Flat panel displays
Transcription
Flat panel displays
GLOBAL WATCH MISSION REPORT Flat panel displays in South Korea – present and future DECEMBER 2003 The DTI drives our ambition of ‘prosperity for all’ by working to create the best environment for business success in the UK. We help people and companies become more productive by promoting enterprise, innovation and creativity. We champion UK business at home and abroad. We invest heavily in world-class science and technology. We protect the rights of working people and consumers. And we stand up for fair and open markets in the UK, Europe and the world. Global Watch Missions The UK government Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Global Watch service provides funds to assist small groups of technical experts from UK companies and academia to visit other countries for short, fact finding missions. Global Watch missions serve a number of related purposes. These include establishing contacts with overseas organisations for the purposes of collaboration; benchmarking the current status of UK industry against developments overseas; identifying key developments in a particular field, new areas of progress or potentially disruptive technologies; studying how a specific industry has organised itself for efficient operation or how governments, planners or decision makers have supported or promoted a particular area of industry or technology within their own country. Disclaimer This report represents the findings of a technology mission organised by Cambridge University Engineering Department (CUED) with the support of the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). The views expressed represent those of the mission team and should not be taken as those of DTI, CUED or the employers of the individual team members. 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Flat panel displays in South Korea – present and future DECEMBER 2003 Bill Milne Jeremy Burroughes Terry Clapp Richard Miller Bill Taylor Cambridge University Engineering Department Cambridge Display Technology Dow Corning QinetiQ Printable Field Emitters 1 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE CONTENTS Executive summary 3 4 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 4 4 4 5 Introduction Mission aims Mission members Organisations visited 2 Introduction to flat panel displays (FPDs) 2.1 Markets and applications 2.2 Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) 2.3 Organic/polymer light-emitting diode (OLED/PLED) displays 2.4 Field emission displays (FEDs) 2.4.1 Status of global FED programmes 2.5 Plasma display panels (PDPs) 2.6 Three dimensional (3D) displays 2.6.1 Parallax barrier 3D displays 2.6.2 Lenticular array 3D displays 2.7 Electronic paper displays 14 16 16 17 18 3 19 3.1 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3 3.1.4 3.2 3.3 3.3.1 3.3.2 3.4 3.5 3.6 2 Display technologies in South Korea LCD overview and analysis Competitive threat Manufacturing perspectives Flexible substrates Backlights and ancillary technology OLEDs/PLEDs FEDs Backlights for large LCD TV FEDs: summary PDPs 3D displays Electronic paper displays 32 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Overview and recommendations General impressions Potential for collaboration Research opportunities for UK Recommendations Suggestions for future missions 5 Conclusions 36 32 33 34 34 35 6 6 9 11 13 14 19 20 21 23 23 24 25 28 29 30 30 31 Appendices A Acknowledgments B Mission members C Embassy seminar D Meeting notes E Glossary F List of tables and figures 37 37 38 47 52 68 71 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Despite a huge downturn in the technology market over the past few years, worldwide sales of flat panel displays (FPDs) rose by ~60-70% last year, and sales of the traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) dropped by ~5%. Due to the arrival of South Korea and Taiwan in the marketplace, the price of FPDs has plummeted, and although still significantly more expensive than CRTs, it is predicted that within 5 years, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) in particular will be cheaper than CRTs, and the perceived wisdom is that by 2006, FPDs will capture the majority of the display market. The market will continue to increase year on year, with current forecasts being that by 2007 the total display market will be US$100 billion of which US$70-75 billion will be for flat panels. Due to the continuing importance of this FPD market, a DTI Global Watch Mission team visited 10 companies/research organisations within South Korea to explore and identify potential opportunities for cooperation within this area. Currently Korea is seen to be the market leader in flat panel technologies. The display technologies discussed were LCDs, both active and passive, polymer and small molecule light-emitting diode (LED) based displays, plasma display panels (PDPs), field emission displays (FEDs) and three dimensional (3D) displays. Electronic paper, new material systems including various low temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) processes, novel polymers and phosphors were also discussed. There is no doubt that Samsung and LG are leading the way in flat panel technologies at present and will continue to do so for the next 5-10 years, when competition from Taiwan will begin to challenge their position. The Korean FPD manufacturing base is very powerful: Samsung and LG each hold approximately 20% of the global market for FPDs. Their position is secured at this time by the investment in manufacturing capacity. With Generation 5 (Gen 5) plants already in full production and Gen 6 and 7 plants soon to be completed, LG and Samsung can each take glass sizes up towards 2 m2 and expert opinion concurs that the FPD television (TV) market will fall to LCD at all sizes up to 42-inch diagonal. However, this strength does not imply an absence of competitive threat. The Koreans evidently see the major challenge emerging from Taiwan and China. As the total market grows it seems certain that the Korean market share will decline as these other players grow, but both LG and Samsung seem prepared to invest in China to maintain a competitive position. Outside of industry the Korean government is very aware of the need to sustain a strong trading position secured from its industrial exports. In consequence it commits a substantial portion of its R&D expenditure into joint programmes with industry. Most prominent amongst these is the 21st Century Research Programme. This programme is having a very powerful influence upon R&D commitments within Korea and significant strategic planning is being influenced. 3 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Aims 1.2 Mission members The primary aims of the mission were as follows: The members were chosen to represent UK interests at the university and both the global and small to medium enterprise (SME) industrial level. The members’ expertise base covered most of the current FPD technologies including organic/polymer lightemitting diode (OLED/PLED) devices, novel material systems, field emission displays (FEDs), active matrix liquid crystal displays (AMLCDs), three dimensional (3D) displays and electronic paper. 1 To enable UK academics and industrialists to meet those in Korea engaged in formulating policy and R&D goals in flat panel displays (FPDs) and to determine what lessons can be learned in helping to form future UK policy. 2 To evaluate scientific R&D in universities and national research institutes. 3 To evaluate commercial product innovations in corporate laboratories. 4 To evaluate commercial and entrepreneurial spin-offs from laboratories. 5 To foster secondment of research staff both to and from Korea. 6 To evaluate new and emerging FPD technologies. Brief details of the mission members and their areas of expertise are as follows – further details are provided in Appendix B. Mission Members: left to right, Richard Miller, Terry Clapp, Bill Milne, Bill Taylor, Jeremy Burroughes and Hong Hai Seeto 4 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Bill Milne (Mission Team Leader) Head of Electrical Engineering Cambridge University FEDs and AMLCDs T 01223 332757 wim@eng.cam.ac.uk Jeremy Burroughes CTO Cambridge Display Technologys (CDT) Light-emitting polymers (LEPs) and polymer, thin-film transistors (TFTs) T 01223 723522 jburroughes@cdtltd.co.uk Terry Clapp Scientist Dow Corning Liquid crystals, OLEDs & PLEDs T 01223 332644 Tvc22@eng.cam.ac.uk terry.clapp@dowcorning.com Richard Miller Technical Leader QinetiQ 3D displays, e-ink T 01684 896099 richard.miller@qinetiq.com Bill Taylor Director Printable Field Emitters Ltd (PFE) FEDs T 01235 445959 bill.taylor@pfe-ltd.com Hong Hai Seeto DTI International Technology Promoter (ITP) for South Korea Pera Innovation Ltd hong.hai.seeto@pera.com 1.3 Organisations visited Visits to the various companies and research centres were arranged in discussion with the British Embassy in Seoul. We visited/had discussions with 10 companies/research centres including universities, major companies and the government funded Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI). A seminar was also held at the British Embassy in Seoul on 9 December and involved presentations from each team member and others from the major display companies in Korea. There were over 120 attendees including representatives from over 70 Korean companies involved in FPD activities. For a list of attendees and the seminar programme, see Appendix C. December 8 Embassy Briefing 21Century Frontier Research Group (in Embassy) LG-Philips Seoul Seoul Anyang December 9 Seminar at British Embassy LG-Elite (in Embassy) Seoul Seoul December 10 SAIT Samsung SDI R&D Samsung Electronics Suwon Suwon Suwon December 11 LG Chemical ETRI Daejon Daejon December 12 Iljin ADRC in Kyung Hee University Seoul Seoul 5 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE 2 INTRODUCTION TO FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS (FPDs) The flat panel display (FPD) industry, although relatively young (really only starting in the early 1970s), is evolving at such a rapid pace that it is very difficult to predict with certainty future directions. From the early watch and calculator applications these have now spread to personal computer (PC) notebooks, cell phones, camcorders, personal digital assistants (PDAs), automobiles and, increasingly, consumer TV. The simple passive addressed liquid crystal display (LCD) has now also led to a plethora of different FPD technologies. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the markets and applications for FPDs and then a brief review of current FPD technologies. 100 2.1 Markets and applications The display market will continue to increase in size until at least 2007, growing 19% by revenue and 8% by volume, coupled with a 10% increase in the average selling price as FPDs displace cathode ray tube (CRT) applications. Current forecasts suggest that by 2007 the total display market will be US$100 billion of which US$70 billion will be for flat panels. Figures 1 and 2 below show predicted growth to 2007 for total display and FPD revenues. Growth is being driven by thin-film transistor (TFT) LCD, plasma display panel (PDP) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technologies as replacements in the computer monitor and television (TV) markets whilst mobile telephone and public display applications are both forecasted to enjoy double digit growth. 16% 90 80 40% 70 35% 60 30% 50 25% 40 20% 30 15% 4% 20 10% 2% 10 5% 14% 12% 50 8% 40 6% US$ billion 10% 60 Growth US$ billion 70 30 20 10 0 0 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 58.1 66.2 73.0 83.7 91.6 94.6 FPDs 29.6 37.7 44.5 56.0 65.5 69.9 Growth 12% 14% 10% 15% 9% 3% Growth 35% 27% 18% 26% 17% 7% Figure 1 Total display module market (Source: Display Search) 6 0% Display modules 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Figure 2 FPD market (Source: Display Search) 0% Growth 80 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Figure 3 FPD market by technology (Source: Display Search) Figure 4 FPD market by application (Source: Display Search) 7 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Figure 5 TV market by technology (Source: Private Disclosure, Ross Young, President Display Search Dec ’03) The market is dominated by amorphous silicon (a-Si) TFT LCD which is forecast to grow very significantly due to further penetration into the desktop and TV markets. A full analysis of the application markets for FPDs is beyond the scope of this report but it is perhaps worthwhile to look a little closer at the forecast markets for flat screen TV. From Figures 3 and 4 it can be seen that by 2007 TFT LCD will dominate the market for consumer TV, and that TV will become the second largest market for FPDs, just behind that for desktop monitors. In May 2003, at the Society for Information Display (SID) annual meeting in Baltimore, the talk of the show was the new large screen LCD TV, with screen sizes of 40-inch and greater being shown. As LCD manufacturers move to next generation fabs, they can manufacture up to eight 40inch panels per mother glass, so driving down manufacturing cost and approaching acceptable consumer price points. 8 Dr Kyuha Chung, VP of Samsung Electronics’ Flat Panel Display R&D Team, gave an intriguing insight into the manufacturing and cost dynamics responsible for these remarkable predictions. In his presentation to the mission he commented that their goal for LCD TV was ‘low cost and higher quality than CRT, with sizes larger than 40 inch, full HDTV at wide UXGA (1,920 x 1,080), response time <5 ms, brightness at 800 cd/m2 and with a contrast ratio of 1,000:1 – this is our goal, but it is very challenging’. Their Gen 7 line capable of manufacturing 8up 40-inch TV panels will be running by 2005 with a capacity of 60,000 units per annum. He gave the mission the cost prediction shown in Figure 6. At these manufacturing levels, the cost to manufacture 40-inch LCD TVs will fall below that for PDPs in 2006. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Korean companies also dominate the LCD markets, with Samsung Electronics and LGPhilips each holding around 1/3 of global market share. They are also strong in PDP manufacturing and have significant strengths in R&D and pilot line infrastructure. Figure 6 Samsung Electronics LCD TV manufacturing cost (Source: Dr Chung, 10 December 2003) The predictions suggest the manufacturing cost for 40-inch LCD TV will fall to US$800 by 2007, 32-inch to US$500. Using Display Search’s ratio of 1:2.5 to calculate high street selling price from manufacturing cost, this indicates high street selling prices of US$2,000 for a 40-inch panel and $1,250 for a 32-inch model. From the Display Search analysis in Table 1, given during the FPD Taiwan meeting in August 2003, it can be seen that Korean companies dominate the large LCD arena as well as having the strongest commitment to LCD. The core of the above section is based on a presentation given by Ross Young, President of Display Search, Austin (Texas), at the Display Search Taiwan FPD International Conference in August 2003. The authors acknowledge this work and thank Display Search for the right to reproduce the data and charts. 2.2 Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) Liquid crystals (LCs) are fluid materials in which the constituent molecules tend to align themselves relative to each other. Some LC materials are optically active and they align themselves with an applied field. This principle is utilised in liquid crystal displays (LCDs). Leadership/capacity/technology Japan First mover to new substrate sizes Creates standard panel sizes Scale Large-area capacity Small/medium capacity Total capacity Company size TFT LCD capital spending Industry commitment Bundling other components Small/medium know-how TV know-how R&D lines LTPS AMOLEDs 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, 6th #2 #3 #3 #1 #3 #1 #2 #3 Yes #1 #1 Yes #1 #1 Table 1 Leadership in LCD areas Korea Taiwan 4th, 5th, 7th #1 #1 #1 #3 #1 #2 #3 #1 Yes #3 #2 Yes #3 #3 #3 #2 #2 #2 #2 #3 #1 #1 No #2 #3 Some #2 #2 (Source: Display Search) 9 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE In a twisted nematic (TN) type display, a thin layer of LC material is sandwiched between two glass plates. The glass plates are ‘rubbed’ at right angles to each other (essentially microscratches are made to the inside of each plate) and the LC molecules align to the direction of the scratches. On each side of the structure, polarisers are postioned. When no voltage is applied, the LC molecules twist to align the molecules to the rubbing directions on the opposite sides of the cell. When light passes through (from a backlight unit, typically), the first polariser is twisted, due to the twisted molecules, through 90o, and it can then pass through the second polariser on the opposite side. The LCD is in the on-state. When a field (typically a conducting electrode on the glass is charged up to a few volts) is applied, the molecules untwist and align with the applied field, so the light is prevented from passing through and the LCD is in the off-state. Pixels are produced by patterning one of the electrodes, and colour is generated by registering colour filters with the pixels as shown in Figure 7. Figure 7 Cross section of AMLCD (From: Sang Soo Kim, Information Display, August 2001 Vol. 17, No 8, pp22-28) 10 The light transmission depends upon the rms voltage applied to the cell, and grey scales can be produced by applying intermediate voltages between the fully on and fully offstate voltages. The simplest addressing technique is to use row and column electrodes on the top and bottom plates. This addressing scheme is called passive matrix addressing, and a pixel can be selected by applying a voltage to the appropriate row and column lines – see Figure 8(a). Figure 8 (a) Passive (b) Active However, TN cells cannot be multiplexed, so to make higher resolution displays an active matrix addressing scheme – Figure 8(b) – must be adopted. In this scheme, each individual pixel has its own addressing switch, which is typically a TFT, as shown in Figure 9. The most commonly used TFT active channel material is a-Si:H but for small high resolution displays polysilicon is also used. Both data lines are now on the bottom plate and the top plate is typically grounded. The row lines are connected to the gates of the TFTs and the column or data lines address the drain. The TFT is only turned on when gate and drain volts are applied simultaneously. When the scanning pulse is applied to a given row all the transistors on that row can be charged to the data voltage applied to the respective column. All other rows are isolated due to the high off-state resistance of the TFTs – cross talk is thus eliminated. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE t V1+ V2- V3+ Gate Selection Storage Capacitor (Cs) t Pixel Electrode (ITO) Off - 5v Off Gn- 1 V1+ 20v - 5v Off On On Off Off V2- On V3+ Gn Off Gn+ 1 Figure 9 Line by line addressing in AMLCDs Problems at present being addressed are contrast improvements, viewing angle improvements and, for some applications, speed of response. 