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Taiwan-based manufacturers anticipate Metalens adoption in iPhone 16

As smartphone camera resolutions continue to improve, lenses inevitably become thicker, impacting the weight of the devices. Market rumors suggest that Apple has been researching metalens technology over the past few years, with plans to initially use it to replace the plastic lenses in the iPad's Face ID system. Metalens technology could debut in the Face ID of the iPhone 16 Pro and flagship models as early as 2024.

Credit: DIGITIMES

Nvidia Is Ditching Dedicated G-Sync Modules To Push Back Against FreeSync's Ubiquity

Od: BeauHD
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Andrew Cunningham: Back in 2013, Nvidia introduced a new technology called G-Sync to eliminate screen tearing and stuttering effects and reduce input lag when playing PC games. The company accomplished this by tying your display's refresh rate to the actual frame rate of the game you were playing, and similar variable refresh-rate (VRR) technology has become a mainstay even in budget monitors and TVs today. The issue for Nvidia is that G-Sync isn't what has been driving most of that adoption. G-Sync has always required extra dedicated hardware inside of displays, increasing the costs for both users and monitor manufacturers. The VRR technology in most low-end to mid-range screens these days is usually some version of the royalty-free AMD FreeSync or the similar VESA Adaptive-Sync standard, both of which provide G-Sync's most important features without requiring extra hardware. Nvidia more or less acknowledged that the free-to-use, cheap-to-implement VRR technologies had won in 2019 when it announced its "G-Sync Compatible" certification tier for FreeSync monitors. The list of G-Sync Compatible screens now vastly outnumbers the list of G-Sync and G-Sync Ultimate screens. Today, Nvidia is announcing a change that's meant to keep G-Sync alive as its own separate technology while eliminating the requirement for expensive additional hardware. Nvidia says it's partnering with chipmaker MediaTek to build G-Sync capabilities directly into scaler chips that MediaTek is creating for upcoming monitors. G-Sync modules ordinarily replace these scaler chips, but they're entirely separate boards with expensive FPGA chips and dedicated RAM. These new MediaTek scalers will support all the same features that current dedicated G-Sync modules do. Nvidia says that three G-Sync monitors with MediaTek scaler chips inside will launch "later this year": the Asus ROG Swift PG27AQNR, the Acer Predator XB273U F5, and the AOC AGON PRO AG276QSG2. These are all 27-inch 1440p displays with maximum refresh rates of 360 Hz.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Innolux to reduce utilization rate by 5% in 3Q24 as panel demand decreases

Although Innolux just turned around in the second quarter of 2024, James Yang, President of the company, recently indicated uncertainties when looking ahead to the third quarter. Demand is expected to decrease, and Innolux's utilization rate will be reduced by about 5%. This slowdown in demand is anticipated to continue until the first quarter of 2025, with hopes for a surge in AI-related product replacements in 2025, leading to better notebook demand.

Credit: DIGITIMES

AUO charts new course: Focusing on smart mobility and vertical solutions beyond displays

Taiwanese panel giant AUO is undergoing a significant transformation to diversify its business and reduce reliance on the cyclical display panel market. The company is focusing on three core operating structures: smart mobility solutions, vertical solutions, and display technology.

AUO CEO Frank Ko. Credit: DIGITIMES

Steam Deck is getting official support for 1200p displays

A Valve developer has added code to the official Steam Deck GitHub repository that will bring native 1200p resolution support to the popular handheld console. That’s good news for anyone who purchased a DeckHD display. They’ll be fully supported by SteamOS once Valve pushes the update — no more third-party patches required. DeckHD was introduced […]

The post Steam Deck is getting official support for 1200p displays appeared first on Liliputing.

How LG and Samsung Are Making TV Screens Disappear



A transparent television might seem like magic, but both LG and Samsung demonstrated such displays this past January in Las Vegas at CES 2024. And those large transparent TVs, which attracted countless spectators peeking through video images dancing on their screens, were showstoppers.

