tv technology and digital signage issue

TV TECHNOLOGY AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE ISSUE

Official Monthly Publication of the Society for Information Display • www.informationdisplay.orgNov./Dec. 2013

Vol. 29, No. 6

Nov-Dec Cover_SID Cover 11/7/2013 7:42 PM Page 1

http://www.informationdisplay.org

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2 Editorial: With a Little Help from Our Friends n By Stephen P. Atwood

3 Industry Newsn By Jenny Donelan

4 Guest Editorial: Digital Signage that Captivatesn By Terry Schmidt

6 Frontline Technology: Considering Color Performance in Curved OLED TVsOne of the creators of the IDMS (Information Display Measurements Standard) takes the measure of the very latest large, curved OLED TVs. In this first article in a series, he looks at color performance. n By Edward F. Kelley

12 Frontline Technology: Developing a 110-in. 4K x 2K TVChina Star Optoelectronics Technology Company has demonstrated a 110-in. LCD TV that has an outstanding dynamic contrast ratio of 50000:1, ultra-high brightness of 1000 nits, high-saturated color reproduction, and a 288-zone local-dimming backlight. Manufacturing a high-definition high-quality TV in such a large size brings with it special manufacturing challenges.n By Li-Yi Chen, Yu-Yeh Chen, Hung-Lung Hou, Yuming Mo, and Chung-Yi Chiu

18 Frontline Technology: Novel Emissive Projection Display Digitizes Glass WindowsAn innovative emissive-projection-display (EPD) system consisting of a fully transparent fluorescent screen and a blue-light-emitting digital projector can be used for digital signage onthe windows of buildings or vehicles. The screen can be applied to any window withoutobstructing the view through the glass.n By Ted X. Sun and Botao Cheng

26 Display Marketplace: Public Displays in Europe (and Elsewhere)Public displays have been slow to make inroads in many European markets, although there havebeen pockets of progress. It is difficult to generalize about the digital-signage market in Europe,let alone the Middle East and Africa because every country is a market unto itself, with uniqueeconomic, cultural, and regulatory requirements. n By Bob Raikes

30 Regional Business Review: The Display Business Environment in Europe: Together but DifferentThis article, the second in an occasional series that looks at business environments around theworld, describes historical, economic, and other conditions that affect display companies doingbusiness in Europe.n By Jenny Donelan

34 Venture Capital Series: The Ins and Outs of Venture CapitalRaising venture capital funds is an exciting and often necessary step for your start-up. It’s alsofraught with potential pitfalls that could cost you your company. The third article in our venture capital series examines key terms used in investment deals and offers valuable insightsinto the venture capital business model. n By Helge Seetzen

40 SID News: Highlights from EuroDisplay 2013n By Ian Sage and Alasdair Campbell

48 Sustaining Members48 Index to Advertisers

Information Display 6/13 1

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013VOL. 29, NO. 6

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For Industry News, New Products, Current and Forthcoming Articles, see www.informationdisplay.org

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In the Next Issue ofInformation Display

Flexible Technology and NovelMaterials• Electrochemical Polymers for Touch

and Haptic Devices• Cutting-Edge OLED Materials

Development• Stretchable and Comformable

Displays• Displays from Nature• The Display Materials Marketplace • Monetizing Your Start-Up Equity

SIDSOCIETY FOR INFORMATION DISPLAY

TV TECHNOLOGY AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE ISSUE

Official Monthly Publication of the Society for Information Display • www.informationdisplay.orgNov./Dec. 2013

Vol. 29, No. 6

Nov-Dec Cover_SID Cover 11/7/2013 7:42 PM Page 1

Cover Design: Acapella Studios, Inc.

ON THE COVER: From top to bottom arethe LG55EA9800, a 55-in. curved OLEDTV from LG; the KN55S9CAFXZA, a 55-in. curved OLED TV from Samsung;and the 110-in. 4K x 2K 3-D TFT-LCDTV from China Star Optoelectronics Technology.

ID TOC Issue6 p1_Layout 1 11/10/2013 1:01 PM Page 1


With a Little Help from Our Friends

by Stephen P. Atwood

Here at Information Display we have been covering theslow but steady progress of OLED technology for morethan 8 years. In 2005, then editor Ken Werner stated that“Organic light-emitting-diode (OLED) display technologyis the only serious current challenger to the LCD’s hege-mony in small- and medium-sized displays….” It took afew more years for OLED displays to really penetrate the

mobile-display market, first as secondary phone displays and then as primary displays.By 2011, we were looking at 180 million units shipped and active-matrix OLED display revenues climbing above the $10 billion annual sales mark, as reported in theOctober 2011 Display Marketplace article, “OLEDs in Transition.”That’s still small potatoes compared with the total market for LCD mobile devices,

but it is significant from the standpoint of infrastructure investment, process develop-ment, materials and chemistry supply chain, etc. It’s also significant when you con-sider the substantial dominance of LCD technology and its relentless march towardhigher resolutions and ever-improving optical performance. It is hard to close the performance gap when the competing technology continues to improve in so manydimensions. It was also in 2005 that Samsung stunned the display world when it first demon-

strated a 40-in. prototype OLED TV. This breathtaking prototype used a white emit-ting layer with color filters and utilized amorphous-silicon (a-Si) TFTs in the activebackplane – at a time when many others were working on low-temperature polysilicon(LTPS). We learned later that a-Si was not going to be the best approach for OLEDTFTs, but the game was on in terms of defining the future for OLED as a competingtechnology for large-format TVs as well. And why not? Samsung demonstrated what we all anticipated that OLEDs had several intrinsic