2.3 Organic/polymer light-emitting diode (OLED/PLED) displays Organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) can be divided into two classes of materials, the small molecular and the polymer. Small molecular materials (SMF) are deposited by thermal evaporation whereas light-emitting polymers (LEPs) are deposited from solution. Within the LEP field, newer solution processible materials known as dendrimers are also becoming of interest, but within this report they will not be mentioned further. Both technologies involve current driven diodes, which only emit light when driven in the forward direction. Figure 10 shows a typical characteristic for an LEP device. OLEDs have the following characteristics: Figure 10 Current density and light emission behaviour as a function of bias voltage for a LEP device wide emission colour range, low voltage operation (SMFs slightly higher than LEPs), wide viewing angle (Figure 11), very fast response time (<<1 ms), good efficiency and increasingly long lifetime. SMFs have been around for about 10 years longer than LEPs and were first demonstrated in the current form in the early 1980s by Kodak. 11 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Figure 12 First active matrix OLED display, manufactured by Sanyo/Kodak for a Kodak digital camera Figure 11 Comparison of LCD and OLED viewing angle (The OLED display was fabricated by Sanyo/Kodak) and allows displays to be produced on much larger glass size (currently Gen 6 ink jet printers are being developed). SMF materials are of sufficiently low molecular weight that they may be thermally evaporated. This process does mean that purification is relatively straightforward, and therefore high purity films and hence devices may be relatively easily fabricated. OLED displays may use both passive and active matrix driving as described above. For passive matrix (PM) driving, the limitation on display size is set by the maximum allowable power consumption, and because of inductive and capacitive losses, which dominate higher scan line counts, this is considered to be around 100 scan lines. Thus PM displays are seen to have only limited market penetration. Active matrix (AM) display circuits are different from LCD circuits in that typically more TFTs are required per pixel to allow constant current drive and to compensate for threshold variance in the TFTs. Traditionally, patterning to produce colour displays is done by shadow masking. Although this is a simple process to implement at the R&D level, high yields in manufacturing have been difficult to achieve even for relatively small production glass sizes. Despite this, various companies are now in production including Samsung SDI, Kodak (Figure 12) and Pioneer. LEPs can only be deposited from solution as the molecular weight is too high to allow thermal evaporation. This means that considerable work has had to be done on solution purification in order to achieve good efficiencies and lifetimes. However, deposition of the polymers may be done using conventional printing techniques (Figure 13). So far most of the developmental work has been done using ink jet printing, and although no colour LEP displays are currently in production, Philips have announced that they will start shipping ink jet printed LEP displays in Q2 2004. Being able to print the materials changes the whole cost structure of production 12 Of interest to the community is that it now appears that the use of a-Si TFTs may be possible after all. This means that the large mother glass lines being built by Korean companies could in principle be converted to OLED lines at some stage at a relatively small capital cost. So why switch to OLED, when LCD is going so well? Full colour LCDs require colour filters and backlights which adds significant cost and also increases the thickness of the display. As OLEDs are self emitting, they need neither component. So provided that a-Si TFT technology can be used and that Gen 5 or higher glass can be processed, most major LCD players see an opportunity to reduce production costs significantly. Most estimates FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE ‘Holy Grail’ of the electron devices industry since the turn of the previous century and offered the possibility of a flat, thin TV. Figure 13 17-diagonal full colour ink jet printer LEP AM display (The resolution is w-XGA) fall in the range of between 25% and 50% cost reduction. Added to which the displays will be even thinner, and for TV applications especially, lower power consumption. The practical realisation of such a device became a reality following the invention by Dr Charles (Cap) Spindt, also of SRI, of a remarkably clever and elegant method of manufacturing the micron-sized tips in a suitable triode structure that would allow modulation of the electrons using affordable low voltage drivers. As stated above, the FED operates on the same principle as a CRT where electrons are used to excite a phosphor screen to generate light but instead of having one electron gun it has an x by y array of individual electron sources (see Figure 14). 2.4 Field emission displays (FEDs) The field emission display (FED) has received significant industrial, government and venture capital attention throughout the 1990s and into the current millennium. This is because the FED is essentially a thin, flat cathode ray tube (CRT) and so in principle offers the many advantages of the CRT – lambertian viewing characteristics, best colour gamut, high brightness, acceptable contrast, no motion artefacts on video and a potentially lower manufacturing cost than LCD or PDP. In this section we will seek to provide a historical context for FED development, to describe briefly the current global status of FED technology and programmes, and then in the next section we will describe the Korean FED programmes in this context. As early as the 1960s, Ken Shoulders at Stanford Research Inc (SRI), the not-for-profit research institute in Palo Alto, described the possibility of using sharp metal tips, operating in a high electric field, to generate a source or sources of electrons using Fowler-Nordheim quantum mechanical tunnelling – a source of electrons from a cold substrate. Such a cold cathode had been the Figure 14 Field emission display (Wayne Cranton, Nottingham Trent University, Displaymasters module on emissive technology) The CRT is bulky because depth is needed to allow the single electron beam to raster across the phosphor screen. The FED utilises an array of individual electron emitters at each pixel which can locally scan different areas of the phosphor, so the depth is eliminated. There is another major difference between the CRT and FED in that the electron emission process is different. In the CRT the electrons are emitted thermionically from a heated coil. In the FED we have field assisted cold cathode emission. In order to aid the emission efficiency, low work function materials are utilised, and to further 13 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE aid the process they are usually in the form of sharp tips that cause field enhancement. Several different emitting materials have been used, including Mo, W and Si . More efficient, low voltage phosphors are still needed, and uniformity and emitter lifetimes are still seen as problems. 2.4.1 Status of global FED programmes In parallel to the tip based community, it had become clear to some that thin films of diamond or diamond like carbon might be used as flat or planar electron emitting films, and significant resources were committed to research in this area. In the mid 1990s, Canon announced their planar surface conduction emission technology, Hitachi were active with MIM based structures, and PFE in the UK described MIMIV composite materials for the first time. Similarly it was believed that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) could be screen printed or deposited by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) over large areas. See Figure 15. Despite the commercial failure of most 1st generation tip based programmes, significant know-how was developed regarding system design and performance issues, including spacer design and manufacture, and a cadre of FED engineers was created. This has allowed 2nd generation programmes to make relatively rapid progress, and as well as the company and national initiatives described in Tables 2a and 2b, many universities and research institutes maintain FED R&D programmes. 2.5 Plasma display panels (PDPs) Figure 15 Broad area CNT emitters in triode structure (Cambridge University) All of these latter approaches use one type of broad area emitter structure or another (or as one of the report authors dubbed them, ‘2nd generation FEDs’) and they had mainly changed market focus – increasingly looking at large area TV. This change in focus arose due to the realisation that large TV requires relatively large pixels which can utilise screen or ink jet printing, so promising low cost and offering the motion quality needed for TV. The FED is potentially an excellent display with high brightness and a wide viewing angle. However, its disadvantages still mean that there are no FEDs in the marketplace at present, although Canon/Toshiba have announced that they are currently building a production facility which should be on line in 2005. 14 A plasma display panel (PDP) is essentially a matrix of sub-millimetre fluorescent lamps which are controlled in a complex way by electronic drivers. The initial PDPs were monochrome displays where Penning Ne-Ar mixtures (typically 0.1% Ar in Ne) were used and the light emitted by the discharges was due to the characteristic red-orange emission of neon. Research on colour PDPs started in the mid-1970s, and the first commercially available colour displays appeared in the late 1990s. In colour plasma displays, the gas mixture (Xe-Ne or Xe-Ne-He) emits ultraviolet (UV) photons which excite phosphors in the three fundamental colours. Each pixel is therefore associated with three micro-discharge cells. The plasma in each cell of an alternative current (AC) PDP is generated by dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs) operating in a glow regime in a rare gas mixture (typically 500 torr, 100 µm gap). The AC voltage is rectangular, with frequency of the order of 100 kHz, and rise time of about 200-300 ns. In the on-state, a current pulse of less than 100 ns duration flows through the cell at each half cycle. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Company Technology Status Samsung (Korea) CNT 38 inch HDTV CNT device completed at SAIT and transferred to SDI for production Sony (Japan) LG Electronics (Korea) Mitsubishi (Japan) 20 inch tip line 20 inch tip device prototype line CNT CNT R&D under way MIM Programme running for 5 years – but CNT confidential and no devices shown CNT NEDO/METI funded collaborative R&D programme – TV & stadium display Hitachi (Japan) ISE Noritake (Japan) MIM NEDO/METI funded collaborative CNT R&D programme CNT NEDO/METI funded collaborative R&D programme – TV & stadium display Teco (Taiwan) CNT Government part funded collaborative CNT R&D programme with ERSO cDream CNT Committed to CNT 5 inch mono CNT device looks similar to PFE supported by Sanyo and Kyung Hee – ex LG & Candescent staff PFE (UK) MIMIV 5.7 inch mono device shown for TV SI Diamond (Texas, USA) CNT 20 inch CNT sealed panel video shown at IDW 03 NASDAQ listing Matsushita EW (Japan) Ballistic Emission BSD cathode – 2 inch colour devices Display (BSD) 7 Inch planned Table 2a Status of global FED programmes – industry Government Japan (NEDO/METI) Activity Comments Funding CNT Government department in charge of national CNT programme disappointed with progress Singapore (EDB) Funding infrastructure / OLED programme underway pilot line capability UK (DTI) European Union Taiwan Smart & Link funding for Supporting university and industrial collaborative industry & academia FED projects as part of nano initiatives 5th & 6th Framework Takoff, Prindis & Canadis projects all recently supporting all major display completed. MIMIV, Spindt and CNT technologies including FED all supported Funding FED pilot line at Government department in charge of national ERSO and CNT R&D into TV CNT programme displays and LCD backlights South Korea Funding CNT backlight project See discussion on 21st Century Lab at Iljin. Rumoured to have elsewhere in this report provided $10 million funding to SAIT for CNT FED R&D – but not confirmed Table 2b Status of global FED programmes – government 15 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE A simplified view of a plasma display is shown in Figure 16. It consists of two glass plates separated by a gas gap of about 100 µm filled with a rare gas mixture capable of emitting UV photons. Arrays of electrodes are deposited on each plate. The electrode arrays are covered by a 20-40 µm thick dielectric layer. The standard electrode geometry in commercially available AC PDPs is the coplanar (ACC) electrode geometry. The ACC structure is by far the most developed electrode structure nowadays. In the ACC electrode configuration (see figures) a discharge cell is defined by three electrodes: two parallel electrodes on one glass plate (front plate), and one electrode, orthogonal to the two coplanar electrodes, on the opposite glass plate. 2.6 Three dimensional (3D) displays Ever since the renaissance, with the discovery of perspective techniques in art, our understanding of how we see the world around us and how to represent its true 3D nature has presented us with tremendous challenges. With the advent of photography, cinema and electronic displays, the trend towards greater realism in images continued unabated. Early forays into 3D technologies started over a hundred years ago (1903) with the invention of parallax barrier systems by FE Ives. Some five years later the lenticular array system was first developed and is widely seen in children’s toys and cereal packet free gifts. Both of these techniques are referred to as autostereo systems since left and right images are automatically directed to left and right eyes. 2.6.1 Parallax barrier 3D displays The parallax barrier technique is perhaps the simplest autostereo 3D image system. In the original technique an array of slits in an opaque screen is arranged between a diffuse illumination source and a photographic transparency on which the left and right images are recorded. The two images are spread across the photograph in alternating slices with a periodicity equal to the array of slits. Figure 16 PDP structure and operation (J B Beouf, J Phys D Appl Phys 36 (2003) R53) PDPs have recently achieved good performance and their image quality can now compete with that of CRTs. PDPs of up to 76-inch diagonal have been demonstrated, some with high resolution. According to Stanford Resources more than 300,000 PDPs were sold worldwide in 2001 and the market should grow to 6 million units in 2007. 16 When a viewer observes the photograph from the correct position, a line from the left eye through a strip of the left image is in line with a slit and the left image is illuminated for the left eye. At the same time, a line from the left eye through a slice of the right image is in line with a section of the opaque screen so the left eye, doesn’t see the right image. The opposite happens for the right eye, and over the whole screen the correct eyes see the correct images. However, an obvious drawback with this technique is that the user’s head has to be in the correct position for the 3D effect to work. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE If the head is moved to one side then the left and right images will invert and the user can suffer disorientation. Adapting this technique for use in LCDs, where there are red, green and blue (RGB) pixels adjacent to each other is relatively simple, as can be seen in Figure 17. In this case the right and left RGB pixels are alternated to give the 3D image. This reduces the resolution of the display. The most notable advance in this area has been the introduction by several companies, including Sanyo and Sharp in Japan, of the switchable parallax barrier allowing a display to be switched between 2D and 3D modes. This has proved to be amazingly popular with consumers. It has been reported that the launch of the NTT DoCoMo SH251iS cellular telephone in Japan in 2002, incorporating the switchable Sharp parallax barrier, led to the sale of more 3D displays in the first week than the estimated number of dedicated 3D display systems previously ever sold. So the Sharp display has truly become the first ever mass market 3D display. The real beauty of these systems is that the user can switch off the parallax barrier and use the device as a conventional 2D display without loss of resolution. Also the extra components required for these displays don’t add significant cost. This trick is in essence performed by adding an in-plane switching nematic device providing a half wavelength retardation. When striped regions of the cell are turned on then they rotate the plane of polarisation of the light and so the light is blocked by the output polariser. 2.6.2 Lenticular array 3D displays The lenticular array system is slightly different from the parallax barrier system and in general is more light efficient. This leads to its most common application in reflective picture configurations. Figure 17 3D FPD based on the parallax barrier technique of Ives In this device an array of cylindrical lenses is placed in front of a picture, roughly at a distance of the focal length of the lens. Behind each individual lens is placed a number of strip sections of the different views required. For example, if there are four different views of the 3D scene required, numbered 1 to 4 from left to right, then the image of each view is split into vertical strips and the leftmost strip in each image is placed behind the leftmost lens in reverse order, 4 to 1, and so on for each set of strips and lenses. Each lens in the array then projects the light from each strip in the image in a specific direction towards a distant focal point but because of the arrangement of picture strips these correspond to different directions and in effect different eyes of a viewer. In Figure 18 an example is shown where there are only two views but these are subdivided into RGB pixels, as in an LCD. The three RGB pixels are merged together by the eye, due to their small size and the eye’s limited resolution. This type of 3D display design has also been adapted to give a switchable 2D/3D display by Ocuity Ltd in the UK. By index matching the lenses to a liquid crystal they can be made to act like a plane sheet of glass. Switching the liquid crystal then changes the effective 17 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE refractive index and causes the lenses to focus light, creating the 3D effect. This device was launched in February 2003 at the 3GSM Congress in Cannes. In demanding applications such as computer aided design, where high quality images are required, simple systems such as the parallax barrier and lenticular array do not provide sufficient quality. Consequently, a number of manufacturers produce dedicated stereoscopic displays where the left and right images are provided for the eyes by some interaction between the eye and glasses worn by the user. More recently, autostereo systems, not requiring glasses, are becoming available to address these high-end markets. Figure 18 3D FPD based on the lenticular array Unfortunately, many of these technologies still force their users to suffer eyestrain or disorientation. Also their cost makes it unlikely that they will make the mass market in the near future. The parallel barrier and lenticular array techniques have their drawbacks but have the benefit of low cost and thin construction. The development of switchable versions has not gone unnoticed by South Korean manufacturers. 