Although they are indeed impressive, transparent TVs are not likely to appear—or disappear—in your living room any time soon. Samsung and LG have taken two very different approaches to achieve a similar end—LG is betting on OLED displays, while Samsung is pursuing microLED screens—and neither technology is quite ready for prime time. Understanding the hurdles that still need to be overcome, though, requires a deeper dive into each of these display technologies.

How does LG’s see-through OLED work?

OLED stands for organic light-emitting diode, and that pretty much describes how it works. OLED materials are carbon-based compounds that emit light when energized with an electrical current. Different compounds produce different colors, which can be combined to create full-color images.

To construct a display from these materials, manufacturers deposit them as thin films on some sort of substrate. The most common approach arranges red-, green-, and blue-emitting (RGB) materials in patterns to create a dense array of full-color pixels. A display with what is known as 4K resolution contains a matrix of 3,840 by 2,160 pixels—8.3 million pixels in all, formed from nearly 25 million red, green, and blue subpixels.


The timing and amount of electrical current sent to each subpixel determines how much light it emits. So by controlling these currents properly, you can create the desired image on the screen. To accomplish this, each subpixel must be electrically connected to two or more transistors, which act as switches. Traditional wires wouldn’t do for this, though: They’d block the light. You need to use transparent (or largely transparent) conductive traces.

An image of an array of 15 transparent TVs, shot with a fish-eye lens and displaying white trees with pink and green swaths of color above them.    LG’s demonstration of transparent OLED displays at CES 2024 seemed almost magical. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

A display has thousands of such traces arranged in a series of rows and columns to provide the necessary electrical connections to each subpixel. The transistor switches are also fabricated on the same substrate. That all adds up to a lot of materials that must be part of each display. And those materials must be carefully chosen for the OLED display to appear transparent.

The conductive traces are the easy part. The display industry has long used indium tin oxide as a thin-film conductor. A typical layer of this material is only 135 nanometers thick but allows about 80 percent of the light impinging on it to pass through.

The transistors are more of a problem, because the materials used to fabricate them are inherently opaque. The solution is to make the transistors as small as you can, so that they block the least amount of light. The amorphous silicon layer used for transistors in most LCD displays is inexpensive, but its low electron mobility means that transistors composed of this material can only be made so small. This silicon layer can be annealed with lasers to create low-temperature polysilicon, a crystallized form of silicon, which improves electron mobility, reducing the size of each transistor. But this process works only for small sheets of glass substrate.

Faced with this challenge, designers of transparent OLED displays have turned to indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO). This material has high enough electron mobility to allow for smaller transistors than is possible with amorphous silicon, meaning that IGZO transistors block less light.

These tactics help solve the transparency problem, but OLEDs have some other challenges. For one, exposure to oxygen or water vapor destroys the light-emissive materials. So these displays need an encapsulating layer, something to cover their surfaces and edges. Because this layer creates a visible gap when two panels are placed edge to edge, you can’t tile a set of smaller displays to create a larger one. If you want a big OLED display, you need to fabricate a single large panel.

The result of even the best engineering here is a “transparent” display that still blocks some light. You won’t mistake LG’s transparent TV for window glass: People and objects behind the screen appear noticeably darker than when viewed directly. According to one informed observer, the LG prototype appears to have 45 percent transparency.

How does Samsung’s magical MicroLED work?

For its transparent displays, Samsung is using inorganic LEDs. These devices, which are very efficient at converting electricity into light, are commonplace today: in household lightbulbs, in automobile headlights and taillights, and in electronic gear, where they often show that the unit is turned on.

In LED displays, each pixel contains three LEDs, one red, one green, and one blue. This works great for the giant digital displays used in highway billboards or in sports-stadium jumbotrons, whose images are meant to be viewed from a good distance. But up close, these LED pixel arrays are noticeable.

TV displays, on the other hand, are meant to be viewed from modest distances and thus require far smaller LEDs than the chips used in, say, power-indicator lights. Two years ago, these “microLED” displays used chips that were just 30 by 50 micrometers. (A typical sheet of paper is 100 micrometers thick.) Today, such displays use chips less than half that size: 12 by 27 micrometers.