performance advantages over LCDs owing to their nature as an emissive technology,including power consumption based on content, true black levels and very widedynamic range, tunable color spectrums, and very fast response times. OLEDs alsopromised advantages from a process perspective that would make any size panel easierto produce than an LC-based one. More TV prototypes followed, and Sony even com-mercialized a small-format 11-in. OLED TV. But the challenges of actually producinglarge volumes of any size OLED TV were daunting, and a lot of practical challengesremained even into 2009, as reported in ID by Barry Young in his article “OLEDs:Promises, Myths, and TVs” in the September 2009 issue. At that point, a-Si back-planes were out and oxide-TFT and LTPS backplanes were still in development. Ittook another 3 years before the first truly production-ready OLED HDTV demonstra-tions appeared at CES and Display Week. Those 55-in. wonders made true believersout of us all, even though their availability was still somewhat of a mystery. Well, here we are in 2013 and you can finally go to your favorite big-box retailer

and buy a 55-in. OLED TV for slightly less than $10,000. It’s a miracle! Well, actually it is more of a milepost in our industry now and the culmination of an unfathomable amount of work by countless industry experts and visionaries, somewho have graciously been helping us report on this technology for so many years.And so, as we approach the end-of-the-year shopping season, we thought it fitting toput the Samsung and LG 55-in. curved OLED TVs on our cover.

2 Information Display 6/13

Executive Editor: Stephen P. Atwood617/306-9729, [email protected]

Editor-in-Chief: Jay Morreale212/46 0-9700, [email protected]

Managing Editor: Jenny Donelan603/924-9628, [email protected]

Advertising Sales Manager: Joseph Tomaszewski201-748-8895, [email protected]

Advertising Sales Representative: Roland Espinosa201-748-6819, [email protected]

Editorial Advisory BoardStephen P. Atwood, Chair

Azonix Corp., U.S.A.Helge Seetzen

TandemLaunch Technologies, Westmont, Quebec,Canada

Allan KmetzConsultant, U.S.A.

Larry WeberConsultant, U.S.A.

Guest EditorsMaterials

Ion Bita, Qualcomm MEMS TechnologiesOLEDs

Ho-Kyoon Chung, Sungkyunkwan UniversityOxide TFTs

Arokia Nathan, University of Cambridge3D Trends

Nikhil Balram, Ricoh InnovationsTouch and Interactivity

Geoff Walker, Intel Corp. e-Paper and Tablets

Russel Martin, Qualcomm MEMS Technologies Lighting

Sven Murano, Novaled AG Novel Displays

Brian Schowengerdt, University of Washington Very-High-Resolution Displays

David Trczinski, Avid Digital Signage

Terry Schmidt, Christie Digital SystemsAlan Koebel, Christie Digital Systems

Contributing EditorsAlfred Poor, ConsultantSteve Sechrist, ConsultantPaul Semenza, NPD DisplaySearchJason Heikenfeld, University of Cincinnati

InformationDISPLAY

The opinions expressed in editorials, columns, and feature articles do not necessarily reflect the opinions ofthe Executive Editor or Publisher of Information DisplayMagazine, nor do they necessarily reflect the position ofthe Society for Information Display.

editorial

(continued on page 46)

ID Editorial Issue6 p2,46,47_Layout 1 11/9/2013 11:13 AM Page 2






http://informationdisplay.org/IDArchive/2011/October/DisplayMarketplaceOLEDsinTransition.aspx

http://informationdisplay.org/IDArchive/2009/September/OLEDsPromisesMythsandTVs.aspx

Lighting Exhibition FeaturesOLEDs and LEDsA unique exhibition under way in Germanyright now features lighting technologies basedon LEDs, OLEDs, and other materials. Inaddition to demos of state-of-the-art lightingdesign, including walk-in installations (Fig. 2),the “Lightopia” exhibition includes a mocklaboratory (Fig. 3) designed to explain the science behind LEDs and OLEDs. The showalso examines the historical role that lightinghas played in shaping human environments,including its environmental ramifications.Lightopia is taking place at the Vitra DesignMuseum in Weil am Rhein (Germany)through March 16, 2014. The exhibition issponsored in part by Merck, which developedmany of the materials used in the exhibits.

“Innovative lighting offers new applicationpossibilities, which require close collaborationbetween designers and manufacturers,” saysJolanthe Kugler, curator of the exhibition.After its run at the Vitra Design Museum,Lightopia will go on tour to other museumsthroughout the world.

Samsung/Cheil Industries toAcquire NovaledSamsung Electronics and Samsung affiliateCheil Industries have signed an agreement toacquire OLED technologies and materialsprovider Novaled in a transaction valuingNovaled at €260 million.

According to a press release from Novaled,1Cheil Industries, a leading display materialssupplier, will acquire a majority stake of

approximately 50% in Novaled. SamsungElectronics will acquire approximately 40%.


industry news


Fig. 2: The Lightopia exhibition at the VitraDesign Museum features walk-in installationssuch as this fluorescent-based work by artistCarlos Cruz-Diez. Image courtesy © CarlosCruz-DieIz & Adagp, Paris 2013.

Fig. 3: Merck contributed a mock laboratoryexhibit to Lightopia that was designed toexplain how LEDs and OLEDs are made.Image courtesy Merck.

Technicolor Offers Color and 4K Certification ProgramsThe Technicolor process for color motion pictures was invented in 1916. Since then, theprocess and the companies behind it have changed considerably, but Technicolor is stillsynonymous with state-of-the-art Hollywood technology. In a program designed to lever-age that cachet, Technicolor began partnering with color calibration software companyPortrait Displays last year to provide a color certification program for PCs and mobiledevices. More recently, Technicolor also began offering 4K image certification for 2K to4K image conversion (rather than to actual devices), supplying its first Image Certificationto Marseille Networks for its system-on-a-chip designed to deliver 4K TV content.

