The Society for Information Display Announces 2009 Display of the Year Award Winners
CAMPBELL, Calif. – (Business Wire) The Society for Information Display (SID), the leading global organization dedicated to the advancement of electronic-display technology, today announced the winners of the 2009 Display of the Year Awards. Considered the display industry’s most prestigious honor for commercial innovations of display technology, the awards are presented annually to products deemed to offer the greatest degree of technical innovation, commercial significance and potential for positive social impact.
To be considered for a 2009 Display of the Year Award, a product must have been available for purchase during the 2008 calendar year. The six winners will be honored at a luncheon on June 3, 2009, during Display Week – the SID International Symposium, Seminar & Exhibition – at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, May 31-June 5, in San Antonio, Texas.
“Today, more than ever, we are seeing an increase in demand for products that deliver sophisticated, new capabilities, enhanced performance and superior viewing experience while requiring less energy consumption,” said SID Display of the Year Committee Chair Dick McCartney. “This year’s winners exemplify these traits, as well as the impressive level of innovation that prevails in our industry, despite the challenging global economic environment.”
The winning products and a brief description of each are listed below. More comprehensive descriptions can be found in the May 2009 issue of Information Display magazine.
Display Device of the Year
Gold Award: Samsung 240Hz LCD-TV Panel
Samsung`s 40-in., 46-in., and 52-in. diagonal, full high-definition (FHD, 1920 x 1080) 240Hz LCD panels provide exceptional motion-image performance for LCD-TVs. While advances in LCD resolution, luminance, contrast ratio, viewing angle, color gamut and color depth have greatly enhanced LCD-TV picture quality, motion-image performance has been the "final frontier" for delivering the ultimate viewing experience. Samsung has answered this call, integrating an innovative pixel cell structure and driving architecture to enable true 240Hz. In Samsung’s 240Hz panels, a motion-estimation, motion-compensation (ME/MC) engine creates three interpolated frames for every one incoming frame. The three interpolated frames are inserted between every two incoming frames. Unlike other panels that use hybrid techniques, the new Samsung panels actually update pixel data 240 times per second. The result is that these panels overcome hold-type driving limitations inherent in LCDs and other matrix-addressed displays, delivering the best Motion Picture Response Time (MPRT) performance ever achieved in mass-produced LCD panels.
Vice President of Driving Technology at Samsung LCD, Nam-Deog Kim, noted, “Samsung is honored to accept this prestigious award from SID. Samsung`s 240Hz technology enables true-to-life reproduction of motion images by addressing various challenges related to picture quality, such as motion blur, which had persisted as a limiting factor for LCDs. Samsung Electronics will continue to stand at the forefront of the industry as a display technology leader through continuous research and development.”
Silver Award: Texas Instruments’ First-generation DLP Pico Chipset
Texas Instruments DLP Products’® first-generation DLP Pico™ chipset enables manufacturers to embed DLP projectors into various products such as cell phones, portable media players, notebook companions and other handheld devices for enhanced viewing on the go. DLP Pico technology allows users to project enlarged images, video, and Web browsing onto almost any nearby surface. The reflective nature of the mirrors on the DLP chip allows more light to reach the viewing surface, resulting in an amazing picture no longer bound by a screen at all. The combination of power-efficient LED illumination, coupled with DLP technology, elevates picture quality and reduces battery consumption.
Commenting on the company’s receipt of the award, Frank Moizio, manager of the DLP Emerging Markets Business for Texas Instruments, noted, “This is an enormous honor for Texas Instruments. With the development of the first-generation DLP Pico chipset, we wanted to take our value proposition of having the biggest images projected from the smallest box to new heights. Ultimately, we had to shrink the same semiconductor chip that enables much larger DLP projectors to a small enough size to fit inside contemporary mobile phones. What was once a vision over three years ago was finally brought to life in 2008, and today more than ten products based on DLP Pico technology have been announced. With the announcement of a WVGA Pico chip for handheld applications earlier this year, we look forward to seeing this new category expand in 2009 and beyond.”
Display Component of the Year
Gold Award: Corning Jade Glass for Advanced Displays
Corning Incorporated’s breakthrough Jade glass for advanced displays was specifically designed to address the high-end, feature-rich mobile device market. The fusion-formed glass with high thermal stability works with two key display technologies: low temperature polysilicon (LTPS) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Unlike conventional glass substrates, Jade needs no secondary heat treatment or polishing to meet the demanding surface and thermal stability requirements associated with LTPS and OLEDs. By permitting the tighter design rules needed for increased integration of electronic functionality onto the glass, Jade delivers key benefits to device makers – lower cost and increased design flexibility – and consumers – more compact devices with brighter displays, higher resolution, and longer battery life.