A wooden frame surrounds a transparent display featuring an advertisement for a Black Friday Sale and a large image of a smartwatch. While transparent displays are stunning, they might not be practical for home use as televisions. Expect to see them adopted first as signage in retail settings. AUO

These tiny LED chips block very little light, making the display more transparent. The Taiwanese display maker AUO recently demonstrated a microLED display with more than 60 percent transparency.

Oxygen and moisture don’t affect microLEDs, so they don’t need to be encapsulated. This makes it possible to tile smaller panels to create a seamless larger display. And the silicon coating on such small panels can be annealed to create polysilicon, which performs better than IGZO, so the transistors can be even smaller and block less light.

But the microLED approach has its own problems. Indeed, the technology is still in its infancy, with costing a great deal to manufacture and requiring some contortions to get uniform brightness and color across the entire display.

For example, individual OLED materials emit a well-defined color, but that’s not the case for LEDs. Minute variations in the physical characteristics of an LED chip can alter the wavelength of light it emits by a measurable—and noticeable—amount. Manufacturers have typically addressed this challenge by using a binning process: They test thousands of chips and then group them into bins of similar wavelengths, discarding those that don’t fit the desired ranges. This explains in part why those large digital LED screens are so expensive: Many LEDs created for their construction must be discarded.

But binning doesn’t really work when dealing with microLEDs. The tiny chips are difficult to test and are so expensive that costs would be astronomical if too many had to be rejected.

A person wearing a white shirt with red text and a name badge is placing his hand behind a transparent display screen. The screen shows an image of splashing liquid and fire. Though you can see through today’s transparent displays, they do block a noticeable amount of light, making the background darker than when viewed directly. Tekla S. Perry

Instead, manufacturers test microLED displays for uniformity after they’re assembled, then calibrate them to adjust the current applied to each subpixel so that color and brightness are uniform across the display. This calibration process, which involves scanning an image on the panel and then reprogramming the control circuitry, can sometimes require thousands of iterations.

Then there’s the problem of assembling the panels. Remember those 25 million microLED chips that make up a 4K display? Each must be positioned precisely, and each must be connected to the correct electrical contacts.

The LED chips are initially fabricated on sapphire wafers, each of which contains chips of only one color. These chips must be transferred from the wafer to a carrier to hold them temporarily before applying them to the panel backplane. The Taiwanese microLED company PlayNitride has developed a process for creating large tiles with chips spaced less than 2 micrometers apart. Its process for positioning these tiny chips has better than 99.9 percent yields. But even at a 99.9 percent yield, you can expect about 25,000 defective subpixels in a 4K display. They might be positioned incorrectly so that no electrical contact is made, or the wrong color chip is placed in the pattern, or a subpixel chip might be defective. While correcting these defects is sometimes possible, doing so just adds to the already high cost.

A person looks at a transparent micro led screen displaying splashes of liquid in red, yellow, and green. Samsung’s microLED technology allows the image to extend right up to the edge of the glass panel, making it possible to create larger displays by tiling smaller panels together. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Could MicroLEDs still be the future of flat-panel displays? “Every display analyst I know believes that microLEDs should be the ‘next big thing’ because of their brightness, efficiency, color, viewing angles, response times, and lifetime, “ says Bob Raikes, editor of the 8K Monitor newsletter. “However, the practical hurdles of bringing them to market remain huge. That Apple, which has the deepest pockets of all, has abandoned microLEDs, at least for now, and after billions of dollars in investment, suggests that mass production for consumer markets is still a long way off.”

At this juncture, even though microLED technology offers some clear advantages, OLED is more cost-effective and holds the early lead for practical applications of transparent displays.

But what is a transparent display good for?

Samsung and LG aren’t the only companies to have demonstrated transparent panels recently.