Technicolor’s color specification is based on software from Portrait Displays, which isdesigned to be used by OEMs to fine tune screens for color accuracy. The result should beconsistent color across all certified devices. The colors seen in movies watched on certi-fied laptops, tablets, and smartphones will match exactly those intended by the creators of the movies. The certification will also extend to online shopping – so you don’t buy ayellow sweater online thinking it is green, for example – and to videos and photos takenby consumers. Licensed OEMS will be able to offer the certification logos on their prod-ucts (Fig. 1).

Both the color and 4K device-certification programs were announced some time ago(the color one in 2012 and the 4K one last summer), but rollout has only recently begun,with the Toshiba BDX4600 Blu-ray player receiving 4K image certification.

Fig. 1: These logos will appear on color-certified devices.

ID Industry News Issue6 p3,45_Layout 1 11/9/2013 11:56 AM Page 3

Digital Signage that Captivates

by Terry Schmidt

What catches your eye enough to make you pause? As wedrive along a freeway, walk a shopping mall, or just hurrythough the airport to catch a flight, we are bombarded withhundreds of messages from advertisers every day. Whatconstitutes effective advertising? What messages, whattypes of displays, work best? Digital signage is a relatively

young market with a wide variety of applications, venues, and hardware. This makesglobal tracking of this industry very difficult, but the industry appears to be burgeoning.Dave Haynes is a co-founder of The Preset Group, which advises end users and

vendors on digital-signage projects. David says: “The digital-signage industry hasseen rapid growth in the last 2 or 3 years – after many years of ‘next year is going tobe the year this takes off.’ What finally made it happen was the reduction in the costsof large-format display panels, better energy efficiency, and slimmer bezels (theframes of these displays). What has also helped are much more ubiquitous and reli-able broadband, better video-compression technology (smaller file sizes), and a crazyamount of software providers, which has forced down costs.” Certainly, digital signage appears to be a multibillion dollar industry with healthy growth, from U.S.$1.3 billion in 2010, projected to grow to $4.5 billion in 2016 (ABI Research) and$13.8 billion in 2017 (Global Industry Analysts). Various building blocks of a digital-signage system encompass hardware such as

eye-catching displays, servers, and media players, as well as software to organize, distribute, and display. Ultimately, however, the success of a digital-signage projectboils down to the content and the content-creation software, which must satisfy thebusiness objectives and the ROI of the customer. Simplicity and low cost are the keysto widespread adoption. Also, matching the right display technology to the applicationis essential. Very-large direct-view LED displays can be effective for outdoor signssuch as roadside electronic billboards, but for closer viewing, high-resolution videowalls can be custom designed from stackable components that range from small rear-projection displays (e.g., Christie MicroTiles) to narrow-bezel LCD flat panels.New low-cost ARM-processor-based media players, HTML5 content-creation soft-

ware, and exciting new video-wall and projection-mapping displays are all contribut-ing to make digital signage a dynamic and exciting business opportunity. Recently,the support of rich content at relatively low cost is now possible with HTML5 onaffordable hardware. A notable example of this is the PiCube from Finnish companyFirstView Digital Signage, which is able to display full HD (1080p) video and imagesfrom a credit-card-sized single-board computer (the Raspberry Pi from the UK initia-tive of the same name). The media-player hardware itself is free; FairView charges amonthly subscription fee for an online account with associated services to manage thecontent However, the ability of digital-signage content to captivate an audience and effec-

tively transmit a message is greatly dependant on the display that is used. A number ofpromising new display technologies are in development and there are also advances inthe use of sensors to make digital-signage displays more interactive. Ted Sun of SunInnovations, who presented two interesting papers on his eye-catching, transparent-screen projection technology at Display Week 2013, has written an article for thisissue. He explains how this and other novel display innovations can be used to


guest editorial


SID EXECUTIVE COMMITTEEPresident: B. BerkeleyPresident-Elect: A. GhoshRegional VP, Americas: D. EcclesRegional VP, Asia: B. WangRegional VP, Europe: P. KathirgamanathanTreasurer: Y. S. KimSecretary: H. SeetzenPast President: M. Anandan

DIRECTORSBangalore: T. RuckmongathenBay Area: J. PollackBeijing: X. YanBelarus: A. SmirnovCanada: T. C. SchmidtDayton: D. G. HopperDelaware Valley: J. W. Parker IIIDetroit: J. KanickiFrance: J-P. ParneixHong Kong: H. S. KwokIndia: Y. MohapatraIsrael: G. GolanJapan: K. KondohKorea: K.-W. WhangLatin America: A. MammanaLos Angeles: L. TannasMid-Atlantic: J. KymissisMid-Europe: H. De SmetNew England: S. AtwoodPacific Northwest: A. AbileahRussia: V. BelyaevSingapore: T. WongSouthwest: S. O’RourkeTaipei: J. ChenTexas: Z. YanivU.K. & Ireland: S. DayUkraine: V. SerganUpper Mid-West: B. Bahadur

