever.
If it has wheels, by definition it isn't carry-on.
We flew on Southwest, which our seatmate called the Greyhound Bus of the air.
The flight itself and the experience of checking in at the airport in San Diego
are probably harbingers of things to come. We read that UPS, the parcel
delivery firm, is considering using its cargo delivery planes to carry
passengers on weekends. This means we'll all ride in the luggage compartment
wherever we go. We're already pretty close to it.
V. Display Manufacturing and Such
The wire services have provided some recent information about manufacturing
capacity for displays which we've included here. For example, they tell us that
Display Technology (DTI), a joint venture between Toshiba and IBM Japan, will
start 12.1" thin-film transistor color LCD production at IBM Japan's Yasu
plant in June. DTI originally planned to produce 10.4" displays at the plant,
but has decided to produce 12.1-inch units since 10.4" prices have dropped to
40,000-50,000 yen ($370-463), making it difficult to justify capital spending.
With the decision to replace 10.4" production equipment with 12.1" size, DTI
had to postpone initial production by about six months, but by summer will
have a monthly output capacity of 200,000 units. (This is likely a total for
all production lines.)
NEC will start sampling 12.1" XGA AMLCDs for notebook computers in June, at a
rate of 10,000 units/month. An SVGA version is also available, at a total
volume of 30,000 units/month.
Sharp has outlined their color STN production plans, which call for manufacture
of 117,000 and 73,000 units/month of 11.3" and 12.1" displays, respectively,
for notebook computers, and 6,000 units/month each of 13.8" and 15" displays
for desktop PCs. Sharp will also produce 2,000 units/month of 17.7" LCDs.
Mostly these are SVGA resolution, 800x600 pixels, but the 15" and 17.7"
displays have XGA, 1024x768 resolution.
Kyocera will start making 14.2-inch SVGA super-twisted nematic color LCDs this
summer. The 14.2-inch LCD achieves a luminance of 250cd/sq. Meter and a
response speed of 150ms. Kyocera's LCD business is reported to have expanded
20% to 12 billion yen ($112.1 million) in fiscal 1995; the firm does not plan
to make additional investment for 14.2-inch STN LCD production but will use
the existing lines of its Hayato and Sendai plants in Kagoshima Prefecture.
Victor Company of Japan (JVC) says it will increase its PC LCD projector
production capacity by 80% from the current 400 to 700 units/month in mid-May
in order to respond to growing demand from the overseas market. JVC will supply
to U.S. makers on an OEM basis. Export to the U.S. will account for more than
80% of JVC's PC LCD projector production this year.
VI. Manufacturing Equipment and Materials
Canon has a new LCD exposure system for glass panels up to 650x830mm in size.
The MPA-5000 provides a resolution of 3 microns and a focal depth of 20
microns. It achieves a through-put of 55 seconds per 650x550mm substrate. The
price is 500 million yen ($4.7 mil). Shipment is slated for February 1997.
Canon's sales target is 50 units the first year.
Mitsubishi Chemicals will postpone commercializing LCD color filters. The
company has already built a pilot production facility with a monthly output
capacity of 20,000 units (10-inch) and had begun shipping samples, but has now
decided to delay full-fledged entry into the market since the market is glutted
with capacity. The company, which initially projected investment to boost the
production capacity to 400,000 units by the summer, will review its production
plan and shift management resources to other fields such as hard disks.
Yokohama-based Create will enter the market for light guides for use in LCD
backlights. The company has developed a sandblasting-based technique to make
fine light source elements, measuring several hundred nanometers to several
microns, on an acrylic resin. Applying this technique, it has successfully
prototyped a 19-inch surface light source. A light guide for a 10-inch panel
built using the new technique is 6% brighter than a comparable product made
using the printing method. Create has installed a 75,000-unit-per-month
facility and will soon start taking orders.
Watkins-Johnson has shipped two atmospheric-pressure chemical-vapor-deposition
(APCVD) systems for flat panel displays (FPDs) to NEC. NEC will use the
WJ-16CVD-250 systems to deposit silicon dioxide (SiO2) for interlayer
dielectrics in the active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AMLCD)
manufacturing process.
NEC has a 256-gray scale AMLCD digital driver chip. The microPD16643N supports
800x600- and 1,024x768-pixel resolutions and data transfer at 75MHz. It has a
built-in 8bit A/D converter and a high-precision output amp. It is
sample-priced at 3,000 yen ($27.78). The company, which has also shipped an
analog driver, plans to manufacture a combined total of 500,000 units/month.
Mitsubishi Electric has developed an LCD panel controller. The M66270fp
features built-in 9.6Kbytes of video RAM for storing a 320x240-pixel image and
a video RAM input terminal, which permits video RAM addresses to be designed
directly by a microprocessor. The sample price is set at 1,000 yen ($9.35). The
company will initially produce 50,000 units/month.
VII. Meetings & Misc.
A new book on "Liquid Crystal Dispersions" by Paul Drzaic of Raychem Corp is
available from World Scientific, 800-227-7562. $78.
A course on High Information Content FPD Technologies will be offered Sept.
9-13 by Larry Tannas and friends through UCLA Extension. 310-825-3344.
The third International Display Workshops, to be held in conjunction with
AM-LCD 96 in Kobe, Japan, Nov. 27-29, are accepting abstracts for presentations
through July 1. Call A. C. Lowe at IBM, 914-945-3368.
There's going to be a two day workshop on the Asian Flat Panel Display Industry
in Portland, Oregon on June 20-21, 1996. Topics will include technology,
strategy and competitive factors in the flat panel display industry. For
information contact Victoria Tyler, 503-690-1335.
VIII. Famous Last Words
Last Sunday was Mother's Day, and we found ourselves going out for brunch with
a lady who is not our Mother but we had to do it anyway. The reason that
everyone takes Mother out to brunch on Mother's Day may be because she can't
cook. The comedienne Joan Rivers said that when she was young, the cooking at
her house wasn't very good. If she was bad, she'd be punished and sent to bed
with supper. The columnist Calvin Trillin said that for 30 years, his mother
served nothing but leftovers. "The original meal has never been found."
In a case of life imitating art imitating life, Demi Moore is playing a
stripper in a new movie, and will include her 7-year-old daughter, Rumer, in
the cast, to play the daughter of the stripper. The director says, "Rumer gives
their relationship a fantastic level of reality." How can you argue with that?
Copyright 1996
O'Mara & Associates
All rights reserved.
SEMI makes no warranties or representations as to the viewpoints
expressed in the materials set forth herein, either as to general
scientific validity or for any particular applications by a
potential user. The viewpoints expressed are those of the author
and as reprinted herein.
Should your electronic address change, please contact Carollee
Williams-Schuegraf at SEMI as soon as possible.
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