Remarking on the company’s award, James P. Clappin, president of Corning Display Technologies, noted, “In 2007, SID recognized Corning’s EAGLE XG™ glass as a breakthrough substrate for the TFT-LCD industry. This year, we are honored that SID has bestowed Corning with its second DYA Gold Award, this time for our Jade™ glass for advanced display. While much of the current market focus is on the overwhelming success of LCD TV, it`s the small device arena that historically has been a test bed for new technologies. Jade substrates provide LTPS-LCD and OLED manufacturers with the surface quality and thermal stability needed to successfully manufacture these high-performance displays. We are grateful to SID for continuing to recognize Corning for its innovative glass technology for the display industry.”
Silver Award: Merck PS-VA Materials
Polymer-stabilized vertical-alignment (PS-VA) LCD technology enables displays with very fast switching, high contrast and high transmission. This allows backlight brightness to be significantly reduced, prolonging battery lifetime in mobile devices and reducing power consumption in TV sets – making both of these products "greener." Lower backlight power, as well as the PS-VA-specific LCD-electrode layout, also provides a cost benefit to LCD makers. The PS-VA display principle was developed several years ago, and Merck was deeply involved in the creation of suitable materials from the beginning. Since PS-VA needs specific reactive mesogens liquid crystals, Merck`s long-running activities with regard to reactive mesogens for optical compensation films were an important basis for this development – from both a physics and a chemistry standpoint. Significant challenges had to be overcome in the field of materials as well as in the LCD panels, and only quite recently have PS-VA panels begun entering the market. In all cases, specifically developed innovative materials from Merck were an important key to the success.
Speaking on behalf of the company’s receipt of the award, Dr. Roman Maisch, senior vice president marketing and sales of the Liquid Crystals Division for Merck KGaA, noted, “Merck is very grateful to receive this important award from the SID. It recognizes our continuous contribution to developing new materials and new technologies, which enable our customers to maintain leadership in the flat panel industry. This success has been achieved on the basis of our close international teamwork within Merck and the constructive co-operation with our research partners and customers.”
Display Application of the Year
Gold Award: Amazon Kindle
The Kindle platform for electronic books (e-books) is revolutionizing Americans’ reading habits. The Kindle hardware device uses an electronic paper display, and users can download content from Amazon over its fee-free Whispenet in the proprietary Kindle format (AZW), as well as load unprotected Mobipocket (PRC, MOBI) or plain text (TXT) content. Reading material can be purchased directly through the Kindle or through a computer at the Amazon site’s Kindle Store. The device comes with electronic editions of its owner`s manual and the New Oxford American Dictionary. Currently, more than 275,000 books, plus newspapers, magazines and blogs, are available for the Kindle.
Silver Award: iZ3D 3D Gaming Monitor
The 22-in.-wide iZ3D monitor is designed for work in 2D and for single- and multiple-player gaming in 3D. It consists of a 2D/3D switchable display bundle that includes passive 3D glasses and stereoscopic 3D display drivers. Watching 3D movies and videos is also supported with the addition of a software stereo player. The monitor`s "iZ3D" technology uses the intrinsic electro-optical characteristics of liquid crystals to create stacked panels in which liquid-crystal material acts as a polarized light-directing valve. The LCD panels feature a 16:9 aspect ratio with 1680 x 1050 resolution, 300nits luminosity, and 5ms response time. The monitor works with all current graphic cards that have dual outputs. Currently, more than 300 electronic games are available in 3D, and new 3D movies are being released with growing frequency. The company`s future plans include producing larger iZ3Ds to help usher 3D into the consumer electronics market space and into the home.
According to Thomas D. Striegler, president and CEO, iZ3D, Inc., “iZ3D, Inc. and all its employees are extremely proud to receive this prestigious award from the Society of Information Display, a society of professionals who are experts in the development of display technologies and display products. Undoubtedly this award will generate for iZ3D additional attention in the 3D gaming and 3D home entertainment market segments, but with it I also expect the acceleration of 3D content generation for use in the home.”
SID’s prestigious Display of the Year Awards will be presented at a special keynote luncheon on Wednesday, June 3 at noon in Salon E of the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel. This year’s keynote speaker will be Tim McLaughlin, head of the Department of Visualization, College of Architecture at Texas A&M University. McLaughlin will bring a unique perspective to attendees based on his vast experience working on feature film projects, such as Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Jurassic Park 3, War of the Worlds, Men In Black 2 and several other Hollywood blockbusters. Specifically, he will speak on how entertainment technology development is driven by the need for creative expression. To this end, he will touch on technology of the past 30 years based on some of the works of George Lucas, James Cameron, and John Lasseter. McLaughlin will then delve into what types of technology today`s on-demand generations’ work will require. If you are interested in attending the awards and luncheon, tickets can be purchased for $35 through http://www.sid2009.org.
Display Week is the premier international gathering of scientists, engineers, manufacturers and users in the field of electronic information displays. For more information, visit http://www.sid2009.org.
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