AUO’s 60-inch transparent display, made of tiled panels, won the People’s Choice Award for Best MicroLED-Based Technology at the Society for Information Display’s Display Week, held in May in San Jose, Calif. And the Chinese company BOE Technology Group demonstrated a 49-inch transparent OLED display at CES 2024.

These transparent displays all have one feature in common: They will be insanely expensive. Only LG’s transparent OLED display has been announced as a commercial product. It’s without a price or a ship date at this point, but it’s not hard to guess how costly it will be, given that nontransparent versions are expensive enough. For example, LG prices its top-end 77-inch OLED TV at US $4,500.

A diagram of the structure of a display pixel represented as a grey rectangle, which frames an open area labeled transmissive space, and three rectangular blocks labeled R, G, and B. Displays using both microLED technology [above] and OLED technology have some components in each pixel that block light coming from the background. These include the red, green, and blue emissive materials along with the transistors required to switch them on and off. Smaller components mean that you can have a larger transmissive space that will provide greater transparency. Illustration: Mark Montgomery; Source: Samsung

Thanks to seamless tiling, transparent microLED displays can be larger than their OLED counterparts. But their production costs are larger as well. Much larger. And that is reflected in prices. For example, Samsung’s nontransparent 114-inch microLED TV sells for $150,000. We can reasonably expect transparent models to cost even more.

Seeing these prices, you really have to ask: What are the practical applications of transparent displays?

Don’t expect these displays to show up in many living rooms as televisions. And high price is not the only reason. After all, who wants to see their bookshelves showing through in the background while they’re watching Dune? That’s why the transparent OLED TV LG demonstrated at CES 2024 included a “contrast layer”—basically, a black cloth—that unrolls and covers the back of the display on demand.

Transparent displays could have a place on the desktop—not so you can see through them, but so that a camera can sit behind the display, capturing your image while you’re looking directly at the screen. This would help you maintain eye contact during a Zoom call. One company—Veeo—demonstrated a prototype of such a product at CES 2024, and it plans to release a 30-inch model for about $3,000 and a 55-inch model for about $8,500 later this year. Veeo’s products use LG’s transparent OLED technology.

Transparent screens are already showing up as signage and other public-information displays. LG has installed transparent 55-inch OLED panels in the windows of Seoul’s new high-speed underground rail cars, which are part of a system known as the Great Train eXpress. Riders can browse maps and other information on these displays, which can be made clear when needed for passengers to see what’s outside.

LG transparent panels have also been featured in an E35e excavator prototype by Doosan Bobcat. This touchscreen display can act as the operator’s front or side window, showing important machine data or displaying real-time images from cameras mounted on the vehicle. Such transparent displays can serve a similar function as the head-up displays in some aircraft windshields.

And so, while the large transparent displays are striking, you’ll be more likely to see them initially as displays for machinery operators, public entertainment, retail signage, and even car windshields. The early adopters might cover the costs of developing mass-production processes, which in turn could drive prices down. But even if costs eventually reach reasonable levels, whether the average consumer really want a transparent TV in their home is something that remains to be seen—unlike the device itself, whose whole point is not to be.

South Korean equipment makers set to benefit from BOE's 8.6G OLED plant construction in China

BOE Technology, the largest Chinese display panel manufacturer, is reportedly placing equipment orders for its 8.6-generation (8.6G) OLED panel plant under construction in China. Many South Korean equipment makers, including Sunic System, Avaco, Shinsung E&G, and DMS, are expected to benefit as potential suppliers.

Credit: AFP

Sharp to close world's first 10G LCD panel fab by September, spurring major customers to reassess supply partnerships

The world's first 10th-generation LCD panel factory, located in Japan's Sakai and operated by Sharp subsidiary Sakai Display Products (SDP), is set to cease production by September 2024. The impending closure has ignited industry concerns regarding how major customers, including Shenzhen MTC, Samsung Electronics, and LG Electronics, will reassess their supply partnerships for transferring orders.