18 2.7 Electronic paper displays Electronic paper displays is a catch-all phrase designed to capture a wide range of technologies that some see as holding the potential to satisfy a perceived requirement for displays with better readability, very low power and light weight. These displays can be seen as attempts to bridge the gap between modern FPDs and the printed page. It is clear that the advent of computers on every office desk has led to the generation of more printed pages and the use of more paper in offices than ever before. This phenomenon has to be in part due to the small size, lack of portability and low resolution of current standard computer monitors. In some cases these displays use flexible substrates and in others they consist of reusable sheets on which an image is updated by a ‘printing’ machine. There has been a lot of interest around the world in these types of displays, exploiting technologies from electrophoretics and electrochromics to MEMS devices and bistable nematics. Many of these devices show lambertian scattering like paper, improving the readability, and most show some sort of image stability, giving low power operation. Particularly high profile examples include E-Ink and Gyrocon, both in the US, while many of the Japanese manufacturers have reported various prototype devices. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE 3 DISPLAY TECHNOLOGIES IN SOUTH KOREA 3.1 LCD overview and analysis The Korean displays industry currently has a significant presence in the LCD sector. Two major players, LG Philips LCD and Samsung Electronics, are representative of global corporations with a huge investment and consequent strength and depth in this technology. From these two companies and also the other research centres and university interests we met, the mission gained an excellent insight into this industry. Amongst the consistent messages that were presented to us was the evolution that is occurring in the development of display performance. This is resulting in some fundamental changes at the technology level that are detailed throughout this document. In this section the focus is upon the LCD market, with the technology presentation restricted to common or consensus views that we heard. In terms of the basic liquid crystal (LC) physics and chemistry, the most significant challenge being faced is the evolution of displays for improved colour fidelity and resolution. In particular this seems to be driving changes to explore new LCs and new operational principles. For example, the ‘liquid crystal operating mode’ current STN and similar displays are being displaced by vertically aligned nematic (VAN) and in-plane switching (IPS). Major drivers for this change are the achievable resolution, viewing angle and speed. When questioned regarding aspects of the materials evolution there seemed to be two messages. The current changes are evolutionary (although profound) in that they adhere to the use of nematic phases and relatively simple changes instituted on existing manufacturing platforms. However, the consistent message that the evolution is progressive and will exceed the performance achievable from these systems leaves a clear intent to migrate or switch to other LC modes. Questioned about ferroelectric LC (FLC), the answer was consistent that it would be explored. It was also clear that the market driver would need to be sufficient to warrant a new manufacturing paradigm (and attendant capital expenditure) or the development would need to fit upon the existing lines with minimal changes. (See also the brief mention of Iljin below.) The industry clearly wishes to continuously improve colour fidelity, and acknowledged the need to get ever-higher bandwidth. LG-Philips, in particular, are very aggressive in respect of their copper bus technology for the backplanes. Both Samsung and LG have major efforts in colour filter and polariser films (large manufacturing samples were shown to us at LG-Chemical). Similarly we were informed that they were very actively engaged in LC (and other displays relevant) materials development. Once again FLC seemed to be part of their agenda but the focus was clearly upon near term requirements. In common with developments of the manufacturing platform, from Gen 5 onward, the viscosity and filling issues have required formulation expertise as well as new materials. This combination of technical development and base materials evolution is a very clear indication of the presence of significant ‘tradesecret’ intellectual property (IP) that is not in the public domain. In several of our visits it was clear that whilst our hosts were very polite and open in discussion, we were not being admitted to areas where we could see production. 19 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE In terms of broader manufacturing technology, the TFT issues are critical. They would really like to have higher mobility in their TFT semiconductors but see no prospect for displacement of current practice unless dramatic improvements are proven. They are employing a variety of techniques to re-crystallise the silicon to get high mobility (>500 cm2/V s), with cw laser looking to displace the current pulsed laser processes. A process called SLS was cited several times. Inter-digitated gate structures were illustrative of research efforts to significantly improve performance at a cost to mask and lithographic complexity. At the research level, activity has proven techniques based on inclusions of nickel to catalyse re-crystallisation. This is derivative of work done in Kyung Hee University (and in Cambridge amongst others) on field enhanced catalysed growth of domains (various acronyms under the broad umbrella of metal induced crystallisation, MIC). There was a suggestion that the work in Korea may have used nano-dispersions of metal, but this could not be confirmed. 3.1.1 Competitive threat We were given a clear vision of the FPD business and intent in both Korean industry and via government initiative but it was apparent that they were not keen to discuss the competitive threat their industry faces. However, in several discussions the subject was broached most often in reference to developments elsewhere in Asia. Japan’s FPD industry is clearly still very powerful, and from several oblique references to it we were given an insight that this was seen as a ‘normal’ market competitor to be respected but ‘beatable’. 20 However, in respect of China and Taiwan the situation was very clearly seen as a twin opportunity and threat. Several remarks suggested that the growth of China’s high technology sector was seen as capable of disturbing Korea’s market position. At the same time the Koreans are clearly investing in manufacturing activities within China and ‘exploiting’ the opportunity. Within the briefings from the embassy and the seminar presentations we were given a strong impression of the strategic significance that the government places on Korean industrial strength in this sector. The Century 21 initiative and major investment by the government are having a strong impact upon the quality and competence of R&D in the university and technology centres. With 5% of budget going into research spending this is very clearly a declaration that Korea PLC expects to maintain a strong industry and know-how to achieve that goal. Already successful, the UK must take note of the extraordinary contrast this offers with the UK position. Similarly, the commitment shown to the vision is evident in the time frame over which planning and funding is scheduled… over 10 years and longer. Representing the government coordinated strategy in advancing the LCD sector, Dr Hee Dong Park and associate (representatives of Hanyang University Research Centre) met us after the seminar at the embassy on 9 December. This was particularly helpful because Hee Dong Park is Director of the Century 21 Display programme, and endorsed the vision that was delivered from the UK presentations to the seminar. The ‘roadmap’ that he presented, from the perspective of the Korean displays industry and government initiatives, was very much a rational medium term view, balanced with respect to the polarised views we were to hear from the principal industrial figures we met throughout the mission. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Dr Hee Dong Park’s group have $185 million under the Century21 initiative that derives from government ($85 million) and industry ($100 million). ‘Aim: for Korea to lead in next generation FPD’. His role appears to be to collate input (hence the roadmap) and coordinate research actions funded from these funds. He is actively seeking international collaboration. Effort will be directed at emissive and non-emissive displays. His world-view is clear… LCD will dominate, with plasma a poor and declining second, OLED and/or other technology will come on stream but clearly it will be some time before major sector development occurs. Interestingly, the threat from projection display systems was not mentioned by LG Philips LCD nor by Samsung (possibly due to the FPD focus) but it was brought up by LG Elite and at Iljin. Dr Sung-Tae Kim of LG Elite was very forthright, indicating that he believed that liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCOS) technology had a very large market future. In other matters though, he concurred with all the other messages we heard in respect of the FPD market. Gen 6 facility at Gumi expected to come onstream in Q4 2004. They are already planning their Gen 7 facility and associated manufacturing ‘park’. Since September 2003 they have manufactured 2 million panels per month. The focus of development effort is to take current twisted nematic displays and displace with in-plane switching mode displays. Using this they have realised 13 ms with direct drive and can approach 8 ms with overdrive circuits. Other technology challenges included the manufacturing of the backplanes, backlights, polarisers, filters and sundries that constitute the display panel. We were given an overview of the LCD R&D centre (where we were being hosted) as well as a presentation of the business plans. In essence, the immediate goal is to consolidate growth of the current manufacturing plants that encompass 3 x Gen 5 plants, a Gen 6 plant coming on stream (the 6th manufacturing line), and plans that extend beyond this to create a new manufacturing centre with plants at Gen 7 and higher capability. They are bullish that they can go to Gen 9. 3.1.2 Manufacturing perspectives A huge, and ongoing, investment in manufacturing has seen both LG and Samsung building capacity with Gen 5 and 6 plants. Samsung have already committed into Gen 7, and LG are similarly intent. Both companies have LCD panels >50 inch, and all observers agree that LCD will secure the market at least up to 42 inch. We were given a vision of roadmaps for the manufacturing base that extended beyond Gen 8. It was a repeated remark that they achieve 95% yield on their display lines at Gen 5 and expect to sustain this through subsequent lines. A seminar presentation was given in the British Embassy by Dr Sunghoe Yoon, senior manager at LG Philips LCD. The business focus is on large panel development, with the They currently hold about 20-22% of the world market for LCDs with about $5 billion annual sales of TFT-LCDs. Seminar attendance from Samsung was quite good, and Dr Kyuha Chung (Vice President of Samsung Electronics) presented a challenging perspective on the FPD global business. The market growth in AMLCDs appears to be around 20% CAGR. For the current market, TFT-LCDs based upon the amorphous silicon manufacturing process will continue to dominate. He gave what he described as an overview of the mega-trends in LCDs. His primary thread was to drive cost down for TFT-LCDs to what he described as ultra-low-cost. However, his roadmap also illustrated flexible, OLED, FED 21 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE and a variety of mobile niches. He saw a need today for LTPS for AMOLED applications. His prognosis for LTPS in TFTLCD was that it would be linked to ambitions to create ‘sheet computers’ (all on a display… a sort of flexible tablet PC). The goal is for flexible and rugged displays. For standard AM-TFT-LCD he saw major drivers in evolution of the driver circuits, advances in LTPS and also in re-crystallisation technology, and most compelling (as it was the target of his roadmap for the industry) the advent of soft lithographic patterning and printed ‘organic-TFT’. Samsung Electronics gave us a clear view that, as with LG, they expect to see LCD dominate at every size of screen up to 60” being achievable now. They will bring Gen 7 facilities on-stream in early 2005. It is expected that the screens will be QXGA. However, they also are very bullish about the market for smaller displays, particularly in mobile applications. They see a need for displays with 200 dpi and 65% colour gamut in this market. This seemed to be linked with ambitions in flexible substrates and in new manufacturing paradigms such as soft lithography and polymer circuits. They see plenty of room for price erosion in the large FPD market and predict that manufacturing cost for 40” screens will break the $1,000 barrier in 2005. Within the R&D facility of LG Philips LCD they pursue research relevant to all aspects of the LCD business, inclusive of amorphous silicon, LTPS, LC materials, organic electroluminescent materials etc. They have made a 55” high definition LCD and shown that yields at Gen 6 can still be maintained at 95%. Filling times have been overcome at the current and next generation. They are trying to evolve nematics and have achieved ~5 ms responses. 22 When asked, they responded that they have no intention to introduce FLC at this time but they do have some work in this area. This was further questioned in respect of the need to do higher colour fidelity and frame sequential addressing schemes… they were unwilling to be drawn but we sensed that this might be where the work they were doing on advanced nematics (and possibly FLC) was targeted. With LTPS they are utilising plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) deposited materials but acknowledge a fierce debate with respect to amorphous. It is desirable to have a higher stability, higher mobility and greater uniformity but at this time amorphous is the choice for AMLCD for manufacturability reasons. They were rather reticent about flexible displays but it seemed they were suggesting that they felt it would not challenge their market for the current LCD. They would not be drawn on weight or robustness but responded that at present the (up to nearly 2x2 m) glass seemed sufficient for manufacturing yield. They do not seem to feel e-book would be a sufficiently large market to attract their attention. They are very active in trying to develop improved filters. They also referenced work on light sources and reiterated a message, from the seminar, that the backlight requirements are becoming more demanding in respect of performance. In particular, high brightness, excellent uniformity and lower power are demanded. They were also very keen to observe that systems issues are a large part of the technology, and cited data processing as one aspect where they are very active. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE 3.1.3 Flexible substrates 3.1.4 Backlights and ancillary technology Flexible displays are seen by the Koreans as an inevitable development but not necessarily impacting the current TV marketplace. They appear to regard the advent of flexible as a necessary enabler for new market opportunities where weight, robustness or other beneficial attributes are key. We felt it useful to bring this topic into prominence; we were repeatedly exposed to a vigorous debate that seems a major technology challenge to this industry… how to get a sufficiently bright, uniform and controllable backlight for the large screens and low enough power for mobile applications? A companion debate appears to be whether LEDs can provide a well polarised bright source. We were repeatedly reminded that white LEDs are becoming available. Suggestions that RGB may not be sufficient were made and certainly at least one reference to 5+ colour and better ‘daylight’ sources was also mentioned (see also Section 3.3.1). The mission members, who are each competent in aspects of these issues, discussed this and agreed that we had been given several messages that suggested a ‘hidden’ motivation… we felt that it might be the need for curved screens in home cinema (home ‘IMAX’)! This has merit within a context of home cinema and professional envisaging systems as numerous humanfactors studies have shown how important it is to have peripheral vision filled by an image in order for a complete immersion and suspension of ‘reality’. None of the companies we spoke with averred on the need for flexible and they linked it to both LCD and OLED futures (see elsewhere for OLED). We presented data on both flexible substrates and barrier technology and this was very well received both at the seminar and with the companies and academics face-to-face. Questioned about flexible displays and soft lithography, Dr Sunghoe Yoon (LG Philips LCD) commented that they had a great interest in the barrier technology. At the research centre, however, we had been told that they did not see flexible technology displacing the current agenda in respect of glass substrates. In fact, Budi Sastra (CTO of LG-Philips) was quite emphatic that flexible substrates or new manufacturing paradigms were not a target for the large screen or Gen 7+ plants in planning now. This internal contrast in LG, coupled with the different messages we heard from LG and Samsung, seemed to be indicative of both debate and deliberate differentiation between the two companies. Several related topics were also alluded to or revealed in passing. In particular, considerable work is being essayed to improve reflective foils for screens as well as polarisers and colour filters. LG-Chemical were most bullish in respect of the market need and prospects for these and related products seen as enabling of the technology. In many senses we were given an unusual insight into what may be one of the most lucrative opportunities in this global market. It is also definitely worth reiterating that processing of the backplanes was seen as evolutionary within the context of the manufacturing track being pursued currently. However, it was repeated frequently, very often via prompting from Jeremy Burroughes, that flexible, and/or low temperature, presumably organic semiconductor-based, backplanes will have to be developed to erode the cost base of the technology and enable some of the market segments as yet not developed. Display developments are also forcing the pace of design rule evolution, with lithography needs demanding 0.4 µm in contrast to the current 4 µm! Similarly there is a strong push to put operational ICs onto the glass (see comments by Samsung above). Materials requirements are significant here, as well as the platform needs. 