COMMITTEE CHAIRS50th Anniversary: L. TannasAcademic: P. BosArchives: R. DonofrioAudit: S. O’RourkeBylaws: T. LoweChapter Formation – Europe: H. De SmetConventions: P. DrzaicConventions – Europe: I. SageDefinitions & Standards: T. FiskeDisplay Industry Awards: W. ChenHonors & Awards: F. LuoI-Zone: J. KanickiInvestment: Y. S. KimLong-Range Planning: A. GhoshMembership: H.-S. KwokNominating: A. AnandanPublications: H. SeetzenSenior Member Grade: A. GhoshWeb Site: H. SeetzenWeb Activities: L. Palmateer

CHAPTER CHAIRSBangalore: S. SambadamBay Area: R. RaoBeijing: N. XuBelarus: V. A. VyssotskiCanada: A. KitaiDayton: J. C. ByrdDelaware Valley: J. BlakeDetroit: S. PalvaFrance: L. VignauHong Kong: M. WongIndia: S. KauraIsrael: I. Ben DavidJapan: K. KondoKorea: Y. S. KimLatin America: V. MammanaLos Angeles: L. IboshiMid-Atlantic: G. MelnikMid-Europe: H. J. LempNew England: J. GandhiPacific Northwest: K. YugawaRussia: V. BelyaevSingapore/Malaysia: C. C. ChaoSouthwest: M. StrnadTaipei: C. C. WuTexas: R. FinkU.K. & Ireland: M. JonesUkraine: V. SorokinUpper Mid-West: P. Downen

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LATE LAST SUMMER, 55-in. curvedorganic light-emitting-diode (OLED) TVsfrom both LG and Samsung were introducedto the U.S. marketplace. Commercially avail-able large OLED TVs were novel to beginwith; the addition of the curved form factor,designed to enable a more immersive viewingexperience, made them even more so. Thedisplay community at large has no prior expe-rience with these unique panels, and, there-fore, this article describes the innovative workof investigating their performance and fine-tuning the measurement methods needed.

This article compares the color performanceof two curved OLED TVs that have recentlygone on sale in the U.S.: the LG 55EA9800and the Samsung KN55S9CAFXZA (see Fig. 1). Both have 55-in AMOLED displays.Only one display from each manufacturer wasexamined, so the data presented here may notbe representative of a statistical sampling ofsuch displays (at about $10K retail price perTV at the time of this writing, this may beunderstood by the reader).1 In this article, weevaluate and compare the sets’ color gamutsunder various conditions, viewing-angle prop-erties, and other straightforward characteris-tics. In future articles, we will examine avariety of other characteristics.

The Samsung OLED employs red-green-blue (RGB) subpixels in a horizontal configu-ration, and the LG OLED uses RGBW (W forwhite) subpixels in a vertical configuration.The LG subpixels are white OLEDs coveredwith colored filters, and the Samsung subpixelsare OLEDs that are tailored to emit the

specific RGB colors (see examples of the subpixel configurations and spectra in Fig. 2).

Modern televisions can be operated in anumber of different modes with numerous settings. All factory settings were used as thebasis for these tests. In both cases, the over-scan feature was turned off. We noted that

Considering Color Performance in CurvedOLED TVsOne of the creators of the IDMS (Information Display Measurements Standard) takes themeasure of the very latest large, curved OLED TVs. In this first article in a series, he looks at color performance.

by Edward F. Kelley

Ed Kelley is a consulting physicist with KeltekLLC in Longmont, Colorado. He can be reached at [email protected].

6 Information Display 6/130362-0972/6/2013-006$1.00 + .00 © SID 2013

frontline technology

Fig. 1: The LG 55EA9800 and the Samsung KN55S9CAFXZA 55-in. curved OLED TVs weretested for this article. The LG is at the left and is mounted for measurement. A photograph isshown on the displays for visual interest, but patterns were used for measurements.

ID Kelley p6-11_Layout 1 11/9/2013 12:08 PM Page 6


both displays exhibited a behavior in whichthe image luminance would slowly dim whendisplaying a static pattern. We can speculatethat this might be intended to protect the display from static image burn-in, but that wasnot confirmed. Unfortunately, this featuremade it harder to collect consistent perform-ance measurements based on static images.The Samsung display had an option to disablethe feature; the LG display did not. Thismade it necessary to obtain the measurementresult before the dimming occurred if at allpossible. A previous review of the LG OLEDdisplay has been made by Dr. Ray Soneira andis available on the Internet.2 For the record,we obtained results similar to Soneira’s here.

The Measurement EnvironmentThe displays were measured in a darkroomwith no ambient illumination. The alignmentof the center horizontal normal of the curveddisplays was assured by a laser alignment system to less than 0.25° along the measure-ment optical axis. Both displays were tiltedback approximately 5° or 6° so that their central normals were pointing slightly upwardfrom the horizontal plane. All measurementswere made at screen center in the horizontal

plane below the central normal – we assumedthis was the design viewing direction. A spec-troradiometer was used for all measurementsreported here.3 We make reference to the newIDMS document that specifies numerousmeasurements and recommends various prac-tices.4 A stray-light-elimination tube (SLET)was used for all measurements (see ICDM§5.1 p. 47 and Appendix A2.1). A SLEThelps avoid stray-light contamination frombright areas when measuring dark levels.

Zero-Luminance BlacksOne of the most refreshing features of theseOLED displays is their ability to show anabsolute black level – a zero-luminance black.Various people have commented that such ablack is not necessary for “normal” viewing,but what is “normal” viewing? When we seea movie with a sparse star field just before aspaceship enters the view, it is wonderful tosee a true black between the stars rather than adark gray with the surrounding bezel blackerthan the blackness of space. Now we can see black as we would if we were in space. Theme parks may want a black screen so peoplewon’t see the display in the dark tunnel until itflashes imagery designed to scare the riders.