Credit: DIGITIMES

TCL CSOT and Huawei showcasing tri-fold technology at Display Week event

TCL CSOT recently showcased its 7.85-inch tri-fold flexible OLED and other technologies at the Display Week 2024 event organized by the Society of Information Display (SID) in San Jose, California. TCL CSOT exhibited over 40 different panel products, spanning smartphones, tablets, notebooks, automotive displays, TVs, and medical devices. Among these, their printed OLED and flexible OLED technologies received the most attention.

Credit: AFP

VESA Rolls Out DisplayHDR 1.2 Spec: Adding Color Accuracy, Black Crush, & Wide-Color Gamuts For All

VESA this morning is taking the wraps off of the next iteration of its DisplayHDR monitor certification standard, DisplayHDR 1.2. Designed to raise the bar on display quality, the updated DisplayHDR conformance test suite imposes new luminance, color gamut, and color accuracy requirements that extend across the entire spectrum of DisplayHDR tiers – including the entry-level DisplayHDR 400 tier. With vendors able to begin certifying displays for the new standard immediately, the display technology group is aiming to address the advancements in the display technology market over the last several years, while enticing display manufacturers to make use of them to deliver better desktop and laptop displays than before.

Altogether, the DisplayHDR 1.2 is easily the biggest update to the standard since it launched in 2017, and in many respects the first significant overhaul to the standard since that time as well. DisplayHDR 1.2 doesn’t add any new tiers to the standard (e.g. 1400), instead it’s all about increasing and/or tightening the specifications at each of its tier levels. In short, the VESA is raising the bar for displays to reach DisplayHDR compliance, requiring a higher level of performance and testing for more corner cases that trip up lesser displays.

All of these changes are coming, in turn, after over half a decade of technology improvements in the display space. Whereas even the original DisplayHDR 400 requirements represented a modestly premium display in 2017, nowadays even sub-$200 displays can hit those relatively loose requirements as panels and backlighting solutions have improved. And even at the high-end of things, full array local dimming (FALD) displays have gone from hundreds of zones to thousands. All of which has finally pushed VESA’s member companies into allowing higher standards going forward.

LG set to outperform Samsung in iPad OLED panel shipments

Market research firm DSCC recently stated that for Apple's OLED iPad launched in 2024, LG Display (LGD) is expected to account for over 65% of the panel shipments, ahead of Samsung Display (SDC). Observers in the South Korean industry have raised concerns about Apple issuing rather harsh requirements, suspecting that Apple may be attempting to shift the "responsibility" of weak sales and shipments onto the South Korean panel manufacturers

Credit: AFP

VESA Rolls Out DisplayHDR 1.2 Spec: Adding Color Accuracy, Black Crush, & Wide-Color Gamuts For All

VESA this morning is taking the wraps off of the next iteration of its DisplayHDR monitor certification standard, DisplayHDR 1.2. Designed to raise the bar on display quality, the updated DisplayHDR conformance test suite imposes new luminance, color gamut, and color accuracy requirements that extend across the entire spectrum of DisplayHDR tiers – including the entry-level DisplayHDR 400 tier. With vendors able to begin certifying displays for the new standard immediately, the display technology group is aiming to address the advancements in the display technology market over the last several years, while enticing display manufacturers to make use of them to deliver better desktop and laptop displays than before.

Altogether, the DisplayHDR 1.2 is easily the biggest update to the standard since it launched in 2017, and in many respects the first significant overhaul to the standard since that time as well. DisplayHDR 1.2 doesn’t add any new tiers to the standard (e.g. 1400), instead it’s all about increasing and/or tightening the specifications at each of its tier levels. In short, the VESA is raising the bar for displays to reach DisplayHDR compliance, requiring a higher level of performance and testing for more corner cases that trip up lesser displays.

All of these changes are coming, in turn, after over half a decade of technology improvements in the display space. Whereas even the original DisplayHDR 400 requirements represented a modestly premium display in 2017, nowadays even sub-$200 displays can hit those relatively loose requirements as panels and backlighting solutions have improved. And even at the high-end of things, full array local dimming (FALD) displays have gone from hundreds of zones to thousands. All of which has finally pushed VESA’s member companies into allowing higher standards going forward.