23 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE 3.2 OLEDs/PLEDs All of the laboratories we visited indicated, at the very least, interest in this technology. Most of the work concentrated on the development of small molecule based displays but all the major players are keeping a watching eye on PLED developments. LG Electronics are working publicly on small molecule OLED and are developing displays using transparent cathode or even transparent cathode and anode. They are now concentrating on active matrix OLED (AMOLED) development rather than passive matrix. Because of this they see it is as essential to use a top emitting structure as this gives a higher fill factor thus improving display lifetime and efficiency. On the other hand, LG-Chemical have for some time been working on small molecule development and have probably been supplying LG-Electronics with their materials. They have recently started a light polymer activity as well. Of more significance is that they intend to move up the value chain and produce displays. To companies like CDT in the UK this is probably the most significant piece of information we gained in this area as they now become a potential licensee. They have been growing their R&D capability at an extraordinary rate and expect to increase staff by 20% this year and next, reducing to 10% growth in the following two years. We were shown around their new OLED device fabrication facility. It wasn’t complete, but will make a very good research and early development laboratory. Quoted fluorescent material lifetimes: Red @ 300 nit Green @ 500 nit Blue @ 200 nit 220 khr @ 5 cd/A 210 khr @ 14 cd/A 90 khr @ 5 cd/A They have also tested red and green phosphorescent (triplet emitter) materials, but only get about 15 khr lifetime. In the main, however, lifetimes are very impressive, and they claim this is in part due to a process change. They expect to complete development of a full colour 1.x” AMOLED display by Q2 2004. There was not much discussion on OLED activity at LG-Philips although they do have one. They observed, however, that if a-Si TFTs can be made to work with OLEDS, this would have a big impact on the market potential for TFT-OLEDs. Essentially, LG-Philips is keeping a watching brief on OLEDs, waiting for when they are ready to meet their requirements. 24 Samsung SDI have been concentrating on passive matrix small molecule OLEDs, and these are already in production. They are now moving into active matrix (using low temperature poly-Si TFT) OLED displays and so far are demonstrating good lifetime test data. They have already developed a prototype display that uses a transparent cathode rather than transparent anode and claim to obtain a small optical enhancement from the structure as well as significant colour tuning. Thus the emission characteristics of their blue is very good (CIEy ~0.05-0.07). They also gave some panel lifetime numbers for bottom and top emission and, as expected, top results in longer lifetime (Table 3). These data suggest that the decay law for their materials follows a power law with exponent around 1.35. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE 100 nit white 200 nit white 200 nit TV Bottom emission 10,000 hr 4,000 hr 30,000 hr Top emission 15,000 hr 6,000 hr 45,000 hr Table 3 Panel lifetime for bottom and top emission of Samsung SDI’s AMOLED display They have been working on polymer OLED as well, but acknowledged a lack of progress in the field. This work is being done in the German research laboratory which is a bit out on a limb. For encapsulation of the transparent cathode they are using the Futaba transparent getter. Samsung Electronics, in direct contrast to the work ongoing in LG, are developing LTPS for OLED using technology transferred from Columbia University which, they say, results in more uniform TFT characteristics. At the moment they think that OLED displays are limited to about XGA resolution and 10” size. This is due to the shadow masking issues. Like LG-Philips, their main display activity is LCD with a big push for LCD-TV markets. They did however appear to be less confident than LG-Philips about whether the response time could be reduced sufficiently to make an AMLCD TV that looks like a CRT. There is no doubt that whilst in-plane switching can lead to response times of just a few milliseconds they need to get to microseconds before they can have a performance similar to that of the CRT. We had a relatively short visit to SAIT. What we did learn was that not only do they have an activity on developing polymer materials but they are also developing an ink jet head to be used in the OLED, LCD and FED display industries. In summary, most of the major display companies in Korea have an OLED activity. They all see small molecule as the way forward in the short term but if polymer lifetimes (especially the blue) and brightness can be improved then the benefits gained from the cheaper (ink jet) manufacturing processes would make PLEDs an extremely attractive proposition. 3.3 FEDs Korean companies, institutes and universities have had a long involvement with FED technologies. Samsung’s SAIT, Orion Electric (in collaboration with Ajou University) were both regular presenters at both field emission technology and display R&D conferences and showed full colour 1st generation tip based displays of 5 or 6-inch size. LG Electronics has had a FED programme for some years based at LG Elite where they initially looked at tip and edge emitters and more recently MIM and CNT based systems. The mission found that currently there is a polarised view on FEDs between Samsung’s SAIT and SDI on the one hand – enthusiastic supporters – and LG Electronics who take the view that there is no place left for FED in the displays market. This view can be understood once one analyses the product and technology portfolio for each company. 25 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Samsung SDI has CRT and PDP manufacturing but no in-house technology for making FPDs at sizes smaller than 42 inch. As reported elsewhere, their sister company Samsung Electronics expects to have lower manufacturing cost than PDP by 2006. SDI’s CRT activity is already under pressure from the new flat panel entrants and this pressure will grow. As LCD costs are driven down, this also offers medium term significant threats to their PDP business. Samsung SAIT replaced their tip programme with a CNT approach, and at one point had 60 researchers at SAIT and 60 researchers at SDI working on this programme. Displays of increasing size and performance were regularly shown in public until Summer 2002, after which only video clips were shown. The last publicly shown CNT FED was a 32-inch full colour display shown at the International Vacuum Microelectronics Conference (IVMC) in France, Summer 2002 (Figure 19). The SDI programme was described in some detail by Dr C G Lee of Samsung SDI’s Corporate R&D Centre, Giheung, during the Display Workshop at the Embassy on Tuesday 9 December. Dr Lee described the history of FED, microtips, CNT (Samsung, ISE, Sony and Mitsubishi as major corporate players), MIV (PFE), surface conduction emission (SCE – Canon, Toshiba) and ballistic emission display (BSD – Matsushita Electric Works). Printed CNTs can be processed at 450oC and have a size capability up to 70-inch, whereas CVD deposited CNTs need process temperatures of ~500oC and are limited in size to 20 inch – why they are working with printed CNTs. After ageing these materials in a diode configuration they can obtain current densities of 184 µA/cm2 with a 1/2,000 duty cycle and at vacuum pressures of 5 x 10-6 torr – giving good uniformity over a 7-inch diagonal diode. High purity CNTs can provide 656 µA/cm2 at electric field strengths of 5 V/micron. Figure 19 SAIT 32-inch CNT FED, IVMC 2002 The SAIT CNT technology programme was transferred from SAIT to SDI in summer 2003 and SDI continue to develop a 38-inch full colour CNT FED panel. The visit to the SDI Central Research Lab was very rushed and so it was not possible to gain additional information regarding their technology status and plans. However, they did confirm the potential to scale FED up to 80-inch diagonal. Advantages over PDP include a 30% lower manufacturing cost compared to PDP as well as lower power consumption. 26 They have tried various triode configurations for their devices – remote metal mesh grid, standard and undergate structures. Remote metal grids can extract up to 1 mA/cm2 current densities at 65 V on the grid and with a 35 V modulation voltage. During the question and answer session, Dr Lee confirmed such devices had an efficiency <10%. Standard gate structures have triode vias 10 micron in diameter with a 5 micron diameter photo-patternable CNT layer at the bottom of the via. In 2001 they were achieving 240 cd/cm2 with an anode voltage of 2 kV and a voltage swing of 70 V. However, they prefer to use an undergate structure as the 100-micron features are easy to fabricate. Early 7-inch devices delivered 270 cd/cm2 with an anode voltage of 3 kV, modulation voltage of 130 V and a duty cycle of 1/500. By 2002 they had achieved a FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Although the mission was met by a very high level delegation at SAIT it was not possible to determine the nature of the FED activities remaining at SAIT following the transfer of their CNT technology to SDI. Amongst the SAIT delegation was Dr Jong Min Kim, for many years almost synonymous with FEDs in Korea. Whilst we did not discuss the FED programme per se, we were subsequently told by Kyuha Chung, VP of Samsung Electronics, that SAIT are looking at CNT backlights for LCDs. We were told that they are also actively developing white LEDs for LCD backlight and that they estimate that the market in Samsung would be worth $3 billion and in Korea some $6 billion to $7 billion. Figure 20 PFE gate structure (top), Samsung undergate structure (bottom) uniformity of < +/- 15%. Their undergate structure (Figure 20) now delivers 1 mA/cm2 with turn on at ~50 V and a modulation voltage of 70 V. Anode voltage tests between 3 kV and 5 kV show the best brightness results were obtained using a 600 angstrom aluminised phosphor. 2003 devices are 38-inch diagonal 1,290 (RGB) x 768 undergated structures delivering 100 cd/cm2. Video images of this device were shown. On questioning, Dr Lee told the audience that remaining issues were life, spacers and low voltage driving. CNT prices are expected to drop from the current $50/g to $2/g in 2007. He would not be drawn on how many grammes of material would be needed per display. From Dr Lee’s presentation it can be seen that the current densities they can achieve in sealed devices are somewhat low and it must be assumed that with a brightness of only 100 cd/cm2 that they are also limited in their ability to operate at high anode voltage. Within LG Electronics and LG-Philips LCD they have both LCD TV and PDP TV flat panel activities (as well as the CRT activity in LGPhilips Displays). Taking a group perspective it is clear that LG feel that they have all of the market bases covered by their existing technology portfolio. LG-Elite is the Corporate R&D Laboratory for the LG Group. Dr SungTae Kim, Director of the Devices & Materials Lab in which their FED work is currently undertaken, was very forthright in his views on FEDs. In his opinion, as LCDs have got bigger in size and better in performance, and PDP quality is now acceptable for TV, he believes that the window for FEDs has closed. The LCD/PDP boundary will move up in size to 45-inch and 50-inch. They originally undertook research into tips and edges, switched to MIM with Hitachi, and then dropped this in favour of their current CNT activity. Their current dilemma is whether to kill the FED activity – which they seem to keep going because of the ongoing FED programmes at Samsung and Sony. He claimed that Samsung had uniformity issues associated with their CNT FED and that there were some vacuum issues, but efficiency was good. 27 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE A representative from Orion PDP attended the display presentations at the embassy and confirmed that neither Orion PDP nor their former parent company has any FED activity, the former Orion FED engineers having been transferred to an OLED project within Orion Electric. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) have pioneered an active matrix addressed FED using screen printed CNTs as the electron sources. They have reported a 3” diagonal display at SID in 2003 with 96 x 64 pixels with anode voltage of 400-500 V and a spacer height of 300 microns. The switch is an a-Si:H TFT and the tubes are single wall as the turn-on voltage is lower. The a-Si:H drivers are produced at the ADRC in Kyung Hee University (see later). The logic for using active matrix driving is that they do not need to make a triode structure but can drive a diode using the active matrix TFT to control the emission current. The approach requires four mask steps. Incorporating a ballast layer would need a further three deposition layers. However, they do suffer from instability and life problems, and their FED project will close at the end of 2003. They do not see a large market opportunity except for perhaps high resolution high brightness applications in, for example, medical markets. They commented that Canon-Toshiba is expected to manufacture 30,000 37-inch SCE FEDs per month from the factory that has recently been announced. The Advanced Display Research Centre (ADRC) at Kyung Hee University was established to provide a support facility for Korean and overseas industry – both large companies and SMEs. The laboratory can support materials, process and device development across display technology platforms – TFT LCD, AMOLED and FED with a 6-inch substrate capability. 28 As mentioned above they have collaborated with ETRI, having supplied the TFT for ETRI’s active matrix FED. They have also had a collaboration with California CNT FED start-up cDream, resulting in a colour 5.4-inch CNT sealed FED panel being demonstrated. This case study illustrates the value of such an infrastructure facility for the SME community. By collaborating with the ADRC, cDream were able to show such a device within a two year period and with a reported total investment of only US$3 million. The publicly reported investment into UK start-up Printable Field Emitters (PFE) was significantly larger than that needed by cDream, and it took PFE four years before they were able to show video images in a sealed panel. It is clear that the infrastructure and know-how existing at ADRC allowed cDream to develop quicker and with lower private equity investment than PFE. 3.3.1 Backlights for large LCD TV Somewhat to the surprise of the mission delegates, we heard from ADRC, Samsung Electronics and Iljin about the difficulty that large area LCD TV faces regarding acceptable backlight quality and that a FED backlight might be the solution to this. Current technology utilises cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) which incorporate mercury (Hg), and so may be an environmental issue for the future. However, this is not the case today. Also, as LCD TV goes to larger size, it becomes more difficult to achieve the brightness and uniformity levels that are needed. For large LCD TV, heating can be a problem and affect the liquid crystal performance. For mobile applications there are concerns regarding power consumption. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Samsung Electronics told the mission that they are looking at a white LED, waffle structure mercury containing plasma (a bit like a PDP lamp) and a FED backlight, this latter work being done in conjunction with Dr Jong Min Kim at SAIT. Professor Jin Jang at ADRC told us that a FED backlight for TV should have a brightness of 10,000 cd/m2, but there may be some phosphor life issues. In his view, LEDs are only suitable for smaller portable LCD applications. Figure 21 shows a standard FED structure for a TV application, but Iljin told us that they have just begun work on a CNT FED backlight. They were not prepared to discuss details of the project. However, they did tell the mission that they were prepared to look at other emitter materials and third party collaborations. Assuming that a FED LCD TV backlight system could be designed with acceptable performance (perhaps phosphor life rather than emitter degradation could be the limiting factor), we were told by Samsung Electronics that they expect to purchase some $3 billion of backlights per annum; LG-Philips LCD would require a similar amount. At present the price point for a 32-inch LCD TV backlight module including CCFLs, inverters and light guides is around US$300, with the price expected to come down by at least 50% over the next two to three years. Competition is from improved CCFL systems (contains Hg), white LEDs, inductively coupled plasma (ICP – contains Hg), waffle structure plasma (contains Hg). It is too early to say whether FED lamps could compete for the LCD TV backlight requirement but it is clear that there is a market need for an improved backlight technology, that the market will become very large, and that some major Korean companies believe that it is worthwhile to undertake R&D in this area. We recommend that UK companies and institutions involved in electron emitter, cold cathode and phosphor R&D should consider this opportunity. 3.3.2 FEDs: summary Figure 21 Iljin CNT triode structure Typical life requirements for CCFL backlights are 50,000 hours to half brightness, and CCFLs operate at efficiencies of up to 50 lumens per watt. This compares with typical cathodoluminescent phosphor efficiencies of around 20 lumens per watt at the anode operating voltages that might be needed (5 to 10 kV). Samsung has one of the world’s largest FED programmes for large area TV applications, but further work is still needed and therefore there are potential opportunities for collaboration in all areas of FED technology. SAIT continues FED R&D into backlights as a minimum and is probably still undertaking R&D into CNT FEDs for TV in support of SDI’s programme. 