Gamers may want to feel like they are lookingout into space from their spaceship, etc.

All modes of these two OLED displays,save one, could show zero-luminance blacks.They could also show gray levels as low aslevel 1 or level 2 out of 255 levels abovelevel 0 (black). The LG display in the THXCinema mode can show a non-black back-ground almost as dim as level 1 of 255 with amottled appearance. This non-zero black forthe THX Cinema mode, the apparent result ofa marketing decision, is available only on U.S.models. However, all other LG modes show azero-luminance black. If the non-black LGTHX Cinema mode annoys a viewer, it is asimple matter to configure one of the twoavailable extra Expert modes to appear likethe THX Cinema mode but with a zero-luminance black. Should it be necessary, theblack levels are generally adjustable in bothdisplays to account for some ambient illumi-nation. Because the black of the LG THXCinema mode has a mottled appearance and isvery low in luminance – of order 0.001 cd/m2

depending upon where it is measured – we listits black luminance as “not measurable” ratherthan providing a possibly misleading numberfor the contrast.

Zero-luminance blacks make the displayhave an infinite contrast no matter what whitelevel is produced (contrast is C = CW/CK witha zero in the denominator). This is why theIDMS requires the use of the term “undefined”for such contrasts and suggests that the blackand white levels be reported separately (seeIDMS pp. 46 and 47). In the display industry,we seem to have reached the point where con-trast (luminance ratio of white to black) haslost its meaning and quoting the white andblack levels is much more relevant.

LoadingOLED displays are a current-driven pixeltechnology, and, like plasma displays, willexhibit loading characteristics. Figure 3 illus-trates the loading of these OLED displayswhere a white rectangle starting at 2% of thelinear dimensions of the screen expands to fullscreen. Note how the white luminancedecreases with the increasing size of the whitearea; this is loading – which also occurs withsaturated colors. Loading may be consideredby some to be an undesirable characteristic, but it may not be noticed by most viewers,and much of the television programming doesnot load the screen as much as a large white or


Fig. 2: Subpixel configurations and spectra appear for both tested units. The Samsung OLEDRGB subpixel arrangement is shown in (a), where the subpixels each have two parts separatedby a narrow line. The smearing between the subpixels in the black region is apparently causedby a lenticular treatment (b) covering the pixel surface. The LG subpixel arrangement is shownin (c), where the main gray scale is produced by the white subpixel and the colored RGB subpix-els regulate the color; several pixels of various colors are shown (a pixel is composed of RGBW subpixels in the order of GBRW from left to right).


colored area. Without loading, the powerrequirements for these displays would be

much greater. Because of this loading phe-nomenon, a series of patterns that kept theaverage pixel level (APL) of the pattern a con-stant was needed in order to test the displays.Here, we use the term APL to refer to the pre-gamma input signal average (this is notthe average luminance level). We selected a

17-level stepped gray-scale pattern of concen-tric overlapping rectangles with each graylevel (including white) occupying the samesize area on the screen and where the blacklevel cycled in exchange with the center rec-tangle through the other 16 levels. The over-all pattern was 33% of the size of the screen,and the APL of the rectangular pattern areawas 50%, resulting in an overall APL for theentire screen of 5.43% (see Fig. 4). Unfortu-nately, even the 33%-sized pattern still causedloading effects in some modes.

General CharacteristicsTable 1 shows the general characteristics ofthe tested OLED displays as viewed from thedesign viewing direction (below the tiltedscreen normal at the center of the screen),(see Fig. 5). We refer to the signal gamut asthe sRGB gamut.5 We follow the suggestionsof the ICDM §5.1 in not attempting to reportinfinite or unmeasurable contrasts. The uncer-tainties are the typical uncertainties obtainedfrom a quality spectroradiometer. The spec-troradiometer was tested against red, green,blue, and violet lasers prior to these measure-ments to assure that their chromaticity valuesappeared on the spectrum locus (i.e., veryclose within expected uncertainties). The



Fig. 3: Loading characteristics are tracked for the LG (left) and Samsung (right) units in Standard Mode.

Fig. 4: The concentric 17-level 50% APL pattern covered 33% of the screen, giving anoverall APL for the entire screen of 5.43%.

Fig. 5: The design viewing direction is shown in the horizontal plane at the center screen withthe curved display tilted back.

HorizontalViewing Angle, qH

Design ViewingDirection

Vertical


wavelength locations of mercury lines werealso checked and found to be within 1 nm oftheir published values.

For both displays, the observed loadingeffects created a transfer function [L(V)] thatcould not be easily fitted with a typical char-acteristic gamma curve as illustrated in Fig. 6.The gray-scale curve can show a positive second derivative as the luminance increaseswhen loading occurs. Thus, in Table 1,gamma values could only be reported for thenon-loading gray scales for both displays intheir dimmer modes. Figure 7 shows howclosely both displays matched the sRGB signal and gamut for the 17 gray levels (thewhite point) and four levels of color aboveblack for the theater modes of each display.6Near the center of the gamuts were two plussigns that indicated the gamut shift. Thesemarked the center of the sRGB gamut and thecenter of the display RGB gamut. The metricfor relative gamut size gave no indication ofthe amount of overlap of the two gamuts. Thegamut shift metric (in Duʹ,vʹ) provided someindication of overlap, but not rotation.

Figure 8(a) shows how the gamuts changedfor each display in their Standard modes; theLG exhibited an almost constant gamut with

loading and the Samsung exhibited anincreased gamut with loading. Figure 8(b)shows the change in the gamuts for the


Table 1: The above main modes used factory settings (except as noted in the main text). Measurements were madefrom the horizontal viewing angle in the horizontal plane of center. The pattern used as a 17-level 50% APL covering

33% of the screen with an overall APL for the entire screen of 5.43% (see Fig. 4).

