The SID ?99 scene
George Kotelly Executive Editor
SAN JOSE, CA?An expanded Display Technology Showcase and the latest advances in electronic-display products, technologies, applications, and manufacturing received increased emphasis at this year?s Society for Information Display (SID ?99) International Conference, Symposium, and Exposition held in San Jose, CA, May 16?21. Record numbers were achieved in attendance (6604), exhibitors (255), and booths (402), making this year?s show the largest SID exhibition in the society?s history.
In the opening conference seminar, OElectronic Information Display Perspective,O Walter F. Goede, program manager, Air Combat Systems, Northrop Grumman Corp. (Pico Rivers, CA), summarized:
• the cathode-ray-tube industry continues to grow 5%?10%/year with about 260 million tubes produced during 1998 at a value of around $23 billion
• liquid-crystal displays are dominating in applications requiring flat-panel displays up to 20-in. diagonal
•Eac plasma displays have solved their color problems and are targeting large-diameter screen sizes of 42 x 50-in. diagonal for use in high-definition television
•Eac thin-film electroluminescent products are establishing markets in monochrome displays to 17-in. diagonal but color structures need more development
•Efield-emission display technology has been slowed down by fabrication and lifetime problems for sizes greater than 5-in. diagonal.
In his presentation, OOverview of the Global Display Industry,O vice president David E. Mentley of Stanford Resources Inc., a San Jose, CA-based market research firm, predicted that the worldwide flat-panel-display component market will total $17 billion in 1999 and grow steadily at a compound annual growth rate of 15% to reach $32 billion in 2005, with liquid-crystal displays being the overwhelming technology leader. As for new technologies, he commented that organic light-emitting diode technology is now the most actively explored new display under intense worldwide development, with more than 55 companies involved.
In its second year, the ODisplay Technology Showcase (DTS)O was, once again, the largest crowd-gathering show attraction. It enabled the attendees to evaluate the relative strengths of different display technologies via side-by-side comparisons. The displays were grouped in four broad categories-large video/graphic, high-definition video, desktop, and micro. They were all exercised simultaneously with the same test patterns, 24-bit full-color photographs, 24-bit scans of paintings, and DVD and HDTV video. Because the displays represented technologies and not products, no official judging was made. However, all of the large, 42-in.-diagonal displays seemed to draw more interest from the attendees than the smaller 12-, 15, and 18-in.-diagonal displays.
Surveying the DTS display technologies, I bestowed high grades to the Plasmaco Inc. (Highland, NY) PT-42P1, 42-in., color, 852 x 480-resolution, plasma display flat panel; the Silicon Image (Cupertino, CA) digital monitor controller mounted in a 15-in., color, 1024 x 768-resolution, flat-panel desktop monitor; the Sage Inc. (San Jose, CA) ASIC/board controller installed in an 18.1-in., color, 1280 x 1024-resolution, flat-panel LCD monitor; the Genesis Microchip Inc. (Markham, Ontario, Canada) gm72 scaling engine with digital input for all resolutions housed in a 15-in. LCD monitor; the Emco Electronics Ltd. (Camberwell, London, England) 12.1-in., color, thin-film-transistor, 800 x 600-resolution, MT120400 LCD; and the Arithmos Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) ADE2200 scaling engine mounted in an 18-in., color, flat-panel desktop monitor.