29 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE The Advanced Display Research Centre (ADRC) is open for collaboration with SMEs and could also act as a location to demonstrate UK display related academic research. Their 6-inch x 6-inch size capability coupled with AMTFT LCD, AMOLED and AMFED capability would allow the demonstration of new display technologies or materials at sizes that are large enough to convince major manufacturers of their validity. Backlights for large LCD TV might represent a large, closer to market business opportunity than large area FED TV. 3.4 PDPS All the companies visited seem to think that PDPs will meet the needs for TVs at sizes greater than that currently achievable using LCDs. Of course, as the LCDs get bigger (currently approx 55” diagonal), then the PDPs will lose the lower end of the market. LG Elite have recently announced a 76” diagonal full colour PDP with 800 cd/m2 brightness, a contrast of 1,500:1 and a depth of 86 mm. They would not comment on power consumption but did say that ‘burn in’ is still a problem, which makes PDPs much more suitable for moving image applications. They state that they feel that the boundary for PDPs with respect to AMLCD TVs is at present about 35-40” but this will move to 45-50” as time progresses and AMLCD TVs get ever bigger. The crossover point will be driven in the main by cost. LG in general favour PDPs and AMLCDs for large area and see no market for FEDs. Samsung SDI on the other hand indicated that FEDs are much more interesting for large area TVs because of potential manufacturing cost savings (60-70% of PDP costs). The other major interest in PDPs was in the pursuit of better phosphors with reduced ‘burn in’. 30 LG Chemical have a major interest in this aspect, and as part of the 21C Frontier Display programme they are trying to improve the MgO layer. They are trying to enhance the luminescent properties under vacuum ultrviolet (VUV) excitation and also to improve each of the colours. Red suffers from colour purity problems, green has poor decay time and needs a high discharge voltage, and blue suffers from thermal degradation and colour shift. Power consumption of course is also a worry, and one of their main aims in this programme is to reduce the current 500 W for a 55” screen down to 300 W for a screen >80” by 2012. 3.5 3D displays A number of Korean display manufacturers, universities and research institutes have lowkey research efforts into 3D display technologies. Particularly strong in publications has been the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), with interests in autostereo rear projection systems, lenticular systems and true holographic systems. Unfortunately we did not get to talk to them. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) were involved with the broadcasting of 3D TV during the last world cup and they demonstrated some of the footage on our visit. This was displayed on a traditional 3D projection system using two polarised projectors and polarising spectacles worn by the audience, such as can be seen in 3D shows at IMAX cinemas. This was found to be a very uncomfortable experience by some due to one of the projectors only working intermittently. Outside of the government funded institutes and universities it is only really the two big display manufacturers, LG and Samsung, who have any active programmes in 3D displays. The first of these reported at LG Elite that they had a small group working on 3D display technologies but unfortunately FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE they couldn’t give us any more information. Another branch, LG Philips LCD, reported that they were very interested in 3D but they weren’t actively working in the area. They noted that all the 3D displays they had seen had failed on user comfort and that this plus affordability had to be key drivers for the adoption of 3D displays. Samsung, on the other hand, were able to provide a little more information on their activities. Samsung Advanced Institute (SAIT) of Technology has an interest in 3D holographic displays but whether they have an active programme in this area was not clear. Samsung SDI had noted the popularity of the autostereo phone displays in Japan and they are developing their own equivalent switchable 2D/3D display to address the new market requirement. Samsung SDI is also investigating rear projection autostereo and have presented results from prototype systems at the SID‘02 meeting in the USA. Samsung Electronics appear to have no active 3D programme. As can be seen, the Korean display industry has some small-scale programmes in 3D display technologies. However, it is clear that their main interests lie in conventional 2D display technologies. Also, they are willing to respond when they see a market opportunity open up. are nice to read but the colour, quality and versatility cannot really compete with TFT LCD so they couldn’t see an obvious customer need (LG Philips LCD). LG Elite admitted to having spent a couple of years looking at electrochromic devices but decided they were not worth pursuing. They had also looked at electrophoretic but this can’t do video rate or colour. They said it was an issue of knowing what the application is. In their experience, consumers demand colour and moving images, which the electronic paper technologies can’t supply. However, they also volunteered that there may be niche markets. Finally, ETRI suggested that the cost of many of the electronic paper displays, like E-Ink, would be too high because of the required active matrix. ETRI set a target cost of about 1/10 of the current LCD cost. Ideally an A4 sheet of electronic paper would be rollable, display 200 dpi and sell for about $10. Some of the re-usable sheets onto which images can be ‘printed’ by a machine may yet achieve this target. 3.6 Electronic paper displays From Korea the only reports of electronic paper devices presented at displays conferences in recent years have been by ETRI. During the mission we discussed electronic paper technologies with the Korean manufacturers and it seems that none of them have active programmes in this area. Some of the representatives we met said that the low power aspects were good but colour is a problem (21st Century Display Research). Some said that displays like E-Ink 31 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE 4 OVERVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS 4.1 General impressions An immediate impression from both the embassy briefing and the seminar is that South Korea has achieved a coherent vision for development in the FPD sector. The coordinated activities of both government and industry sponsored research are ensuring that Korea maintains a competitive position with respect to this growth market. This vision encompasses a projection of current business, eg LCD TV, as well as other sector interests, eg PDAs, with planning out to 2012. They clearly are intending that their FPD developments are directed across a very diverse set of applications. The business focus is leading with large market opportunities. As an example, the FPD TV market seems likely to exceed US$100 billion in this time frame, and both manufacturing investment and committed government R&D funding is supporting the development of the capability. Over the past several years, South Korea has taken over as the major manufacturer of FPDs worldwide. Samsung have the largest flat panel market share globally, and the LGPhilips 20.1 UXGA LCD with copper busbars recently won the SID display of the year award for 2003. Both LG and Samsung have PDP capability in excess of 70” diagonal, and both recently announced >50” diagonal AMLCD TVs. They see the main competition coming from Taiwan and, no doubt in the near future, mainland China. As stated above, the South Korean government see FPDs as a major opportunity, and as an indication of their commitment have set up the 21C Frontier R&D 32 programme, a substantial part of which is directed to FPD technologies. This is coordinated from HanYang University and involves 26 companies, 5 research institutes and 10 universities. The project commenced in 2002 and is to run for 10 years with a total budget of US$185 million, of which $85 million comes from the government and the remainder from industry. The Advanced Display Research Centre (ADRC), set up in 2002 in Kyung Hee University, is a superb example of the commitment that government and industry are showing towards the rapid translation of novel concepts into prototypes. It also provides a centre for the training and development of skilled individuals. This facility, as well as serving as a training ground for future display professionals, provides the ideal incubation facility for several SMEs based on and around the university campus. From personal experience the mission leader can confirm that this Centre has been developed from a typical university research lab into an outstanding facility over a period of less than three years. Samsung and LG dominate, with Samsung especially impressive overall, but the LG picture quality is outstanding and they view themselves as the No 1 LCD manufacturer in the world. AMLCD TVs consisted of about 2% of the total market in 2003. Estimates by Samsung indicate that the 1.8 million AMLCD TVs shipped in 2002 will grow to 12 million in 2005, 22 million in 2007 and 56 million in 2010. They see the future market in AMLCD TVs in the 30” – 42” range. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE The investment in AMLCD is huge, with Samsung having a Gen 6 plant already on line, with Gen 7 (plate size 2.2 m x 1.85 m) planned for completion in 2004. LG have a Gen 6 ready to go later this year. LG-Philips quoted for all their LCD plant a yield >90%, which is due to their production facilities being housed in high quality class-100 clean rooms. We were assured that planning was being progressed to take LCD manufacture beyond Gen 9. The overall feeling is that Gen 7 may be the limit to manufacturing practicality but… Where do PDPs fit in here? All the companies visited seem to think that PDPs will meet the needs at sizes greater than that currently achievable using LCDs. Of course, as the LCDs get bigger (currently approximately 55” diagonal) then the PDPs lose the lower end of the market. Samsung and LG have totally divergent views on FEDs. Samsung are very supportive – hope to get their CNT based FEDs out into market in 2005 where they see the 45-50” size to be optimum. LG see no benefits unless the cost goes down significantly, then the power saving over the PDP and the cost saving over the AMLCD may make it attractive. There is a lot of interest in small molecule and polymer OLEDs in Korea. Samsung SDI are leading the way, as they are in production with passive matrix small molecule OLED displays and are demonstrating active matrix top emitting displays. Both Samsung Electronics and LG-Philips’ interest will be increased further if the use of a-Si TFT drivers is proved possible. Companies such as LG Elite and LG Chemical are working on small molecular OLEDs, with LG Elite reporting very impressive results. LG Chemical are now developing polymer OLED materials and also expressing interest in moving up the value chain and making simple displays. The Koreans seem to be reticent to acknowledge competitive threat from back projection or other LCOS schemes. There really did seem to be little observance of possible ‘disruptive’ propositions. It seems very improbable that such commercially aggressive and successful companies do not have a very good viewpoint upon the competitive threats. We therefore conclude that they were not prepared to discuss these matters with the mission. There is a general feeling of confusion in Korea as to why the UK, given their record of innovation in this area, has essentially zero manufacturing capability. Most of the companies visited, however, do have a very good appreciation of the R&D work ongoing in the UK, and many are interested in collaboration – some topics are highlighted in the next section. 4.2 Potential for collaboration We had specific invitations from 21C Frontier Display who have been directed to begin interactions with overseas centres of excellence. The implication was that the IP ownership for such projects would reside in Korea. ADRC also indicated that they would be keen to interact with anyone who has an original/novel idea that they would like to test using their facilities. In this case it was clear that they sought a more general set of collaborations inclusive of semicommercial prototyping. ETRI were also very keen to initiate overseas collaborative projects and already have several such interactions ongoing. As a consequence of the mission, several enquiries have already been received by the mission members. Indications of specific collaborative opportunities are provided at the end of each meeting note in Appendix D. 33 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE 4.3 Research opportunities for UK The mission team produced a series of questions that were sent to each organisation prior to our meetings. Based upon the answers to these questions and on the discussions we had during the meetings, the following topics came up as being the most important to concentrate upon over the next few years: 1 Novel process technologies – ink jet of special interest, large area – eg roll-to-roll or novel substrates. 2 Flexible displays in general – new organic materials needed, especially blue polymer, organic TFT, work needed on barrier layers, soft lithography, contact nanoprint etc. 3 Low temperature processing – alternative low temperature processes for a-Si:H and microcrystalline Si to improve stability, and novel low temperature routes to poly Si for large areas. 4 Large area glass.There must be a market here for eg Pilkington as Samsung move towards Gen 7 and LG to Gen 6. 5 Higher functionality on backplanes, die attach, higher mobility circuitry… 6 Although, apart from the push from Samsung, there seems to be little interest in field emission (FE) displays, there is undoubtedly a major interest in novel backlight technologies. Several companies are working on various alternatives, including LEDs etc, but those based on FE seem to be prime candidates, eg carbon based technologies for emitters for FE backlight units are being considered by several of the companies and labs we visited – Iljin are especially interested in collaborating in this area. 34 7 There is still much work to be done on optimisation of phosphors both for PDPs and FEDs and also for use in backlights – low voltage phosphors for FEDs of special interest. 8 3D displays – work at SAIT clearly indicated they were looking at data management and paradigms for achieving realistic 3D presentation. 4.4 Recommendations 1 A strong industry/academic partnership scheme should be set in place in the UK with a strategic goal of enabling demonstration of key technologies for future displays and manufacturing platforms. The key recommendation therefore from the mission is that a display prototyping facility similar to the ADRC at Kyung Hee University should be available in the UK. The benefit to universities and SMEs in being able to try out their ideas and to get very quick turnaround on a manufactured device, as opposed to having to build up their own manufacturing base, is immeasurable. 2 The UK should concentrate their efforts on flexible, robust, possibly organicsemiconductor based technology, and similarly support some of the paradigm challenging investigations, eg phase imaging (as opposed to amplitude imaging). Objective assessment of human factors in immersive displays, and engagement in the whole supply chain from materials through to systems engineering, should also be conducted. 3 We should encourage Korea (and indeed Taiwan) to send similar missions to the UK so we can sell our combined talents – UK Inc should be advertised as a package. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE 4.5 Suggestions for future missions 1 The seminar gave us a unique opportunity to present to companies we would not normally target, because we are all ‘bandwidth’ limited. In this report, most of these companies were not mentioned because we only visited a few of the major players during the rest of our visit. It therefore now behoves us (or UK Inc?) to follow through with these companies to ascertain their level of interest. 3 We think there is an opportunity for another mission in the very near term to concentrate on projection displays, with particular emphasis on LCOS. This technology has recently received a huge investment globally. 4 Given the pace of these evolving technologies, another mission should really be planned to occur at the end of 2004. Also, a mission to Taiwan, if possible, would be helpful. 2 Recommendations for future mission technology events: (i) We think the seminar day should finish with a couple of hours set aside to mingle and give the attendees the chance to meet the visitors in a more relaxed space and atmosphere. (ii) We also think the embassy should ask the attendees to complete a small questionnaire on their interests in the seminar, eg in our case FED, LCD etc display technologies. This would help with the follow up, as when there are 70+ organisations represented, only some can be followed up. (iii) For the visits, we think the main issue was time. It would be better to visit fewer companies but have at least three hours with each, preferably four hours. By the time the introductions and the presentations had been completed, there was very little time to ask questions. 35 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE 5 CONCLUSIONS This report has detailed the findings of a DTI funded Global Watch Mission to South Korea to study FPD technologies. The investment, effort and ongoing commitment to FPD technologies in South Korea is huge. The coordinated activities of both government and industry sponsored research ensures that Korea will maintain a competitive position for the foreseeable future. Opportunities for collaboration with Korean companies and research centres exist in several FPD areas. There is a general feeling of confusion in Korea as to why the UK, given their record of innovation in this area, has essentially zero FPD manufacturing capability. FPD missions to Korea (and Taiwan) should be held annually in order to build up closer interactions. 36 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Appendix A ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank Farida Isroliwala for the initial organisation within the DTI Global Watch service here in the UK and of course the DTI themselves for giving us all the opportunity of visiting such a diverse range of companies and research centres in South Korea. We are especially grateful to Mikyung Park, Youngsun Soh and Jim Thomson of the British Embassy in Seoul for all their help in Korea. We would also like to thank Prof Jin Jang of Kyung Hee University who helped in the organisation, and acted as co-chair for the seminar held on 9 December at the British Embassy. 