Relative Average Full-Screen KLW LK Contrasta Gamut Sizeb Gamut Sizec or W Power,

Display and Mode (cd/m2) (cd/m2) C = LW/LK (c.f., sRGB) (Duʹ,vʹ) CCT (K) Gammad (γ) P (W)

Samsung OLED PK = 115

Dynamic 489 0 Undefined 116 0.0197 12 580 Loading PW = 252

Standard 398 0 Undefined 120 0.0159 8945 Loading PW = 219

Relax 358 0 Undefined 120 0.0100 6530 2.58 PW = 215

Movie 221 0 Undefined 104 0.0040 6277 2.27 PW = 188

LG OLEDe PK = 51

Vivid 373 0 Undefined 118 0.0024 11 030 Loading PW = 213

Standard 389 0 Undefined 118 0.0023 10 230 Loading PW = 210

Eco 267 0 Undefined 118 0.0026 10 010 Loading PW = 171

Game 235 0 Undefined 118 0.0024 9221 2.34 PW = 162

THX Cinema 130 ~< 0.001 Not 101 0.0034 6433 2.20 PW = 95(not adjustable) measurableaSee ICDM §5.1 for a discussion of how to deal with low-level or zero-luminance blacks.bSee ICDM §5.18.1 Relative Gamut Area for using the sRGB gamut in the (u ',v ') chromaticity diagram. cD(u ',v ')between the centers of the sRGB gamut and display gamut.dGamma values obtained using the gain-offset gamma-offset (GOGO) model (see ICDM §6.5). A “Loading” entry means that the gamma model is not appropriate. eThe two Expert modes are not measured or listed because their default factory settings are very similar to the THX Cinema mode and can be completely configured as the viewer wishes as well asallow for zero-luminance blacks.

Fig. 6: Fitting a gray scale with loading will not work properly (left) whereas modes with lessluminance and without loading can be properly fit with a gamma model (right). The Samsungdisplay is shown here; the same loading distortion of the gamma curve occurred for both dis-plays with the brighter modes.


displays in their theater modes with a changein level. The LG display did not change verymuch as the RGB levels changed, but theSamsung gamut increased as the RGB levelsdecreased. In terms of color accuracy andreproduction of the input signal, it is better tohave the gamut not change with changes inlevel, loading, or anything else. However,because people tend to like more saturatedcolors, how objectionable gamut increases arewill probably depend upon whether the vieweris a critical observer or not.

Viewing-Angle PropertiesA curved display has slightly different proper-ties when it comes to viewing angle: For asingle observer, it is optimal for a certainviewing distance and the viewing-angle performance is not as significant. However,for multiple off-axis observers, the curvaturecould make the viewing-angle requirementsmore severe because the angles become largerthan at the screen center on the side of thescreen where the off-axis viewers are located(see Fig. 5).

For this evaluation, a new way to visualizethe viewing-angle performance was employed.This method considered the shift of relativecolor-gamut area and may eventually be considered for the next major release of theICDM (ICDM2, see ICDM §9.8 ViewingAngle Relative Gamut Area). The relativegamut area as a function of viewing angle isgraphically shown in Fig. 9.7 That figureshows results out to 60°, but, realistically,

most viewers would only use such a curveddisplay out to 45° and probably considerablyless than that. A larger gamut shift as well asa reduction in gamut size can be observed atlarger angles for the Samsung display (with avery small shift at ±15°), whereas for the LGdisplay the gamut increases for larger anglesbut the gamut shift remains relatively con-stant. The change in luminance with viewingangle is shown in Fig. 10.

It is important to recognize the scale ofthese (uʹ,vʹ) chromaticity diagrams. Anexpanded view of the Movie and THX Cinemamodes appears in Fig. 11. The error bars onthe sRGB white point represent the approxi-

mate detection limit of a color change inadjoining color blocks – a Euclidian distanceof 0.004 on each side of the white point [seeICDM Appendix B1.2 Colorimetry, p. 471;some refer to this as a just-noticeable-difference(JND) for colors]. Ten times those error barswould represent the color discrimination forwidely separated colors such as on two differ-ent displays. However, as gray levels darken,our ability to distinguish color diminishes, andthe deviations from the white-point color arenot as serious as they may appear on these(uʹ,vʹ) graphs. (A better metric may be the C*metric, comparable to the ΔE* metric, whichindicates the distance from the white-colorvertical line in the CIELAB color space wherethe darker colors are less discernible: C* < 2for the LG display and C* < 3.5 for the Samsung display.)

All these results show that these TVs, espe-cially in their theater modes viewed from thefrontal direction, are almost “perfect” withrespect to luminance, color gamut, gamma,and black levels, as Dr. Soneira describes.2However, keep in mind that once these displays are connected to the Internet andupgraded software is downloaded andinstalled, these characteristics could very wellchange.

Future articles will address other perform-ance characteristics. In the meantime, if thehefty price tags do not dissuade you, either ofthese TVs can offer an unparalleled viewingexperience in terms of gray and color scales,accuracy in color, and especially the wonder-ful absolute blacks.



Fig. 7: Accurate gamuts and very small gamut shifts for theater modes were detected at thedesign viewing direction.

Fig. 8: Changes in relative gamut size were apparent with loading (a) for Standard modes andwith level change (b) for theater modes.


