In recent years we have seen flat screen TVs growing bigger and bigger and their capabilities continuously improved. Full high definition (HD) screen resolutions of (1920x1080 pixels) are now standard with many panel makers showcasing or announcing larger ultra-definition resolution screens. At the same time refresh rates are increasing, providing a better appearance of moving images and 3D TV.

Consumers today can choose from a large variety of huge screens providing extremely crisp and detailed images at very high refresh rates. Most recently, large OLED TVs have started to reach the market. However, fabricating these high-performance displays represent a big challenge to the panel makers since they need to figure out a way to drive all these pixels integrated on very large areas with sufficient speed and low power consumption.

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The display industry is in the middle of one of the most significant technical transitions of the last 20 years and it is also mostly invisible to the average consumer. It has all to do with the advances taking place in transistors – the electronic switches that control the display’s picture, providing clarity and crisp imagery.

Every pixel on your LCD screen is turned on or off by a transistor. The complete array of pixel transistors is known as a backplane, as you can see in the graphic. Clearly, the performance of the backplane directly affects the quality of the display for your TV, smartphones and tablet PCs. How fast the switch can be turned on and off refers to the refresh rate and the total number of pixels on the screen equals picture resolution.

Today, there are three backplane technologies, which we call amorphous silicon (a-si), low temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) and metal oxide (MO). If you are buying a TV, should you care what transistor technology is in it?

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Just this year, we have seen a virtual explosion of touch panel growth fueled by the world’s seemingly insatiable appetite for touch-enabled devices. It is hard to say whether this growth will be tempered or continue amidst the promise of even greater adoption of mobility devices and invention of new “must have” products. In either case, touch technology is now a permanent member of the flat panel display family.

I marvel at how the industry has evolved over the past few years. Three years ago, I had the opportunity to take a position as Head of our Web Products Group in Germany (the group that makes our roll-to-roll vacuum deposition tools). At that time we strengthened our focus on Flexible Electronics, looking at opportunities in flexible solar, displays, printed circuit boards and several different transparent conductor-based applications including touch screen elements. Ironically, the team had already been addressing this market for years, with sales of roll-to-roll sputtering tools for indium tin oxide (ITO) since the early 1980s, but it had remained relatively small and stable due to modest annual growth in resistive touch technology.

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The 2002 hit movie, Minority Report is the ultimate precursor for the use of touch panel displays today. As you may remember, Tom Cruise’s character is being blamed for a pre-crime that he has not yet committed and manages to stay one step ahead of the police using a multitude of touch panel displays as a control center dashboard with information at the touch of a finger.

Today’s reality is not so far removed from this promise of touchscreen technology. Smart phones and tablet PCs are the most prolific applications for touch panel today. A touch interface allows one to interact directly with a display without the use of a keyboard or mouse and is an enabling technology for the mobile display market which will have sales of around 60 million tablets and 500 million smartphones out of a total of close to 1.7 billion mobile phones in 2011 according to published reports. Almost all tablets and smartphones have touch displays, and touch panel penetration in conventional mobile phones will surpass 50% by 2014.

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It is likely you did not hear about the latest exploits of Charlie Sheen or the recent natural disasters from the evening news on television or from the newspaper. You probably did not buy Lady Gaga’s latest CD at a record store. It is more likely that you are participating in a new wave of information sharing – social networking and media downloading – these are driving demand for mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet PC’s . We refer to this latest shift as the “fourth wave” of demand expansion in the thin film transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT-LCD) industry.

The history of the cyclical expansion of the TFT-LCD display industry centers on the introduction of popular new display applications that were enabled by ever larger sheets of glass. The first wave being the laptop PC in the mid-1990’s; the desktop monitor in early 2000 and large area TFT-LCD TV’s in the mid-2000’s.

The fourth wave is driven by nothing less than the complete transformation of how we buy music; how we read books; how we get the news; how we watch video, television, movies; and how we socially interact with each other.

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