37 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Appendix B MISSION MEMBERS Cambridge University Engineering Department Contact William Ireland Milne Position Head of Electrical Engineering Address Cambridge University Engineering Department Trumpington Street Cambridge CB2 1PZ UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 332757 Fax +44 (0) 1223 766207 Email wim@eng.cam.ac.uk Website www.eng.cam.ac.uk/research/div-b/index.html Professional qualifications BSc Hons in Applied Physics, Univ of St Andrews; PhD and DIC in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College, London Platform technologies Low temperature AMLCDs, FEDs Company description The Electrical Engineering Division of Cambridge University Engineering Department has a wide interest in flat panel displays including work on AMLCDs, 3D TV, field emission displays and OLEDs. They have over 20 years experience in the design and manufacture of a-Si:H TFTs and have worked on instability mechanisms in such devices when used as the switching element in AMLCDs. They also have ~25 years experience in the design, test and simulation of polysilicon based TFTs initially for use in AMLCDs and more recently for application as the drivers in OLED displays in collaboration with the Cavendish Laboratory and Seiko Epson. The Photonics group have >25 years experience in various aspects of liquid crystal display technology and recent appointments have meant that they now have a polymer/liquid crystal materials expert also on board. Currently they are involved in collaboration with Samsung on the application of carbon nanotubes for a novel flat panel display based on field emission. Cambridge Engineering Department is also the hub of the COMIT Faraday partnership, 50% of which is dedicated to flat panel display technology. Areas for potential collaboration AMLCDs, FEDs 38 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Printable Field Emitters Ltd (PFE) Contact William Taylor Position Director Address Printable Field Emitters Ltd Atlas Centre Chilton, Didcot Oxfordshire OX11 0QX UK Tel +44 (0) 1235 445959 Fax +44 (0) 1235 445960 Email bill.taylor@pfe-ltd.com Website www.pfe-ltd.com Professional qualifications BSc Physics, Manchester University; MBA, Durham University; Diploma in Electronics & Electromagnetics, Open University; Member of Chartered Institute of Marketing; Chartered Marketer Platform technologies Field emission displays Company description PFE is a venture capital funded developer of next generation field emission displays for large area consumer priced TV. The company employs 25 scientists and engineers in private facilities at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory close to Oxford. The company’s technology is based on a novel and strongly patented composite material that emits electrons at low electric field strength. The company has demonstrated video rate monochrome 5.7 inch diagonal devices that operate at 2,000 Cd/m2. However, the company’s target market is full colour HDTV at panel sizes greater than 30 inch. The technology offers the prospect of CRT viewing quality at selling prices equivalent to or lower than those for large CRT TVs (< $1,400 for 42 inch HDTV). The technology is suitable for manufacture on low capital cost plasma panel manufacturing lines – PFE has a licensing business model and is actively seeking development and manufacturing partners. Areas for potential collaboration Field emission displays 39 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Dow Corning Contact Dr Terry Victor Clapp Position Scientist Address 1 Dow Corning Cardiff Road Barry Vale of Glamorgan CF63 2YL UK Address 2 Cambridge University Engineering Department Trumpington Street Cambridge CB2 1PZ UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 332644 Email Tvc22@eng.cam.ac.uk Website www.dowcorning.com Professional qualifications PhD: Chemistry, University College Wales, Aberystwyth Platform technologies Liquid crystals, OLEDs & PLEDs, polymers, silicon-to-silica via all forms of silicon chemistry Company description Dow Corning Corporation is a multinational company developing, manufacturing and marketing silicon-based products and services for customers in virtually every industry, from electronics and personal care to automotive and textiles. The company pioneered the development of silicones – a diverse family of materials that combine the temperature and chemical resistance of glass with the versatility of plastics. Now entering its 60th year, it has maintained its position as global leader through innovation and its determination to help its customers succeed in their marketplace. Today, it offers more than 7,000 product and service solutions tailored to meet the exact requirements of its customers. Customer application and research facilities in seven countries help Dow Corning exploit the full potential of silicon atom technology and push the boundaries further, to offer new choices that are as dynamic as its customers’ needs. Dow Corning was formed in 1943 as a joint venture between Corning Glass Works (now Corning Incorporated) and Dow Chemical Company, which continue to own equal shares today. With more than 8,200 employees globally, it operates more than 40 manufacturing and customer service locations worldwide. Its headquarters are in Midland, Michigan, USA. 7,000 products and services are offered to its 25,000 customers. 40 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE R&D investment in 2002 represented approximately 6% of sales, exceeding the industry average. It holds approximately 1,600 active patents in the US and about 4,200 worldwide. Dow Corning’s sales for 2002 were $US2.61 billion with net income of $141 million. About 62% of the company’s sales come from outside the US. Dow Corning continually strives to be one of the most respected companies in the chemical industry for environmental, health, and safety performance, using the international Responsible Care® programme to guide its actions. Areas for potential collaboration Advanced LC, novel polymers, gels and elastomers, nanotechnology and supra-molecular sciences 41 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE QinetiQ Contact Richard Jonathan Miller Position Technical Leader Address QinetiQ Malvern Technology Centre St Andrews Road Malvern Worcestershire WR14 3PS UK Tel +44 (0) 1684 896099/895097 Fax +44 (0) 1684 896530 Email Aastill@qinetiq.com or Richard.miller@qinetiq.com Website www.qinetiq.com Professional qualifications PhD in Physics from Manchester University 1994, studying chrial frustrated liquid crystal phases. A member of the Institute of Physics, a Chartered Physicist, Committee for the British Liquid Crystal Society Platform technologies LCD physics: OLEDs, embossing, materials processing, LC surface physics, organic electronics, spatial light modulators, photonic materials and application technology, diffractive and adaptive optics Company description QinetiQ is Europe’s largest independent science and technology business. Profitable, growing, high technology company with approximately 8,500 staff. Turnover approximately £750 million - 80% for Ministry of Defence - Commercial work growing by 30+% per year Areas for potential collaboration LCDs, OLEDs, electrophoretic displays, photonics, SLM applications 42 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) Contact Dr Jeremy Burroughes Position Chief Technical Officer Address Cambridge Display Technology Greenwich House Madingley Rise Madingley Road Cambridge CB3 0TX UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 723522 Fax +44 (0) 1223 723556 Email jburroughes@cdtltd.co.uk Website www.cdtltd.co.uk Professional qualifications PhD: Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge Platform technologies Light emitting polymers, diode design, ink jet printing Company description Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) is a privately held company leading the research, development and commercialisation of polymer technology for flat panel displays, lighting and photovoltaics. CDT’s light emitting polymer (LEP) and dendrimer technologies are targeted for use in a wide range of electronic display products used for information management, communications and entertainment. Features include reduced power consumption, size, thickness and weight, very wide viewing angle, superior video imaging performance and the potential to produce displays on plastic substrates. To date, licences have been granted to Dai Nippon Printing, Delta Optoelectronics, DuPont Displays, Eastgate Engineering, MicroEmissive Displays, OSRAM, Philips, and Seiko-Epson. Based in Cambridge, UK, CDT was founded by Cambridge University and a seed venture capitalist in 1992 and has subsequently been through a number of investment rounds. In July 1999 the company moved premises in order to support a rapidly growing number of staff and to provide new chemistry facilities. At around the same time, a new investment round was completed that changed the ownership of CDT to the USA. With more than 120 employees globally, it has a head office in Cambridge, UK, a Technology Development Centre in Godmanchester, UK, and offices in both Japan and Taiwan. 43 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE CDT also has a joint venture with Ulvac, one of industry’s leading manufacturing equipment companies called Litrex. Litrex has developed ink jet printing tools using Spectra heads and proprietary drive per nozzle (DPN) technology. DPN not only allows droplet uniformity to be better than 2% (need better than 3%), but also allows droplet uniformity to be maintained as the head ages. Areas for potential collaboration 44 Ink jet printing, transparent cathodes, encapsulation, active matrix displays (a-Si and LTPS), constant luminance circuits FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Department of Trade & Industry Contact Hong-Hai Seeto Position International Technology Promoter – South Korea Address Pera Innovation Ltd Pera Innovation Park Melton Mowbray Leicestershire LE13 0PB UK Tel +44 (0) 7071 200 180 Fax +44 (0) 7050 685 361 Email hong.hai.seeto@pera.com Website www.globalwatchonline.com/itp Company description DTI Global Watch Technology Partnering is designed to facilitate international technology partnerships. The role of the International Technology Promoters (ITPs) is to provide direct assistance to UK companies in order to raise awareness of, and access to, technology based opportunities with the world’s leading investors in research and development. The programme assists UK companies in sourcing and acquiring overseas technologies or may involve the setting up of licensing arrangements or assistance in the early stages of a product, process or quality development programme. ITPs understand the social and business cultures of their ‘target’ country and so can help UK companies avoid many of the usual pitfalls and problems associated with international business ventures. There are currently a total of 16 ITPs focusing on various territories: Japan, North America, Europe, South Korea, China, Russia, Taiwan and Singapore. The ITPs are UK based but travel extensively and have experience of working in their focus countries across a wide range of industry sectors, along with the knowledge of the language and business culture. The ITP scheme is funded by the DTI and managed by Pera Innovation Ltd. Hong-Hai Seeto is a manufacturing engineering specialist with 20 years of international experience in technology transfer and product and process development with industry, particularly within small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). 45 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE With technical and research expertise in design, advanced manufacturing systems and information technology, he is well placed to focus on developments in these sectors in South Korea. Together with the Science and Technology team in the British Embassy in Seoul, he has developed comprehensive access points to all of the leading R&D laboratories of the Korean global corporations and government institutes, and the growing numbers of dynamic high tech venture companies. He also has professional interest in science and technology policy development – especially in technology transfer and SME innovation. His previous experience encompassed the development of entrepreneurship, commercialisation of research, university spin-offs and venture companies. These enabled him to build an extensive network of industrial and academic contacts in the high technology sectors in the UK. Hong-Hai Seeto was educated in Singapore and the UK, gaining his degree and postgraduate qualification in Edinburgh and London. South Korea’s strength in manufacturing is built on innovation and the ability to adapt new technologies to products and processes, thereby gaining competitive advantage in the world market. As a leading global player in a number of industrial sectors, South Korea has much to offer UK companies in terms of advanced technologies and best practice, much of which is often complementary to developments in the UK. 46 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Appendix C EMBASSY SEMINAR C.1 Flat panel displays seminar programme – Tuesday, 9 December 2003 UK Chair: Korean Chair: Professor Bill Milne, Cambridge University Engineering Department Professor Jin Jang, Kyunghee University Time Event 09:15 Registration & Coffee 09:45 Welcome address: British Ambassador, Mr Warwick Morris 10:00 Presentation by Dr Terry Victor Clapp, Scientist of Dow Corning Process Technologies and Advanced Liquid Crystalline Materials for the Next Generation Display 10:30 Presentation by Dr Sunghoe Yoon, Senior Manager of LG Philips LCD Technical Strategies for LCD TVs 11:00 Questions & Answers 11:15 Tea & Coffee 11:30 Presentation by Professor Bill Milne, Cambridge University Engineering Department Carbon Nanotubes for Field Emission Displays 12:00 Presentation by Dr Kyuha Chung, Vice President of Samsung Electronics FPD Industry and its Technology Trend 12:30 Questions & Answers 12:45 Lunch 13:45 Presentation by Dr Richard Jonathan Miller, Technical Leader of QinetiQ High Performance Display Development at QinetiQ 14:15 Presentation by Dr Jeremy Burroughes, Chief Technology Officer of Cambridge Display Technologies UK Organic Electronics and Opto-Electronics 15:00 Questions & Answers 15:15 Presentation by Dr Ho-Kyoon Chung, Senior Vice President of Samsung SDI Recent Advances in AMOLED Technology 15:45 Presentation by Mr William Taylor, Director of Printable Field Emitters Ltd Improved Printable Field Emitter Display with Hop-Plate for HDTV 16:15 Presentation by a representative of Samsung SDI on FED 16:45 Questions & Answers 17:00 Discussion 17:15 Chairmen’s Call to close the seminar 47 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE C.2 Seminar attendees No Title Name Position Company Tel 1 Mr Choi, Jun Young Chief ADP Engineering 031-737-9782 2 Mr Bae, Kyung Bin President ANS 031-666-5530 3 Mr Ban, Tae Gon Assistant Manager AVACO 053-583-8150 4 Mr Lee, Gab Hee President Bando 031-431-5001 5 Mr Park, Chang Jung CEO BNL-SOLUCOM 031-322-7788 6 Mr Shin, Dong Heon Assistant Manager BNL-SOLUCOM 031-322-7788 7 Mr Ha, Il-Doo Assistant Manager BOE HYDIS Technology 031-639-7308 8 Mr Kim, Eok-Su R&D Engineer BOE HYDIS Technology 031-639-8479 9 Ms Kim, Hyun Jin Associate BOE HYDIS Technology 031-639-6451 10 Mr Kim, Kwang-Ok Associate BOE HYDIS Technology 031-639-8334 11 Mr Lee, Jun-Ho R&D Engineer BOE HYDIS Technology 031-639-8479 12 Mr Song, Young-Suk R&D Engineer BOE HYDIS Technology 031-639-6961 13 Mr Kim, Chi-Young Assistant Manager BOE HYDIS Technology 031-639-8446 14 Mr Cho, Guk Hyeong General Manager Charm Engineering 031-330-8505 15 Dr Choi, Kyung Hee Deputy General Manager CLD 02-6090-2703 16 Mr Jun, Jae Ho Chief Research Engineer Daewoo Electronics 02-3270-5912 17 Prof Kim, Young Seop Professor Dankook University 041-550-3583 18 Prof Lim, Heung Bin Head of department Dankook University 02-709-2829 19 Mr Lee, Youn Geun Engineer Dongjin Semichem 031-350-5513 20 Dr Lee, Jong-Woo Researcher DPI Solutions 042-865-6911 21 Mr Koo, Ja Poong President EDIRAK 02-563-7963 22 Mr Jung, Han Chief Manager ED-Tech 02-738-2391 23 Ms Cho, Eun Soo Assistant Manager Eliatech 02-3019-8709 24 Mr Park, Jae Hong CEO Epion Corporation 042-864-2471 25 Mr Lim, Sung Kyoo CEO GLD 02-709-2979 26 Mr Park, Jae Yeon CEO Hanback 042-863-5570 27 Mr Hwang, Chanyun Assistant Manager Hankuk Electric Glass 054-468-1439 28 Dr Yu, SeGi Professor Hankuk University 031-330-4938 29 Dr Cho, Jae Eock Principal Researcher Hanwha Chemical 042-865-6698 30 Prof Kim, Hyoung June Professor Hong-Ik University 02-320-1625 31 Prof Kim, Young Kwan Professor Hong-Ik University 02-320-1646 32 Ms Jeon, Ae Kyung Engineer Hyundai LCD 031-639-8323 33 Mr Kim, Sun Woong Associate Engineer Hyundai LCD 031-639-8323 34 Dr Roh, Byeong Gyu Senior Engineer Hyundai LCD 031-639-9323 35 Mr Kim, Hyung Soo CEO IA Korea 02-578-3523 48 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE No Title Name Position Company Tel 36 Yeo, Jeong Beom Director ICD 031-217-7141 Mr (Crispim) 37 Dr Park, Hee-Dong Director IDRC 02-2299-1857 38 Mr Han, Sang Woan Managing Director International Technology 02-461-2181 39 Mr Seo, Jae-Hong Manager JSR Corp 2112-4565 40 Dr Jeon, Duk Young Professor KAIST 017-267-9752 41 Mr Ahn, Hee June Graduate student Keimyung University 053-580-5263 42 Prof Ha, Ki Ryong Professor Keimyung University 053-580-5263 43 Mr Jung, Keang Wook Graduate student Keimyung University 053-580-5263 44 Dr Lee, Sang Yong Executive Director Kodenshi Korea 063-839-2102 45 Mr Yoon, Kyoung Keun Project Manager Kolon Central Research Park 031-280-8586 46 Dr Park, Sooyoul Senior Researcher Korea Research Institute of 042-860-7666 Chemical Technology 47 Prof Jang, Jin Professor Kyunghee University 02-961-0270 48 Mr Jung, Chan Ho General Manager LED EXPO 02-783-7979 49 Dr Choi, Hyeon Senior Scientist LG Chem 042-866-2373 50 Dr Kim, Joon Hyung Senior Research Engineer LG Chem 042-866-2537 51 Dr Son, Se Hwan Programme Leader LG Chem 042-866-2534 52 Dr Son, Sehwan Programme Leader LG Chem 042-866-2534 53 Dr Han, Sangcholl Principal Research Engineer LG Chem 042-866-5916 54 Dr Oh, Byungdu Vice President LG Chem Ltd/Research Park 042-866-5900 55 Dr Lee, Young Chul Project leader LG Chemicals 042-866-5831, 56 Dr Hwang, Yunil General Manager LG Chemicals 02-3773-7194 57 Mr Suh, Myung Won Deputy Manager LG Chemicals 02-3773-3443 58 Dr Kim, Kwang-Young Group Leader LG Electronics 02-526-4745 59 Dr Kim, Sung Tae Director LG Elite 02-526-4857 60 Dr Jeong, Hyo-Soo Senior Research Engineer LG Philips 054-460-3326 61 Mr Koh, Nam Je Chief Senior LG Philips 054-460-3545 LG Philips LCD 054-478-5855 Research Engineer 62 Dr Yoon, Sunghoe Senior Manager 63 Mr Seo, Hyun Sik Senior Research Engineer LG Philips LCD R&D Center 031-450-7433 64 Dr Yoon, Chul Oh President MC