BOSTON — Taking his cue from Alvin Toffler, Samsung Electronics' LCD President and CEO Sang-Wan Lee boldly predicted Tuesday (May 24) a "third wave" of liquid-crystal display development that would propel annual flat-panel LCD TV sales to 100 million by 2010 and yield screen sizes exceeding 100 inches.
Speaking at the keynote session for the Society of Information Display Conference here, Lee said the goals were achievable, considering the obstacles LCD technology has cleared over the past decade.
"LCD technology continues to break all size assumptions," said Lee. "Size should no longer be considered an issue."
Lee described how the first wave of LCD development enabled mobile computing, while the second wave allowed LCDs to replace CRTs as the dominant monitor display. He said he expected the LCD TV wave to "last a long time".
Revealing an ambitious roadmap for LCD TVs, Lee called for the industry to standardize on 32-, 40-, 46-, 52- and 57-inch screens for TVs, 26- and 32-inch screens for smaller TVs, and 23-inch screens for personal TVs. Screens 80 inches and larger would be used for applications like public information displays.
Though the industry is just now bringing online generation 7 fabs, Lee said generation 9 production would allow fabricating six 57-inch panels from a single substrate. He did not elaborate on when this would happen.
Lee said Samsung was working on next-generation fab concepts, and creating a central production complex that would centralize both fab and component production to ease supply-chain logistics.
To achieve these milestones, Lee said the industry needs to first achieve the goal of a $1,000, 32-inch screen. Reducing material cost, which he estimated accounts for 75 percent of the manufacturing cost of an LCD panel, is the the key to reachikng these milestones.
RSS
Digital
10 emerging technologies to watch:
EE Times has compiled a list of emerging technologies that we think will be worth watching out for in 2010. Biofeedback or thought-control of electronics are among the contenders.
10 CEOs out in 2009:
It's been a tough year for the global electronics industry and CEOs. We survey the dismissal of 10 industry CEOs during the first three quarters of 2009 and what's ahead for the rest of the year.
Executive pay:
The economy stinks. Rank-and-file engineers are feeling the pain. What about technology CEOs? We crunched the numbers buried in corporate financial statements to find out. Here's what we found.
10 companies in trouble (revisited):
What follows is an updated version of 10 companies in trouble. Some companies have been removed since the last version, others remain. Still others have been added to the mix.
Early predictions for 2010:
The electronics industry is recovering, but there is still some uncertainty in the market. Some see a boom year in 2010. Some see a double dip. So what's in store for the rest of this year and 2010?
Top 10 IC vendors with cash:
The world's biggest IC companies by revenue rank not only among the best in their respective industry segments but are also more likely to have huge piles of cash that can be used to fund acquisitions, R&D and product development.
Notable women in microelectronics:
There is no better time than a global economic recession to examine the keys to successful corporate governance. So, EE Times has compiled an international list that celebrates women who are business and technology leaders in semis.
EE Times updates Silicon 60:
Seventeen companies have been added to the lastest version of our Silicon 60 list of emerging startups. Forty-three companies survived as emerging companies that are still worth watching.
RSS| 
Digital| 
Mobile
