This year's winners of the Society for Information Display's Honors and Awards include Dr. Jun Souk, who will receive the Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize for his pioneering work in the technology and product development of very-large-sized TFT-LCD TV panels; Dr. Tetsuo Tsutsui, who will be awarded the Jan Rajchman Prize for his pioneering contributions to OLED research, especially the insightful application of the micro-cavity effect in OLED devices; Mr. Adi Abileah, who will receive the Otto Schade Prize for his many outstanding contributions to the enhancement of the functional performance of displays, including contrast, brightness, viewing angle, gray-scale resolution, and stereoscopic imaging; Mr. Larry Tannas, who will be awarded the Slottow–Owaki Prize for his outstanding contributions to the education of students and engineers in the display field; and Dr. Webster Howard, who will receive the Lewis & Beatrice Winner Award for his outstanding and sustained services to SID.
by Jenny Donelan
ONE POPULAR VIEW of scientists is that they spend all their time working by themselves in their laboratories. While the individuals honored by the Society for Information Display this year certainly spent a great deal of time working in laboratories, they did not do so alone. Leadership, mentoring, and the ability to inspire others are traits common to this year's winners. One researcher in Japan not only made important OLED discoveries, but inspired other scientists to study OLEDs so that great advances in this area took place in that country. Another engineer and scientist, although he had a busy career, took the time to teach classes for a span of more than 30 years at UCLA Extension and in private industry so that thousands of people who might not have otherwise learned about display technology became exposed to it.
Leadership is a key ingredient for any display discovery to come to fruition. Consider this year's Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize winner, Dr. Jun Souk, who was working to create a large-area LCD prototype at a time when most people thought it could not be done. He had to convince a team to believe in the project and help him carry it out. It was not glamorous work. "At that time," he says, "the equipment for liquid-crystal and module assembly processes was not available; therefore, we processed them manually, one by one, by hand. The liquid-crystal vacuum-filling process took 5 days, and we obtained a few good panels only after numerous failures." Through persistent effort and the willingness to work together to accomplish difficult tasks, Souk and his team played a part in clearing the way for the LCD market we now take for granted.
The SID Board of Directors, based on recommendations made by the Honors & Awards Committee, grants these annual awards based upon outstanding achievements and significant contributions to the display industry. This year's winners should take pride in this prestigious acknowledgment of their tremendous accomplishments.
This year's Honor and Awards recipients will be honored by the Society for Information Display during Display Week 2012 at the annual awards banquet to be held on Monday evening, June 4, prior to the Symposium. Tickets for this event are available in advance only by registering at www.displayweek.org.
Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize
This award is presented for an outstanding technical achievement in, or contribution to, display technology.
Dr. Jun Souk, SID member and Engineer/ R&D Manager with Samsung Electronics, will receive the Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize "for his pioneering work in the technology and product development of very-large-sized TFT-LCD TV panels."
Dr. Jun Souk
In 2001, when Dr. Jun Souk and his team at Samsung Electronics introduced the first 40-in. TFT-LCD panel, 42-in. plasma displays were the dominant flat-panel TVs on the market and had only recently triumphed over CRTs. At the time, LCDs were not considered viablecandidates for large-screen TVs because of the inherent poor switching characteristics of amorphous-silicon TFTs and the poor conduction lines in TFT backplanes. In addition, the processing equipment for the fabrication of liquid crystals on a large area was not available.
When asked why he proceeded with the 40-in. LCD panel despite conventional wisdom, Souk says it was a case of practice versus theory. His practice came from long industry experience with TFT-LCDs. Theories about large LCDs at that time were based on simulations and calculations and not on field experience with large-scale panels. "I firmly believed that 40-in. and larger LCD panels would be possible and planned this project for many years," says Souk.
"A 40-in. LCD is not a big TV now, but it was huge at that time and stunned many people," says Ki-Woong Whang, a professor at Seoul National University. Moreover, the LCD panel delivered high image quality with a wide viewing angle, 16-msec driving speed, and 72% color-saturation level. According to Lambent Consultancy's Tony Lowe, "to make even a prototype display of such a large size was regarded as a very brave step because even small [LCD] panels were only just beginning to be manufacturable at prices affordable by the market. This was really brave pioneering work."
Souk's work was not only brave but far-reaching and represented a critical breakthrough in the ascendency of LCDs in the display marketplace. In related work, he also pioneered wide-viewing-angle technologies for LCDs and investigated new types of LCD modes such as in-plane switching (IPS) and patterned-vertical-alignment (PVA) technologies for LCDs.
Souk began his academic career at Seoul National University, where he earned degrees in physics. He went on to earn his M.S. degree in material science from Drexel University and an honorary doctorate in science from Kent State University. He served in the display field for over 25 years, from the early stages of TFT-LCD research at IBM Research Center to the work in LCD-TV technology development at Samsung Electronics. He has returned to academia and is now a professor at Hanyang University. Souk has also authored and co-authored over 60 papers.