Science 031-206-8645 65 Mr Lee, Kwon Assistant Manager Microeye 031-240-0394 66 Mr Moon, Hun Chan CEO Microeye 031-240-0393 67 Mr Lee, Choong Hoon CEO Modistech 02-3295-1552 68 Mr Lee, Byung Il Senior Director NEMO 043-279-6950 69 Mr Lim, In Gon CEO NEMO 043-279-6901 70 Mr Shin, Hyun Bae Senior Manager Next Instrument 031-379-7740 49 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE No Title Name Position Company Tel 71 Mr Su, Jee Young Director Next Instrument 031-379-7620 72 Mr Jun, Hyun Branch Manager Orbotech Pacific Korea 031-781-7123 73 Mr Cho, Joong-Hyeob Engineer Orion PDP 02-6678-8532 74 Mr Kim, In-Tae Chief Research Engineer Orion PDP 02-6678-8536 75 Mr Oh, Seung-Sik Engineer Orion PDP 02-6678-8539 76 Mr Kim, Jong Sam Senior Researcher PHICOM 02-3282-7082 77 Dr Kim, Kyung Chae Research Engineer Phoenix PDE 054-467-6630 78 Dr Kim, Kwan CTO Pixel Chips 02-552-9428 79 Mr Um, Gang-Ho Sales & Marketing Pixel Chips 02-552-9428 80 Mr Lee, Hon President PJ KODIVAC 02-3281-2451 81 Prof Lee, Kun-Hong Professor Postech 054-279-2271 82 Mr Choi, Jae Hyoung Q-Land 83 Mr Yu, Jin Seon Managing Director Rodel Korea 84 Mr Kim, Kyu Sik Research staff SAIT 85 Dr Park, Young Soo Project Leader SAIT 86 Mr Song, In Sung Research staff SAIT 87 Dr Kim, Joohan Senior Engineer Samsung 031-209-3633 88 Mr Chang, Young Jin Engineer Samsung Electronics 02-961-0688 017-336-0791 02-598-4881 031-280-9344 031-209-4870 89 Dr Chung, Kyuha Vice President Samsung Electronics 02-760-6015 90 Dr Jung, Jae Hoon Senior Engineer Samsung Electronics 031-209-7802 91 Dr Lee, Nam Seok Senior Researcher Samsung Electronics 031-209-3633 92 Mr Pae, Han Su Engineer Samsung Electronics 031-209-6479 93 Dr Park, Hae Il Senior Engineer Samsung Electronics 031-209-7887 94 Mr Ryu, Min seong Engineer Samsung Electronics 031-209-3490 95 Mr Shin, Keun Woong Assistant Manager Samsung Electronics 031-209-3040 96 Mr Son, ILL Kon Manager Samsung Electronics 031-209-3150 97 Mr Song, Jean Ho Senior Engineer Samsung Electronics 02-879-2284 98 Mr Kim, Sang-Won Senior Manager Samsung Fine Chemicals 02-772-1831 99 Mr Lee, In-Hee Senior Manager Samsung Fine Chemicals 02-772-1830 100 Dr Park, Hyun-Duk Executive vice president Samsung Fine Chemicals 042-865-3720 101 Dr Yoo, Jiuk Team Leader Samsung Fine Chemicals 042-865-3840 102 Dr Kwon, Jang Hyuk Senior Researcher Samsung SDI 031-288-4806 103 Dr Oh, Yoon Sik Senior Researcher Samsung SDI 031-288-4405 104 Mr Park, Tai Jun Staff Samsung SDI 031-288-4428 105 Mr Seo, Dong-Kyun Manager Samsung SDI 031-288-4456 106 Ms Yoon, Min Jae Assistant Manager Samsung SDI 031-28-4412 50 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE No Title Name Position Company Tel 107 Dr Lee, Chun-Gyoo Principal Researcher Samsung SDI 031-288-4709 108 Mr Jun, Hyung Jin CEO Semyung Ever Energy 02-443-6834~7 109 Mr Roh, Dong-Ho Director Shinsung Eng 031-788-9362 110 Mr Shin, Jung-Tae Team Manager Shinsung Eng 031-788-9362 111 Mr Yi, Jong Hoon CEO Silicon Image Works 02-554-4453 112 Dr Hwang, Yong Mo CEO SLD 02-2142-0405 113 Dr Park, Heui Jae CEO SNU Precision 02-877-3636 114 Mr Lee, Jae-Eun Senior Manager Sunic System 031-219-1105 115 Dr Soh, Ju-Won General Manager Sunic System 031-219-1106 116 Mr Kim, San Principal Engineer Tomato LSI 02-538-9171 117 Mr Park, Hyung Rae Principal Engineer Tomato LSI 02-538-9171 118 Mr Yu, Yeonyong Deputy General Manager Tomato LSI 02-538-9171. 119 Dr Kim, Soon Sik Managing director Toray Saehan 02-3279-1012 120 Mr Nam, Jung Hwan Engineer Viatron Technologies 02-2107-7025 121 Mr Oh, Moon-Suk Engineer Viatron Technologies 02-2107-7028 122 Mr Park, Franklin CSO Viatron Technologies 02-2107-7022 123 Mr Park, Wang Jun Engineer Viatron Technologies 02-2107-7023 124 Mr Ryu, sung Ryong Engineer Viatron Technologies 02-2107-7025 125 Dr Shin, Dong Hoon Senior Engineer Viatron Technologies 02-2107-7024 126 Prof Choi, Yong Sung Professor Wonkwang Univ 063-850-6349 127 Ms Khang, Hee-Jung Researcher Wooyoung 02-961-3552 128 Dr Woo, Hyung Suk Senior Manager Director Wooyoung 02-961-3551 129 Prof Sah, Jong-Youb Professor Yeungnam University 053-810-2574 130 Prof Noh, Myung Keun Research professor Yonsei Center for 02-2123-3889 Nano Technology 131 Mr Jeong, Dong Soo Manager Young Poong CMC 02-957-2488 132 Mr Kang, Shin Gook Dept Manager ZEUS 02-577-3181 51 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Appendix D MEETING NOTES 21st Century Frontier Display Research Group Place British Embassy, Seoul Date 8 December 2003 In attendance Dr Hee-Dong Park, Director Summary Dr Park is Director of the Display Group of the Ministry of Science and Technology sponsored 21C Frontier R&D programme – a ten year programme which began in 2002 with a total budget of US$185 million of which US$85 million is provided by government and US$100 million by private companies. There are 26 companies, 10 universities and 5 research institutes involved in the project. Their display effort is concentrated on three major technologies: TFT LCDs AMOLEDs PDPs TFT LCDs Reliability and colour filter technology is the main interest. Speed of liquid x-tal material is of interest but they do no work on backlight optimisation. Their roadmap for this technology aims towards cost reduction from the current $25/inch to $10/inch by 2010. One of their main drivers is production of low T polysilicon to enable system integration. Aiming for 300 dpi by 2010. AMOLEDs Material quality is still seen as being the main problem, and because of the blue lifetime problems with polymers they are concentrating mainly on small molecule material. A big effort is ongoing on organic TFTs – one of their biggest research interests. Currently their mobilities are lower than those obtainable using pentacene and they associate this with the fact that they are still in the development stage regarding material – they use their own and do not buy in from elsewhere. PDPs Their main drive here is to improve the MgO layer. They are aiming to upgrade the luminescent properties under VUV excitation. They are also trying to improve each of the colours. Red suffers from colour purity problems, green has poor decay time and needs a high discharge voltage, and blue suffers from thermal degradation and colour shift. Currently power consumption is a major worry but they aim to improve from the present 500 W for a 55” diagonal screen to 300 W for >80” screen by 2012. 52 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Although they have no major interest in FEDs they do have it on their roadmap. They are also carrying out basic research on white LEDs based upon InGaN and standard RGB phosphors or InGaN and down conversion phosphors. They see a $100 billion world market for flat panel displays by 2007. Mobile displays Notebook displays Desktop monitors TV displays Summary a-Si:H AMLCDs poly Si AMLCDs PDPs FEDs OLEDs e-paper Collaborations mid term up to 2007, TFT LCDs including LTPS based TFTs Longer term >2007, OLEDS will take over TFT LCDs TFT LCDs (with OLEDS taking over >2007 possibly) >40” PDPs will lead until 2006 (then AMLCDS may take over) 30-40” AMLCDs <30” is very much price dependent and difficult to predict strengths challenges good infrastructure good for small size displays large size capability movie capability speed power consumption limited speed large sizes/ uniformity power/resolution lifetime/uniformity lifetime/uniformity colour Contact Dr Park to discuss. He seemed keen to initiate collaborations with UK bodies 53 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE LG-Philips Place LG-Philips Research Centre Date 8 December 2003 In attendance Mr Budiman Sastra (CTO, Executive V-P) Mr Ki-Yong Kim (1st Group, Senior Engineer) Mr Chang-Dong Kim (2nd Group, Senior Engineer) Mr Woo-Nam Jeong (3rd Group, Senior Engineer) Mr Eui-Yeol Oh (4th Group, Senior Engineer) Mr Sung-Han Park, Manager, R&D Planning and Admin Summary They view themselves as the world’s No 1 LCD company. They will produce 10 million units this year which is equivalent to the output of the whole of Taiwan. They are currently producing in their Gen 5 facility with plate size of 1,110 mm x 1,250 mm. Gen 6 line with 1,500x1,850 capability is currently being built and will be on stream later this year. They see no problems in extending to Gen 7 and even Gen 8. In their research centre the pilot fab processes 300 x 350 plates with typical display size of 15” being used. They have a yield of >90%. Research effort is split into four groups: Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 TFT LCDs a-Si:H, LTPS research Cell/Optics, LC and LCD research Display quality, mechanical design and power management At present they are not working on FLC material as current speeds of ~10 ms is sufficient for current and immediate future needs. They may decide to investigate FLC in the future. They see no immediate or short term market for plastic backplane displays and no real advantage in flexible displays and have very little customer requirement. Their interest in AMOLEDs is from the drive circuitry angle. They still think that a-Si:H will win over poly silicon using compensating circuits or maybe using microcrystalline Si. A change in the tool set needed in order to utilise poly would not be acceptable to them as it currently stands. They think that 3D is still everybody’s ultimate dream but doubt whether there is (or will be near term) an affordable technology and user comfortable display. Collaborations 54 They currently interact with several universities, mostly in Korea, Japan and in the USA but also with Oxford University. Why should they interact with groups in the UK? What do we offer? FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE LG-Elite Place British Embassy Seoul Date 9 December 2003 In attendance Dr Sung Tae Kim, Director of Devices and Materials Lab Mr Heung-Kyu Suh, Manager of R&D Planning Group Summary Seemed to be the LG division that had the broadest view of the display market. OLEDs Main Interest is in OLEDs – both passive and active matrix displays. In 1998 they were producing 3.8”diagonal QVGA passive matrix. In 1999 they produced 8” VGA passive matrix and by 2002 they had progressed to 1.9” active matrix for cell phone applications. In 2003 they were producing top emission AM 3.8” diagonal displays for PDAs. All based upon small molecule materials. Currently their R&D effort is on both the material and drive circuitry. They are aiming to increase the efficiency of the emitter and improve lifetime. For the drive circuitry their main aim is to reduce power consumption. At present they are concentrating solely on a-Si:H TFTs and therefore are limited to top emission type displays. They are looking at both phosphorescent and fluorescent material but as the fluorescent material has the highest lifetime this is the one they are concentrating on for TV applications for which they need good quality a-Si:H backplanes. They are happy with the drive capability and only see instability as a problem. a-Si:H TFTs with mobility of 0.7 – 1.0 cm2V-1s-1 are OK. Their aim is to have a 96 x 64 full colour PM and a full colour AM 96 x 96 display for phone applications in Q1 2004. PDPs They have produced a 76” diagonal full colour display with 800 Cd/m2 brightness, a contrast of 1500:1 with a depth of 86 mm. In 2003 they were also producing 42” VGA and XGA, 50” XGA and 60” XGA displays. They did not respond to a query on power consumption for the 76” diagonal display but pointed out that ‘burn in’ is still the biggest problem with their PDPs which makes them much more suitable for TV applications.They feel that the boundary for PDPs with respect to AMLCDs for TV applications at present is 35- 40” and this will move to 45-50” as time goes by. This will be driven by cost. 55 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Others They have worked on FE displays for several years going from Spindt tip to MIM and most recently to CNTs as the electron sources. However they see no manufacturing/cost benefits for FEDs over either PDPs or AMLCDs for large area TVs. They did point out (as has also been mentioned by several other companies in this visit) that Toshiba/Canon will announce that they will complete a FED fab sometime in 2005. They have effort also on projection TVs using HTPS, DLP and LCOS. They are concentrating their efforts on improving brightness and contrast. They are clearly also working on systems and driver issues for all their display technologies. Collaborations 56 No indication of interest. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) Place Suwon Date 10 December 2003 In attendance Dr Jong-Min Kim, V-P and Samsung Fellow Dr Key H Kim, Executive Vice President and CRO Mr Park Yongo, Director Dr Byung-Ki Kim, Technology Leader, Mats and Devices Lab Mr Soyoun Park, Researcher, Global Collaboration Office Summary SAIT are a most impressive laboratory. They are the biggest private research institute in Korea. There are 950 researchers (10% of which are non-Korean – mostly Russian). Current annual budget is US$212 million. Parent company Samsung have 175,000 employees worldwide and have a current value of US$116.8 billion with net earnings last year of $8.9 billion. Samsung overall R&D investment is US$2.9 billion with 20,400 research personnel. They grew by 15% in 2003, and aim to repeat this in 2004. Research areas covered included digital, opto, nano/MEMS, energy and bio. We were given a briefing on all of these areas which unfortunately left little time for discussion on the main display areas which were of course our major interests. Nonetheless we were given every courtesy and the tour of their exhibition was most impressive although somewhat rushed. A screen displayed a simulation of a ‘girl-band’ dancing and this was a very impressive piece of pseudo-reality animation (rather after the style we would acknowledge Pixar or one of the other studios master of). This was interesting, but the real power was, that as a single user of this system, changing one’s viewing perspective relative to the screen, for example by crouching to look up, caused the image’s perspective to alter appropriately. All of this was achieved in ‘realtime’ and with a very high level of graphical fidelity. The rendering of the image, given its size and detail, must have been a phenomenal piece of signal engineering. We would estimate that in excess of 10 GB/s of data would be required, quite apart from some very elegant image processing to relate the viewer’s actions to an appropriate response from the system. It is possible that the full dataset was being accessed from stored frames, since otherwise the computational load would have been without reasonable platform capacity, but it nevertheless was stunning. The demonstration illustrated a converged computational and visual display system that presented a graphically compelling vision of what such systems are/will be capable of delivering. The discussions we held with a group of key technical people were much more enlightening… engineers’ discussions, one-on-one and in debate. 57 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE The exhibition is designed to impress with the depth and breadth of Samsung’s technology base and market penetration. The holistic message is that this is a company that has embraced the ‘Information Age’ and is driving to become a dominant force in every aspect of the delivery of products to a converged telecommunications and data communications marketplace. Digital In their multimedia lab they cover data compression and colour image processing. Communications and networking are another priority area, and user interface including both hearing and vision are also key. Opto/Photonics Lab The main interest here is in laser diodes and LEDs. The laser diode work is geared towards HD storage, displays and of course for telecommunications. The LED research is aimed towards displays and they have a special interest in backlighting for AMLCDs produced using their LEDs. They expect there will be a US$3 billion market in this area for Samsung alone and of order US$5-6 billion for Korea. Room lighting, and dashboard and indoor lighting in automobiles, are other application areas of interest for this technology. MEMS/Nano Energy Labs They cover all aspects of MEMS/NEMS. Fluidics and optical MEMS are a prime interest but inertial sensor work, RF MEMS (wide band and high isolation RF) and health applications are also high on their priority list. They also cover most aspects of materials and device research as applied to displays etc. They have major efforts in fuel cells, rechargeables, thin film packaging and polymers and other semiconductor materials for their various display applications. The core materials investigated are conjugated polymers, CNTs and LCs and they are also investigating nanodevices and novel patterning and processing techniques including screen printing and ink-jet, nano electro-magnetics, spintronics etc. Bio Work here is mainly on a combination of biochips, genomics and bioinformatics. Collaboration SAIT already has collaborative projects in place with over 120 universities and research institutes worldwide. Their New Innovation Team (NIT) was launched in 2002 to identify and fund innovative ideas globally. 58 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Samsung SDI Place Suwon Date 10 December 2003 In attendance Dr Ho Kyoon Chung, Senior V-P Mr Deok-Hyeon Choe, Principal Researcher Summary This was a very short meeting as we were trying to squeeze three meetings into one day. FEDs/PDPs They see definite markets for FEDs (in contrast to LG!) from large to small displays. They, in collaboration with SAIT, have produced a CNT based 38” FED and plan to scale up to ~80” diagonal because of power consumption savings. Interest in FEDs is because of potential cost saving (present estimate is FED will be 60-70% of PDP cost). They were asked if they felt that PDPs will survive against the growth of AMLCDs and they said that cost will always mean that there will be a market. The main benefit of FEDs versus the other two is that they will be the cheapest and have the lowest power consumption. AMLCDs Presently operating at Gen 6 level, and see no problem in expanding to Gen 7 with 2.2 x 1.85 m plate size. They feel that Gen 7 may be the limit to processability. They are interested in flexible substrates but need a better barrier layer and plastic substrate. OLEDs Concentrating on small molecules at this point but they are also trying to develop their own polymer materials. For large area applications they still see a-Si:H TFTs as the way forward but are worried about low performance and hence are also looking at LTPS alternatives. For their small displays they are using LTPS and 375 mm x 400 mm plates. They think for larger areas poly silicon uniformity is a technological problem and therefore there will be a solution in the longer term. 3D TV They have an interest in 3D and are focusing on mobile 3D displays and hope to then extend to larger sizes. They are convinced there is a future for 3D TV. Collaboration Specifically mentioned interest in novel barrier layers for flexible substrates. 