by Ken Werner and Alaide P. Mammana
A technical symposium with over 23 presentations, a roundtable discussion on the impact of displays on the media, and a "display school" with courses on OLEDs, measurements, and visual perception were just a few of the many highlights of LatinDisplay 2010/IDRC 2010, the premier Latin American event for displays and related technologies. It took place at the Pontifical University of São Paulo in São Paulo, Brazil, from November 16–19, 2010. This event was combined with the International Display Research Conference and was the first time the IDRC took place in the Southern Hemisphere.
The technical sessions began with Margarida Baptista of BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank) describing the economic and social situation in Brazil, which enjoys the leading economy in Latin America. The Brazilian government is offering incentives to foreign companies to form joint ventures with Brazilian companies in order to manufacture displays in the country.
The opening session included an overview of the socio-economic situation in Brazil. At the symposium, scientists from all over the world presented the latest advances in display technologies, display manufacturing, visual perception, TV, and 3-D TV. Technologies also discussed because of their direct relationship to displays were touch screens, solar cells, lighting (fluorescent lamps, LEDs, and OLEDs), organic electronics, and batteries, including their materials, processes, and equipment. Of the 23 invited lectures, the international breakdown was as follows: three from Brazil, nine from the U.S., six from Europe, two from Japan, one from China, one from Taiwan, and one from India. In addition, there were 42 contributed papers from all over the world.
Presentation Highlights
Presentations included several lectures and papers on 3-D TV (Nutmeg Consultants, Planar Systems, KIST, and LG), describing the display R&D community's concerted efforts to improve the performance of 3-D displays. Bernard Coll, until recently of Motorola, discussed frame- and service-compatible 3-D TV formats. He suggested that video processing can be used to advance overall perceived image quality and can improve viewer comfort by avoiding image-encoding artifacts.
Digital TV and video coding (Unicamp), video-quality estimation (University of Brasilia), and moving-picture quality (LG) were also discussed at LatinDisplay. Other lectures covered electrowetting displays (Liquavista and ITRI), advances in photovoltaics (Moserbaer), new reflective displays based on photoluminescence (H-P), electro-luminescent displays and new phosphors (University of Brunel), touch screens and e-ink (Multek), and the story of Pixel Qi.
Lectures on lighting included OLED lamps (Novaled and Philips), LEDs (Walsin Lihwa), and new lamp phosphors (Brunel University). Manufacturing was also addressed, with lectures from Birendra Bahadur (Rockwell Collins) on a display lamination technology and by Don Carkner (CH2M Hill) on LCD and OLED manufacturing.
Liquid-crystal displays were the focus of presentations given by Shunsuke Kobayashi (Tokyo University of Science) on LCDs doped with ferroelectric nanoparticles (he demonstrated a nice prototype), and papers on ferroelectric nanocomposites (University of Chile), blue phase (InfoVision Optoelectronics Corp. and CTI), row-to-row cholesteric LCDs (ITRI), and hexagonal and cellular structures in the nematic state (University of Córdoba). Researchers from several universities and from CTI presented papers on materials, processes, and nanotubes, while CTI also presented a new low-cost educational touch display.
LatinDisplay 2010, the premier annual display event in Latin America, was sponsored by the Brazilian government's Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), the Ministry of S&T (MCT), the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), and the Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development (ABDI).
Paul Gagnon, Director of North American TV Research for market research firm DisplaySearch, discussed the recovery of the flat-panel industry, but noted that revenues will probably peak in 2010, followed by a gradual decline. This is due in part to the fact that most TV sets are sold at a price of less than $500. He also revised his 3-D TV forecast for 2010, announcing that 3-D TV sets will comprise only 1.5% of all sets sold this year.
Richard Chang, founder of the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) in Shanghai, delivered an invited lecture on how the Chinese government is attracting high-tech industries to China. His comments excited considerable interest because many members of the audience felt the Chinese model could also apply to Brazil.
The Brazilian Association for Informatics (ABINFO) sponsored an award for "The Best Paper of LatinDisplay 2010/IDRC 2010." The winning paper covered the resolution and power-consumption benefits of four-primary-color displays, presented by Yasuhiro Yoshida from Sharp.
Exhibits, Special Meetings, and "Display School"
The exhibition was an opportunity for companies and R&D institutions to unveil cutting-edge developments for displays and related technologies by demonstrating prototypes and products. More displays and related devices have been exhibited in each succeeding year at LatinDisplay, with the exhibits attracting increasing attention from the media and the public.
The Display Escola (Display School), held November 19 on another campus of the Pontifical University, attracted about 35 attendees who came to learn more about OLEDs (course taught by Manju Rajeswaran from Kodak), measuring displays (by Adi Abileah, Planar Systems), and visual perception (Ingrid Heynderickx, Philips Research Labs and the University of Delft).
Business meetings held at the event provided a forum in which attendees could discuss trends and business opportunities in displays and related technologies in Brazil and all of Latin America. It was clear that interest in doing business in Brazil is accelerating, and Brazilians and non-Brazilians could be seen in earnest conversations during the meetings.
The roundtable discussion on the impact of displays on the media was moderated by Ken Werner of Nutmeg Consultants. This session was introduced by David Barnes (BizWitz LLC) with a lecture entitled "More Digital Revolutions." Having a non-technical roundtable was a change of pace, and it proved successful.
Details
LatinDisplay 2010/IDRC 2010 was organized by the Latin American Chapter of the Society for Information Display (SID), Associação Brasileira de Informática (ABINFO), and the Pontifícal Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC–SP). As an event of the Brazilian Network on Displays (BrDisplay), LatinDisplay 2010 is central to supporting the implementation of the Brazilian Industrial Policy [Política de Desenvolvimento Produtivo (PDP)] proposed by the Federal Government for displays and related technologies. Therefore, the event was sponsored by the Brazilian Government, with funding from BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank), MCT (Ministry of Science and Technology), ABDI (Brazilian Agency for the Industrial Development), and CNPq (National Research Council).
More details about LatinDisplay 2010/ IDRC 2010 can be found at http://www.brdisplay.com.br/latindisplay. •