Jan Rajchman Prize
This award is presented for an outstanding scientific or technical achievement in, or contribution to, research on flat-panel displays.
Dr. Tetsuo Tsutsui, SID member and Senior Vice-President of CEREBA (Chemical Materials Evaluation and Research Base) will be awarded the Jan Rajchman Prize "for his pioneering contributions to OLED research, especially the insightful application of the micro-cavity effect in OLED devices."
Dr. Tetsuo Tsutsui
Dr. Tetsuo Tsutsui has played a vital role in the development of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), both in terms of research and in developing researchers. In the early 1990s, his group at Kyushu University invented and developed many of the key design features used in current OLED technology. Tsutsui was the first to invent and demonstrate a multiple heterojunction device, using three organic layers, for electron transport, hole transport, and light emission. He was also the first researcher to recognize the importance of the photonic structure in terms of controlling the color of light emission and the efficiency of light out-coupling.
Tsutsui says that his group started its OLED research in 1983. "We had no clear prospect for display applications in those days, but observing light emission from organic semiconductors was quite new and fascinating." When asked why he was initially attracted to the study of OLEDs, Tustsui says, "The Japanese people have a traditional seasonal custom called Hotarugari. In early summer, people wander by the riverside after sunset, watching the fire flies in the dark, beautiful landscape. We love the natural light of living things, and perhaps also the natural broad-band light from organic molecules. I, and many other Japanese researchers, have certainly been very interested in producing artificial versions of natural lighting."
Tsutsui has shared his enthusiasm with others over the years. According to Ching Tang, the Doris Johns Cherry Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Rochester, "Dr. Tsutsui, as an early pioneer and educator in the OLED research field, was responsible for training many OLED researchers in his laboratory." Some of those individuals went on to become the leading researchers and engineers in the OLED industry. "Indirectly," says Tang, "Dr. Tsutsui has contributed to the first commercialization of OLED displays in Japan through the work of his students embedded in many Japanese corporations, including Pioneer, Sanyo Electric, and TDK."
Dr. Tsutsui received his B.S. degree in applied chemistry from Kyushu University and his Ph.D. in materials science from the same university. He was a professor and then a dean at Kyushu University for many years. He has published more than 200 original and 50 review papers and is now a Professor Emeritus at Kyushu University.
Otto Schade Prize
The Otto Schade Prize is awarded for an outstanding scientific or technical achievement in, or contribution to, the advancement of functional performance and/or image quality of information displays.
Mr. Adi Abileah, SID Fellow and Chief Scientist with the Technology Group at Planar Systems, will receive the Otto Schade Prize "for his many outstanding contributions to the enhancement of the functional performance of displays, including contrast, brightness, viewing angle, gray-scale resolution, and stereoscopic imaging."
Adi Abileah
Although Adi Abileah grew up in a family of musicians, and played the French horn in both the Haifa Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Broadcast Orchestra, he always knew he wanted to pursue a career in physics. He began his studies at the Israel Institute of Technion, where he earned his B.Sc. degree in physics and then went on to earn his M.Sc. degree in plasma physics from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Early in his career, he developed soil-mechanics density sensors based on gamma-ray reflections at the Negev Institute. He then worked at both Elscint (medical imaging) and Elbit (where he began focusing on avionics displays), then as the manager of the R&D Center of Electro-Optics Industries (EL-OP) in Haifa.
In 1987, he took a 1-year sabbatical at OIS (Optical Imaging Systems) in Michigan, USA, to learn about LCD technology, but ended up remaining there more than 10 years. He believes he was asked to stay because his background in avionics displays was helpful to the company. For his part, "OIS was a great place to learn about this type of displays – LCDs." After a year he became head of the optical group at OIS, where he developed. unique retardation film configurations for wide-viewing-angle AMLCDs. The work of his group also generated several structures used in avionics displays with special viewing-angle needs and yielded several patents. His contributions to backlight structures materialized when the patent was sold to 3M to make the brightness-enhancement film (BEF) used in many LCD products.
Abileah is notable not just for his research, but for his ability to mentor others. Says Sri Peruvemba, Chief Marking Officer at E Ink Holdings, "Adi Abileah has coached hundreds of hardware designers in the past two decades, resulting in better displays in numerous applications. Brian Schowengerdt, chair of the Display Systems committee of SID, says "Not only has Adi made direct and vital technical breakthroughs, he has also produced a powerful positive ripple effect in those working around him."
Abileah served at OIS until the company closed in 1998. Since that time he has worked at Planar Systems, where he is now Chief Scientist with the Technology Group. He has 34 U.S. patents, mostly related to displays and backlights, and has presented many technical papers and seminars at SID, SPIE, and OSA conferences.