References1This work was partially funded by LG Display Co., Ltd. The company’s contribu-tion to this effort is gratefully acknowledged.2Dr. Soneira reviews the LG OLED displayand compares it with plasma and liquid-crystal displays. See: http://www.displaymate.com/LG_OLED_TV_ShootOut_1.htm. Heuses the term “perfect” to describe several ofits modes of operation. This same fine behav-ior is shown in both displays in this article.3Disclaimer: The apparatus described hereinare identified only for the purpose of completetechnical description: The signals are pro-vided from a computer using an NVIDIA

GeForce GTX 570 board with an HDMI(high-definition multimedia interface) output.The signal output quality is checked usingcomputer monitors to assure that what isdelivered to the TVs is correct without arti-facts. The spectroradiometric measurementsare made with a Photo Research PR-730 spectroradiometer. All measurements aremade in a quality darkroom.4Information Display Measurements Standard(IDMS), prepared by the International DisplayMetrology Committee of the Society of Infor-mation display. The PDF version is availablewithout charge; see, http://icdm-sid.org/.5The sRGB signal requirements are specified

in ITU-R BT.709-5: Parameter values for theHDTV standards for production and interna-tional programme exchange, April, 2002.6These are the harmonized gray levelsdescribed in ICDM §A12.1.1 (the appendix)Table 1. The 17 gray levels are: 0, 15, 31, 47,63, 79, 95, 111, 127, 143, 159, 175, 191, 207,223, 239, 255; and the RGB gamut colorswere measured on a five-level gray scale: 0,63, 127, 191, 255. 7The idea for the graphical gamut-area repre-sentation has been proposed by LG Display. n


Fig. 9: A relative gamut area and shift as a function of horizontal viewing angle appears at leftand one example of a gamut reduction below 100% with a shift toward the green is at right. Theshift is represented by two plus signs near the center of the gamut triangles. The separation ofthe markers indicates the size of the shift in the display gamut compared to the sRGB gamut.

Fig. 10: The viewing-angle luminance ofwhite is shown in “movie” modes for bothunits.

Fig. 11: The magnified area of the white point for the theater modes is represented. The errorbars around the sRGB white point represent ±0.004 on each side of the white point.

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RECENTLY, China Star OptoelectronicsTechnology Company (CSOT) successfullydeveloped a 110-in. UHD (3840 × 2160) 3-DTFT-LCD TV panel. It was the world’s firstLCD panel to offer 4K × 2K resolution and 3-D capability. The maximum brightness ofthe panel is 1000 nits, achieved with less than1100 W of power consumption via an LEDbacklight with local dimming. The colorgamut is much larger than that of traditionalLCD TV panels, with vivid primary colorsdue to the use of LED backlighting. Thestatic dark-ambient contrast of the panel isgreater than 4000:1. The panel’s 3-D displaytechnology uses 120-Hz shutter-glasses tech-nology, and the large size particularlyenhances viewer enjoyment of 3-D moviesand games.

The goal for making this 110-in. panel wasto provide a powerful sense of immersion and“reality” for the viewer. One of the mostimportant enabling aspects for this capabilityis the visual angle. Studies have shown that alarger visual angle will provide a more immer-sive experience.1,2 From the same distance, abigger panel obviously can provide viewerswith more information presented over a wider

visual angle, as Fig. 1 illustrates. The visualangle increases by two times when the panelsize increases from 55 to 110 in.

At the same time, resolution must beincreased to maintain high visual quality withlarger visual angles. For example, 1920 pixelsspread over a wide visual angle or over a longhorizontal distance and then viewed fromclose range results in a poor visual experiencebecause of the low number of pixels per inch .Of course, people tend not to sit quite thisclose to large TVs. Even so, in a living roomwhere the space is fixed, a larger panel withhigh resolution and optimal viewing angleswill provide the best viewer experience.

When presented on a larger display such asone that is 110 in., full HD (FHD) does notsatisfy what people expect to see in terms ofimagery. Increasing the pixels per inchimproves the picture performance and thusprovides a better stereoscopic experience.

Manufacturing and TechnologyChallengesThe 110-in. panel was fabricated in a newlyestablished Gen 8.5 fab by CSOT. There weremany manufacturing challenges. Both for theTFTs and color-filter substrates, it was neces-sary to use multiple photolithography expo-sures (shots) to define the images in eachmask step (Fig. 2). These multiple shots buildup a patchwork quilt of the full array patternfor each step. A typical mask and panel pat-tern is shown in Fig. 3. Shot mura is causedby a variation of the critical dimensions inpatterns and indirectly affects optical perform-ance. For example, in the black matrix, theaperture of the pixel area controls the ratio oflight transmittance. If the black-matrixdimensions change, the display luminance inthat area will also change. This is especiallytrue if the mura is located at the boundary ofeach unit shot in the mask. When the entirepanel pattern is assembled with each unit shotin the mask, the boundary of each shot will beexposed twice because of the misalignment ofthe mask system. Similarly, if the two shotsdo not align perfectly, then the boundaries

Developing a 110-in. 4K × 2K TV China Star has demonstrated a 110-in. LCD TV that has an outstanding dynamic contrastratio of 50000:1, ultra-high brightness of 1000 nits, high-saturated color reproduction, and a288-zone local-dimming backlight. Manufacturing a high-definition high-quality TV in sucha large size brings with it special manufacturing challenges.

by Li-Yi Chen, Yu-Yeh Chen, Hung-Lung Hou, Yuming Mo, and Chung-Yi Chiu

Li-Yi Chen, Yu-Yeh Chen, Hung-Lung Hou,Yuming Mo, and Chung-Yi Chiu are withChina Star Optoelectronics Technology Com-pany, Ltd, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. Y-Y Chen can be reached at [email protected].



