The following column was provided by Sweta Dash, director of LCD and projection research at iSuppli/Stanford Resources of El Segundo, Calif.
Walking the floor at the Society for Information Display International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition (SID 2003) held this week in Baltimore, you'd hardly know that the global display industry makes the vast majority of its money from the PC business.
Notebook and desktop monitor panels were relatively scarce at the event. Instead, the focus was on big-screen TVs, with products using technologies including LCD, Plasma Display Panel (PDP) and Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCOS) attracting most of the attention.
This was the case, despite the fact that TVs account for only a small portion of overall LCD shipments.
In the large-sized TFT-LCD panel market in 2002, 46 percent of the unit shipments were for mobile computers and 47 percent were for LCD PC monitors, according to iSuppli/Stanford Resources. However, only 2 percent of large-sized TFT-LCD panels were used for TVs.
Monitors and notebooks still will account for the majority of large-sized TFT-LCD panel shipments in 2003; 52 percent of units will go to desktop monitors, while notebooks will account for 40 percent-and LCD-TVs, a scant 4 percent.
Then why was the attention at SID 2003 focused on the TV market?
One reason is future growth. By 2007, the LCD TV sales are expected to grow to nearly 29 million units, up from 1.4 million units in 2002, according to iSuppli/Stanford Resources' recently-released forecast.
Another reason is profitability. LCD TVs generate significantly higher margins for LCD suppliers than do monitors and notebook displays.
Price reductions also are making LCD TVs more attractive to consumers. New fabs, including fifth- and sixth-generation facilities-and even Samsung's newly-announced seventh-generation plant-are making it possible to produce large-sized LCD TVs at decreasing costs.
Reflecting these trends, the array of big-screen LCD TVs on display at SID 2003 was simply dazzling.
Sharp Corp. showed a 37-inch LCD TV module, its biggest yet. The Sharp LCD TV is based on the company's proprietary Advanced Super View (ASV) technology and it offers a resolution of 3.15 million dots and a signal response time of 15 milliseconds (ms).
Meanwhile, LG.Philips LCD displayed its 52-inch LCD module for TV, the largest yet for that company as well. LG.Philips LCD's series of TVs are based on Super-In Plane Switching (IPS) and Over Driving Circuit (ODC) technology, giving them a wider viewing angle, a high and stable contrast ratio and a faster response time at 12ms.
However, Samsung one-upped the competition with its largest-yet LCD TV, which measures 54 inches. Samsung's LCD TV sports technological advancements including Optically-Compensated Birefringence (OCB) mode to reduce response time to less than 6ms.
With new products and strong growth prospects, makers of LCD TVs at SID felt bold enough to throw down the gauntlet at the present technology leader in the flat-panel TV space: the PDP. One advertisement at SID promoted an LCD TV as the "World's best 42-inch PDP replacement."
However, PDPs managed to attract their share of interest at SID 2003. While LCD TVs were getting a lot of attention on one side of Samsung's booth, the company's 60-inch Plasma TVs attracted a crowd on the other side.
In line with the product rivalry on the exhibition floor, the debate over which technology-LCD or PDP-will win in the big-screen TV market was the subject of many sessions at SID. Debates raged over which issue will decide the winner in the race: cost, lifetime or image quality.
Meanwhile, other technologies vied for attention at SID. Samsung at its booth also showed a TV based on Texas Instruments Inc.'s Digital Light Processing (DLP) system. Philips attracted attention with its new single-panel 44-inch LCOS rear-projection TV. The TV successfully combined three colors into a single panel with improved image quality.
While the question of which technology will be the winner in the flat-panel TV market still is being debated, SID 2003 served as a great venue to observe, learn and be impressed by all the latest improvements in display technologies, from LCD TV, to plasma, to various rear-projection systems.
Sweta Dash can be reached at s.dash@stanfordresources.com
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