Slottow–Owaki Prize
The Slottow–Owaki Prize is awarded for outstanding contributions to the education and training of students and professionals in the field of information displays.
Mr. Lawrence E. Tannas, Jr., SID Past-President, SID Fellow, and President of Tannas Electronics, will be awarded the Slottow–Owaki Prize "for his outstanding contributions to the education of students and engineers in the display field."
Lawrence E. Tannas, Jr.
Although he was trained and employed as an engineer and scientist, the career of Mr. Tannasdemonstrates that he is also an educator at heart. He has clearly felt that it was important to reach out and train the next generation of information-display experts. "During my entire professional career, I have enjoyed my years as an engineer doing R&D in electronic information displays. But, perhaps, I enjoy, most of all, teaching," says Tannas.
Relatively few courses exist in the U.S. for undergraduates and graduates in the art and science of information display. For the last 30-plus years, Tannas has labored to fill this gap, teaching over 100 courses over this time period for UCLA Extension as well as private industry. "There are probably over 1000 graduates of these courses," says SID Past-President Erwin A. Ulbrich, Jr. Working through the LA Chapter of SID, Tannas, past Chapter President and current Chapter Director, also set up a Student Chapter at UCLA. In addition, he and his wife, Carol, have endowed a Chair devoted to Electronic Information Displays that has been awarded to Professor Yang Yang of the Materials Science and Engineering Department of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA.
Tannas earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from UCLA. He worked on displays at GE Research Laboratories, Honeywell, Martin Marietta, Rockwell International, and Aerojet ElectroSystems before starting Tannas Electronics, a consultancy. He has been awarded 20 patents and patents pending and has developed and patented a successful, novel process to resizecommercial-off-the-shelf LCDs by cutting and resealing them for custom applications in avionics, digital signs, etc. He has also written/ edited two books and many technical articles and encyclopedia entries. The U.S. Government has awarded him a Certificate of Appreciation and Medallion for his pro bono services for DARPA, NSF, and the CIA. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and AIAA and other aircraft-oriented organizations, and as a private airplane owner holds FAA instrument, commercial, and flight instructor ratings. His flight-instructing years are consistent with his love of education.
Lewis & Beatrice Winner Award
This Lewis and Beatrice Award for Distinguished Service is awarded to a Society member for exceptional and sustained service to SID.
Dr. Webster Howard, SID Fellow, Jan Rajchman Prize recipient, and a consultant with Howard Consulting, will receive the Lewis & Beatrice Winner Award "for his outstanding and sustained services to SID."
Dr. Webster Howard
Dr. Webster Howard has served SID in different capacities for more than 25 years. Among these are Technical Program Committee Chair, IDRC; Program Chair, IDRC; Associate Editor for JSID for over 10 years; member of SID Honors and Awards Committee for 4 years; Overseas Advisory committee member for many international conferences for over 10 years; Program Committee member in the Active-Matrix LCD subcommittee and Chair of the OLED Subcommittee; and a member of the SID Executive Committee for 10 years, including president for 2 years.
According to SID Past-President Paul Drzaic, "Dr. Howard epitomizes the very best of SID in many ways. He has been a steady contributor to the Society, and he is generous with his time and advice. Moreover, he has great credibility in societies outside of SID as well, and serves as an ambassador for SID in this way."
Howard received his B.S. degree from Carnegie-Mellon University and his A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University, all in physics. He joined IBM as a research staff member and worked there for 12 years in semiconductor physics, including pioneering work on two-dimensional electron gases in Si inversion layers and on semiconductor superlattices. He later focused on display technology, managing projects in plasma displays, thin-film electroluminescence, CRTs, and thin-film transistor/liquid-crystal displays. The latter project led to the formation of DTI, the joint venture between IBM and Toshiba. After retiring from IBM, he worked at AT&T Global Manufacturing and Engineering and served as a consultant to the Display Research Department of AT&T Bell Laboratories. When AT&T/Lucent Technologies terminated its display activity in 1996, he joined eMagin Corp., where he led the development of a microdisplay technology based on organic light-emitting diodes on silicon. In 2002, he retired from eMagin as Chief Technology Officer and now serves as a consultant.
2012 SID Fellow Awards
Ho Kyoon Chung, "For his contributions to the development and commercialization of AMOLED displays." Dr. Chung is a professor with the Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology at Sungkyunkwan University. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Janglin Chen, "For his leading contributions to the development of hybrid plastic substrates for flexible displays and electronics and for the development of rewritable and reusable electronic paper." Dr. Chen is Vice President of ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute) and General Director of DTC (The Display Technology Center). He has a Ph.D. in polymer material from the Polytechnic Institute of New York.