LG set to outperform Samsung in iPad OLED panel shipments

Market research firm DSCC recently stated that for Apple's OLED iPad launched in 2024, LG Display (LGD) is expected to account for over 65% of the panel shipments, ahead of Samsung Display (SDC). Observers in the South Korean industry have raised concerns about Apple issuing rather harsh requirements, suspecting that Apple may be attempting to shift the "responsibility" of weak sales and shipments onto the South Korean panel manufacturers

Credit: AFP

PlayNitride collaborates with leading auto players as micro LED car displays approach mass production

Micro LED applications are expected to multiply in the coming years, especially in the automotive sector. Li Yun-Li, CEO of micro LED supplier PlayNitride, said customers will likely put the company's product into concept vehicles in 2025 and enter the design phase of volume-production cars in 2027. The adoption of micro LED solutions in EVs could progress faster than expected.

Credit: DIGITIMES

LGD's automotive P2P display is highly inquired as rumors about order from luxury car brand surfaces

After securing a 27-inch OLED display sale to Hyundai Motor Group's Genesis, LG Display (LGD) also reportedly received a large-sized LCD order from a foreign luxury car brand. This LCD order represents the longest size among LGD's automotive displays and is currently in preparation, with a target to officially begin mass production in the first quarter of 2026.

Credit: LGD

New Samsung display products follow in Galaxy S24's footsteps to embrace AI

After fully embracing AI with the recent launch of the Galaxy S24 series flagship smartphones, Samsung Electronics unveiled its new lineup of Neo QLED, OLED, and Lifestyle series displays in Taiwan on April 17, where it also emphasized the advantages of AI in improving display performance and color rendering. By offering a more complete product line, Samsung hopes to take a leading sales position in the high-end display market and maintain double-digit growth for large-size TV sales in Taiwan in 2024.

Credit: DIGITIMES

South Korean manufacturers secure all OLED panel orders for Apple's iPad Pro

Apple is set to launch a new generation of the iPad Pro as early as March 2024. The total supply volume of OLED panels is estimated to be 8.5 million units, and it will be fully supplied by South Korea's Samsung Display (SDC) and LG Display (LGD). However, the absence of Chinese manufacturers like BOE has certainly garnered some attention.

Credit: AFP

Taiwan LED makers see shipment pull-ins pick up

The demand for LED products is gradually warming up following a period of inventory adjustments in the market. While LED companies experienced a general decline in revenue for February 2024, they have been bolstered by steady demand in consumer and automotive applications. Ennostar and Everlight Electronics reported a double-digit year-on-year growth in cumulative revenue for January and February, with performance in the first quarter of this year poised to see year-on-year growth as well.

Credit: DIGITIMES

Coretronic kicks off production in its second Vietnamese factory; Product updates

As global geopolitical tension, economic instability, and persistent inflation affected the recovery of consumer products, Coretronic's shipments and revenue declined in 2023. However, the commencement of mass production at its second Vietnamese factory in February is expected to boost the business this year, and more significant growth is expected in 2025. Overall, since some of Coretronic's projects would only officially commence in the fourth quarter of this year, a stronger growth momentum is anticipated in 2025.

Credit: DIGITIMES

SDC and BOE submitted different price quotes for iPhone SE 4's OLED panel supply

Recent reports speculated that Apple might introduce its latest budget model, the iPhone SE 4, in 2025. It'll be equipped with the iPhone 14 OLED panel. Because the iPhone 14 OLED is considered a more mature product, Chinese manufacturers like BOE are expected to actively compete with Samsung Display (SDC) for the supply opportunity.

Credit: Apple

AUO's MicroLED displays enter supply chain of automakers

AUO is accelerating its efforts in MicroLED technology to secure a leading position in the next-generation display market. The company anticipates its automotive products to enter mass production between 2026 -2027. Industry sources reveal that AUO's clients in the automotive industry include major automotive manufacturers such as BMW, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz.

Credit: DIGITIMES
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