LA SID Chapter Hosts One-Day Conference on Selecting, Customizing Display Products

Each winter, the Los Angeles chapter of the Society for Information Display hosts a full-day workshop that focuses on a specific display-related topic. The usefulness of these conferences, which have featured LEDs, advanced television technology, consumer electronics, in-cell touch, and much more, can hardly be overstated. ID magazine’s own Executive Editor Stephen Atwood saves his notes from these conferences and refers to them for years afterward.

The 15th annual conference, “Selecting and Customizing Display Products,” will feature a discussion of different display materials, including LCDs, OLEDs, and microLEDs, along with their relative properties (luminance, contrast, viewing angle, etc.), environmental capabilities (withstanding shock, vibration, salt spray, etc.), and potential enhancements (night vision, touch, etc.). The event will take place, as it has since it was founded, at the Costa Mesa Country Club in Costa Mesa, California. The date is February 8, 2019, and the cost is $200 for approximately 8 hours of high-level display information you won’t find anywhere else. Among this year’s featured speakers are Rashmi Rao, head of Harman’s user experience unit, and Bob O’Brien, president of Display Search.

According to conference chair Larry Iboshi, the LA chapter conferences began in order to maintain the flow of display-related information for Southern California researchers at a time when Display Week was scheduled to take place on the East Coast (in Boston in 2005). The organizers scheduled the first conference to fall a few weeks after the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The chapter conference was such a hit that it has continued since then (with the exception of a one-year break), with participants from all over the country, and the world. “You will see an interesting mix of people here,” says Iboshi. “They come from Silicon Valley, the East Coast, and even Asia and Europe.” There are regulars who attend every year and also newcomers. “People will often tell us, ‘My boss’s friend told me I need to come to this conference,’ ”says Iboshi. The conference averages around 80 participants, with approximately 10 exhibitors. It is entirely organized by volunteers; Ken Werner of Nutmeg Consultants is this year’s program chair.

SID’s LA chapter is extremely active, which isn’t surprising given that SID itself was “born” in Los Angeles, at UCLA in 1962. The chapter holds monthly meetings with invited speakers covering a variety of topics. Recent presentations have included: “The Cinema in Flux” and “Embedded Cameras in Consumer Devices.” Iboshi notes that proceeds from the one-day conference go to scholarships for students who submit a paper to the Display Week Symposium. To register, visit www.sid.org/Chapters/Americas/LosAngelesChapter.aspx#6423269-conference.

SID Marks 25 Years of Display Industry Awards

The Society for Information Display is pleased to announce the twenty-fifth year of the Display Industry Awards, the industry’s most prestigious honor. The DIAs, which recognize the best displays, components, and applications introduced to the market during the previous calendar year, are announced and presented each spring at Display Week. The 2019 awards ceremony will take place on May 15 at Display Week 2019 in San Jose, California.

Back in 1995, the first year for the Display Industry Awards, the winning Display of the Year was Texas Instruments’ Digital Light Processing (DLP) Engine (a technology that is viable to this day) and the runner-up was Fujitsu’s 21-in. color plasma display. In 2018, the Display of the Year winners were Apple’s iPad Pro and Sharp’s 70-in. 8K LCD TV. This year’s winners will no doubt incorporate the next wave in state-of-the-art display materials and engineering.

In order to be a part of the DIAs, companies must nominate themselves. While submitting a nomination does not guarantee an award, not submitting a nomination guarantees that a company will not receive an award. “We hope to have the largest number of nominations ever this year, as we celebrate a quarter century of DIAs,” says Wei Chen, chair of the Display Industry Awards Committee.

Display Industry Awards are presented in three categories: Display of the Year Award, Display Application of the Year Award, and Display Component of the Year Award. There is no fee to submit a nomination. To nominate a product, component, or application for a 2019 Display Industry Award, download the appropriate nomination form from www.sid.org/About/Awards/DisplayIndustryAwards.aspx, complete it entirely (including supporting documentation), and send it to the contact noted on the form. The deadline for nominations is January 15, 2019.

Mark Your Calendar for FPD China

FPD China, an international industry exposition focusing on the display and touch-screen manufacturing chain, takes place March 20–22, 2019, in the Shanghai New International Expo Centre. The event is co-organized by SEMI and CECC. This year, in addition to its world-class keynote speakers, technology conferences, workshops, and trade exhibition, FPD China will feature forums on innovation and investment and emerging displays. The former will focus on investment opportunities in light of China’s new integrated circuit (IC) policy. The latter will investigate how companies are meeting demands that have arisen from AR/VR and AI applications, as well as 8K and flexible device technology. For more information, visit www.fpdchina.org. •