59 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Samsung Electronics Place Suwon Date 10 December 2003 In attendance Dr Kyu-Ha Chung, Vice President Dr MunPyo Hong, Principal Engineer, Group Leader Mr Hyun Joi Kim Mr Woojae Lee Mr Ameen Safir Mr Jianpu Wang Mr J-H Choi Mr B-S Kim Summary This is essentially Samsung’s R&D centre for AMLCDs. AMLCDs They are currently operating a Gen 6 line (1,100 x 1,300 mm plate size) and ramping up a Gen 7 facility which will be ready in 2005 (this will be based on a new site to the north of Seoul close to the South/North Korea border in Tang Jung). Gen 7 line will be 52% larger than Gen 6 with plate size 1,870 x 2,200 mm. It will be oriented towards TV production – 22”, 26”, 32”, 40” and 46” diagonal TVs. Their product line at present chronologically is: Notebook Monitors/TVs 1999 12.1”-13.3”-15.0” 14”-15”XGA 17” SXGA 2001 15” UXGA 14.1” SXGA 30” XGA 2003 17” 22”-46” They see AMLCDs to be useful for all applications from 1” to 57” diagonal screens. Flat monitors will replace CRTs. Large AMLCD TVs will compete with PDPs at the 30”-50” size. In mobile applications, AMLCDs will compete with OLEDs (under 10’ diagonal). Technology trends Notebook PCs They are looking to produce displays with higher resolution, wider viewing angle and larger size: From 12 – 14.1” up to 15.4 – 17.1” XGA-> SXGA-> UXGA TN mode: PVA and IPS to improve viewing angle Monitors Aiming for >20” SXGA and UXGA and seeking higher performance for multimedia applications. At present, LC speed of order 16 ms with 72% colour gamut, and aiming for 7 ms with 80% gamut. 60 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Televisions Aiming for higher quality, lower cost (most important aspect from consumer viewpoint!) and larger size (>40” diagonal with higher resolution – full HDTV spec). Mobile displays Need higher resolution (200 dpi) and higher performance (65% colour gamut and 16M colours). Backlights They see next generation backlights will be based upon PDP-like lamps (Hg based?) If CNT FE based backlights can be made to work uniformly then there is a significant power consumption advantage Future displays Gen 7 line to come onstream with the aim to break the US$1,000 barrier for a 40” AMLCD sometime in 2005. At present, manufacture cost for a 40” TV is of order US$8,000. They estimate cost to build in 2005 for 32” will be $500, for 37” $750-800 and for the 40” $1,000. Presently such TVs sell at 5 x built cost. They predict that when companies like Dell and Seagate get into the market, the selling price will be 2.5 x manufacture cost. Presently a 42” AMLCD is approximately 1.9 times as expensive as a PDP to manufacture. Their best forecast is that this differentiation will continue to fall until in about 2006 they will be approximately equally priced. After 2006, PDP cost will remain essentially the same because of electronics cost but AMLCDs will continue to reduce in price. Collaboration Best potential for collaboration is in 3D, flexible displays and OLEDs. They have no interest in FE displays, seeing that as being done by Samsung SDI and SAIT. 61 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE LG Chemical Place LG Chemical Research Park in Daejon Date 11 December 2003 In attendance Dr Jong-Ki Yeo, President Dr Jin-Nyoung Yoo, Director, V-P Corporate R&D Dr Jeong Su Yu, V-P Information and Electonic Materials Dr Se Hwan Son, Pricipal Scientist, Organic Micro Prog Mr Tae Hyun Kwon, Principal Researcher, Info and Electronics Mats Summary Started in 1947 and is one of the oldest companies in LG.They had an annual budget of US$4.6 billion in 2002 with an estimated budget of US$5.3 billion in 2003 and global workforce of order 10,000. They focus on four major areas: Industrial Materials Performance Polymers (polycarbonates etc) Petrochemcials New Materials for IT and Electronics (since mid 1990s) 33% 27% 30% 10% Strategic goals They aim to increase the New Materials for IT and Electronics section to 30% of total by 2008. By that time they estimate a total annual revenue of $14 billion. R&D investment is currently running at 3% but by 2010 the aim is to invest 7% of internal revenue on research. Materials for IT and electronics Currently the focus is on low k dielectric materials for the semiconductor industry. For displays the main interest is in photosensitive material development, polariser optimisation, optical films and phosphors. For energy storage applications they are interested in Li-ion batteries, Li-polymer batteries and fuel cells.They see their major expansion in this area in organic TFTs and organic solar cells. Biocompatible materials are also of interest. In order for such new business ventures to succeed they need potential sales of >US$100 million within five years with at least a 15% return on investment. Other new areas they are beginning to pursue are new plastic substrate materials, improved phosphors for PDPs (they are not working on phosphors for FEDs), new small molecules and polymers. They say the lifetime of their new polymers is especially encouraging. They have also begun work on flat backlight lamps using OLEDs, but power efficiency at present is too low. They find also that shorts are still a major problem. Collaboration 62 There were no indications that they were interested in collaborations. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) Place Daejon Date 11 December 2003 In attendance Dr Bun Lee, Vice President Dr Soon Ho Chang, Director Dr Kyung Soo Suh, Team Leader (OTFT) Dr Jin Ho Lee, Team Leader (LTPS) Dr Yon Ho Song (Project Leader (OLED) Ms Hye Yong Chu, Project leader (FED) Summary They have 1,976 staff members of which 30% are at the doctorate level with a further 60% at Masters level. They cover a broad range on interests including nano-integration, bio, wireless, optical communications and IT components. The IT components work includes interest in displays, batteries and storage. They are looking at supercapacitor electrode technology, high ion conduction polymers with an aim of achieving high performance rechargeable batteries with 300 Wh/kg and 500 Wh/L by 2005 and 500 Wh/kg and 800 Wh/L by 2010. Storage aims are to increase from the present 100 Gbit/in2 nano-optical disc technology to Tb/in2 by 2010 using new technologies which are as yet undecided. Their main interest in the display area is in flexible displays but they also have a programme dedicated to FEDs. Flexible displays They have 40 research members including 20 PhDs working in this area. Work is ongoing in OLEDs (white OLED and top emission), electronic paper, organic TFTs, plastic back planes and LTPS (SLS) processes for flexible display applications. Currently they can produce 2” flexible passive matrix addressed PM OLEDs and white OLEDs with an aim to producing 3” AM flexible displays by mid 2004 with a 5,000 h lifetime @ 100 cd/m2 going towards 10,000 h @ 100 cd/m2 by 2008 for PDAs. Their core technology focuses on substrates, large area and high definition and high efficiency and long lifetime. As regards substrates they are looking at resins for plastic films, gas barriers and trying to solve water and oxygen permeability problems. Lithography trends are from the current photolith through to screen printing and thence roll-to-roll. They are also considering several OLED patterning techniques including RGB/shadow mask, white OLED with colour filters and PLED using ink jet. They cover most of the switching technologies, a-Si:H TFTs, LTPS and OTFTs. To improve efficiency and lifetime they are investigating novel materials, optimising interfaces and looking specifically at top emission. 63 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE They feel in the longer term that the polymer materials are a better bet and if the ‘blue’ continues to improve are convinced that polymers will overtake small molecules. FEDs They have pioneered an active matrix addressed FED using carbon nanotubes as the electron sources. They have reported a 3” diagonal display at SID in 2003 with 96 x 64 pixels with anode voltage of 400-500 V and a spacer height of 300 microns. The switch is an a-Si:H TFT and the tubes are single wall as the turn-on voltage is lower. However, they do suffer from instability problems. Collaboration They are very keen to initiate collaboration and already interact with 7 companies and 20 universities. Their current budget from government is US$8 million per annum. 64 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Iljin Date 12 December 2003 Place Seoul In attendance Dr TJ Shin, CTO of Iljin Diamond Mr HH Hwang, General Manager Business Development Mr YW Nah, FE and LC specialist Mr HJ Chun, Carbon and Coating Engineer Summary Iljin consists of 10 companies with interests as diverse as broadcasting, finance and investment, copper foil for PCBs and also efforts in diamond and carbon nanotubes. The Display group which employs 250 is part of Iljin Diamond which was founded in December 2000. In displays their interests span the driving circuitry, the optics, HTPS, LCOS, and CNTs. They concentrate on HTPS as they cannot compete with Samsung and LG in the LTPS market. Their other main interest lies in the use of carbon nanotubes as the electron sources in FE based backlights. HTPS/LCOS They are using their HTPS process in the manufacture of 0.9” XGA and 0.7” SVGA (their flagship products!) for projection displays using a micro lens arraying technique. They also use LCOS based devices in reflective mode. They use standard TN based LC material as the speeds they can achieve with these (1 ms) is sufficient for their requirements at present. They have also begun a joint venture (with whom they did not say) using LCOS for HDTV – due to be completed in 2005. FE backlights They also have a major effort in field emission but not for displays per se – the interest is in producing a uniform backlight unit based on CNTs (and other materials) as the electron emitter. They use white phosphors which is similar to that used in displays but needs a lower voltage and at present they buy them from Samsung and LG. They are also considering the use of this technology for room lighting but feel that there will have to be a significant increase in lifetime and reduction in costs before this is feasible. Collaboration They are interested in alternative electron source materials for their backlight and do currently fund several universities, most of which are in Korea. 65 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Advanced Display Research Centre (ADRC) Place Kyung Hee University in Seoul Date 12 December 2003 In attendance Prof Jin Jang, Director of ADRC Summary ADRC is a government funded research centre, which was opened in June 2001 to provide a display manufacturing and process service. Initial funding was for 5-6 years after which it has to be self-financing. US$10 million was given to build up the equipment base and US$1 million for the 300 m2 clean room. They have the capability of processing 6 x 6 inch glass panels through from the backplane depositions to the final display. Display systems currently investigated are TFT-LCD, AMOLED, E-Ink and FEDs. They offer a prototyping service for Korean SMEs and at present six start-up companies are based alongside the centre and use the centre’s facilities. AMLCDs As well as offering the standard a-Si:H TFT capability on glass they also have a plastic compatible process which has a maximum process temperature of 150 C. They have successfully produced a 2.26” diagonal flexible TFT-LCD using this process with resolution of 93 dpi (128 x RGB x 160). The substrate used was PES with a thickness of 0.2 mm. They are also currently working with a major US company to investigate the use of low k dielectrics in large area displays to enable high aperture ratio operation. Their polysilicon TFT effort is biased toward alternative LTPS processes. They were one of the first groups to investigate metal induced crystallisation (MIC) and using this process they produced polySi TFTs with field effect mobilities of 124 cm2V-1s-1, with a maximum process temperature of 500 C. They have also investigated sequential lateral crystallisation of a-Si:H using a Nd:YVO4 laser and have recently successfully produced arrays of poly Si TFTs on stainless steel backplates with mobilities of order 80 cm2V-1s-1. Organic TFTs 66 Thus far they have concentrated their efforts on bottom gate pentacene based TFTs. They get mobilities of order 0.4 cm2V-1s-1, which given that they are using 5 micron gate lengths defined by the source-drain contacts is quite impressive. FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Other displays They are working, in collaboration with Softpixel, on low T MIMLCDs, with a maximum process temperature of 120 C. Such a MIM array has been utilised in a panel 71.52 mm x 53.64 mm with a pixel number of 320 x (240 x RGB) using PES as the backplate and pentacene as the emitter. They are the group who produced the HT a-Si:H TFT array that ETRI use in their carbon nanotube based AM FED. Finally they also work on the low T deposition of CNTs (T <450 C) for CNT based FED panels in collaboration with a small company in California (cDream). Collaboration Prof Jin Jang indicated that they would be keen to interact with anyone who has an original/novel idea that they would like to test using the facilities available in ADRC. 67 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Appendix E GLOSSARY µA µm 2D 3D A AC ADRC AM AMLCD AMOLED Ar a-Si C CAGR CCFL cd CDT CIE cm CNT CRT CVD DBD dpi DTI ETRI FE FED FLC FPD g Gen HDTV He Hg hr Hz IC ICP IP IPS ITP 68 microamp(ere) micrometre (micron) two dimensional three dimensional amp(ere) alternating current Advanced Display Research Centre (Kyung Hee University, Seoul) active matrix active matrix LCD active matrix OLED argon amorphous silicon Celsius compound annual growth rate cold cathode fluorescent lamp candela Cambridge Display Technology (UK) Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage centimetre carbon nanotube cathode ray tube chemical vapour deposition dielectric barrier discharge dots per inch Department of Trade and Industry (UK) Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (South Korea) field emission field emission display ferroelectric liquid crystal flat panel display gramme Generation high definition TV helium mercury hour hertz integrated circuit inductively coupled plasma intellectual property in-plane switching International Technology Promoter (DTI) FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE khr kHz KIST kV LC LCD LCOS LED LEP LTPS m mA MEMS METI MgO MIC MIM mm Mo ms Ne NEDO nit ns OLED PC PDP PECVD PFE PLED PM PMLCD PMOLED Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 QXGA R&D RGB rms s SAIT SCE Si SID SLS SME kilohour kilohertz Korea Institute of Science and Technology kilovolt liquid crystal liquid crystal display liquid crystal on silicon light-emitting diode light-emitting polymer low temperature poly-silicon metre milliamp(ere) micro-electro-mechanical systems Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (Japan) magnesium oxide metal induced crystallisation metal-insulator-metal millimetre molybdenum millisecond neon New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (Japan) = 1 cd/m2 nanosecond organic light-emitting diode personal computer plasma display panel plasma enhanced CVD Printable Field Emitters Ltd (UK) polymer light-emitting diode passive matrix passive matrix LCD passive matrix OLED first quarter second quarter third quarter fourth quarter quantum extended graphics array research and development red, green, blue root mean square second Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology surface conduction emission silicon Society for Information Display strained layer superlattice small or medium enterprise 69 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE SMF STN TFT TN TV UK US(A) UV UXGA V VAN VUV W Xe XGA 70 small molecular materials supertwist nematic thin-film transistor twisted nematic television United Kingdom United States (of America) ultraviolet ultra extended graphics array volt vertically aligned nematic vacuum ultraviolet (1) watt; (2) tungsten xenon extended graphics array FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE Appendix F LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Tables 1 2a 2b 3 page 9 page 15 page 15 page 25 Leadership in LCD areas Status of global FED programmes – industry Status of global FED programmes – government Panel lifetime for bottom and top emission of Samsung SDI’s AMOLED display Figures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8a 8b 9 10 page 6 page 6 page 7 page 7 page 8 page 9 page 10 page 10 page 10 page 11 page 11 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 page 12 page 12 page 13 page 13 page 14 page 16 page 17 page 18 page 26 page 27 page 29 Total display module market FPD market FPD market by technology FPD market by application TV market by technology Samsung Electronics LCD TV manufacturing cost Cross section of AMLCD Passive matrix LCD Active matrix LCD Line by line addressing in AMLCDs Current density and light emission behaviour as a function of bias voltage for a LEP device Comparison of LCD and OLED viewing angle First active matrix OLED display 17-diagonal full colour ink jet printer LEP AM display Field emission display Broad area CNT emitters in triode structure PDP structure and operation 3D FPD based on the parallax barrier technique of Ives 3D FPD based on the lenticular array SAIT 32-inch CNT FED PFE gate structure (top), Samsung undergate structure (bottom) Iljin CNT triode structure 71 FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS IN SOUTH KOREA – PRESENT AND FUTURE 72 The DTI’s Global Watch service provides a suite of programmes dedicated to helping British businesses improve their competitiveness by identifying and accessing innovative technologies and practices. The suite includes: www.globalwatchonline.com – a revolutionary internet-enabled Global Watch service delivering immediate and innovative support to UK companies in the form of fastbreaking worldwide business and technology information plus unique coverage of DTI, European and international research and business initiatives, collaborative programmes and funding sources. Global Watch – the website’s sister publication, showcasing innovation in action. Distributed free to 20,000 UK high-tech organisations, the magazine features the latest technology developments and practices gleaned from Global Watch service activities around the world and now being put into practice for profit by British businesses. 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This includes staging high-level technology events with Russia, Japan, China and South Korea. For further information on the Global Watch service please visit www.globalwatchonline.com Printed in the UK on recycled paper with 75% de-inked post-consumer waste content First published in March 2004 by Pera Innovation Limited on behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry © Crown copyright 2004 URN 04/689