Fig. 1: The viewing angle from the same distance increases with the size of the panel.

ID Chen p12-16_Layout 1 11/11/2013 6:12 PM Page 12


between the shots will produce a pattern thatis not consistent with the rest of the regions(Fig. 4). The resulting dimensions of theblack matrix may then be different betweenthe inside region and the boundary of eachshot. CSOT has developed special proprietaryphoto recipes to solve this problem.

RC loading is a term that describes thecombination of parasitic capacitance andseries resistance in each TFT electrode. Thelarger these values, the longer it takes toestablish a stable voltage level on the elec-

trode. As the display size increases, both ofthese parameters also increase. To put this inperspective, consider the example of a full-HD (1920 × 1080) 55-in. LCD panel beingdriven at a 120-Hz frame rate. This requires acharge time on each gate of less than 7.5 µsec.With today’s driver, interconnect, and linefabrication technology, this charge time can beeasily achieved with some degree of designmargin included. In fact, the settling time dueto the RC effects is around 2 µS. However, ifthe resolution is only doubled in the preceding

example, the available charge time is cut inhalf and the voltage levels on each line willnot reach a stable value in time to charge theTFT cell to the correct data value. If thedimensions of the panel in each axis are thenincreased to roughly twice those of the 55-in.panel, the parasitic capacitance and line resist-ance is effectively doubled, creating an even greater challenge in achieving acceptablecharge levels in each pixel cell. The settlingtime alone of a 110-in. 4K × 2K panel is about8 µS. Therefore, a more innovative drivingscheme was developed to overcome this limi-tation: the hG2d driving design.

Pre-Charging Driving Scheme Decreasing the amount of gate drivers by halfand doubling the data (hG2D) driving was thefirst method considered to extend the chargingtime.4,5 Compared with a normal 60-Hzpanel, hG2D (source) drivers are used. Also,gate and source dual-side inputs were imple-mented in the architecture to reduce the load-ing impact, as shown in Fig. 5. Based on thecurrent specifications of the IC and driver,120 Hz with FHD is a better design. For thecurrent Al process used, a charge time of


Fig. 2: Two exposure systems are shown: the mosaic (left) and variable-field (right).

Fig. 4: Shot mura is particularly troublesomeat the boundaries.

Fig. 3: Typical mask and panel patterns are shown.

Mask of one pattern


7.5 µsec is required for an 80-in. panel. However, if the frame rate is increased or theresolution doubled, the charge time is halved.Therefore, it is necessary to reduce chargetime by using other methods. One approach isto turn on more than one gate at a time. Whentwo gates turn on simultaneously, two sourcesof data information into the pixels are needed.Hence, the dual-data-line design with a patternis needed in one pixel. This arrangement con-sists of half the gate input and twice the datainput in one pixel. There are still some issueswith this driving scheme and the picture performance for very large LCDs.

For an ideal initial setting of the drivingwaveform as shown in Fig. 6(a), the pixelvoltage needs to be at a desirable value. Forthe ideal case, the pixel voltage should becharged rapidly to the correct value. How-ever, the circuit resistor or capacitor usuallycauses distortion in this charging on the risingand falling edges. Thus, if the charging timeis insufficient, the pixel voltage will not becorrect. With Vft = ΔV1, insufficient chargeflows to the LC capacitor. When this circuitscheme was used for the 110-in. LCD, theresearchers encountered an enormous obstaclein charging uniformity. The distortiondepends on accumulated parasitic capacitanceand LC capacitance through the panel.

After propagating a distance to get to thecell, the gate and data waveforms change andoverlap the undesirable area of the next targetvoltage, which is different from the initial set-ting as shown in Fig. 6(c). Hence, the targetpixel voltage is difficult to achieve and suffersa voltage drop of ΔV3, including a lack of carrier charging, feed-through voltage, anderror charging to the next target voltage. To overcome this difficulty, the pre-charge concept was utilized to inject enough carriers into the LC capacitance and suppress the error charging ratio by overlapping the next target voltage.

Figures 6(b) and 3(d) depict the pre-chargingsetting. It is apparent that ΔV4 is compensatedand is smaller thanΔV3. Meanwhile, ΔV2 andΔV4 can be modified and are almost the same as ΔV1. This structure allows for an extension



Fig. 5: This gate/source dual-driving setup was used for the 110-in. panel. Source PCBA:Transmits all display data and control signals from the control board to the source driver IC.Source Driver: Receives display data and converts digital signal to analog voltage for drivingthe TFT-LCD device. Gate PCBA: Transmits all gate driver control signals from the controlboard to the gate driver IC. Gate Driver: Controls scan line to turn on/off the TFT device lineby line sequentially.

Fig. 6: A driving waveform is depicted withnormal and pre-charge schemes. Image (a)shows an ideal waveform, (b) shows the samewaveform in pre-charge mode, image (c)shows a normal setting, and (d) shows thepre-charge mode.


of the charging time and a reduction of the gate-delay influence. Figure 7 shows a schematicfor gate output with and without pre-charging.

Figure 8 shows some quality issues causedby error charging. At the left of the image ofthe man’s mouth in Fig. 8(a), there is a rough edge around the lips, which is the result of error charging. Optimizing the timing between gateand data pulse as illustrated in Figs. 6(b) and 6(d) helps to improve this phenomenon, as shown in Fig. 8(b). After optimization, it was possible to retain the well-charged performance and avoid error charging at the same time.The result was an improvement in availablecharging time to 15.4 μsec, which overcamethe limitations due to the RC loading.

UHD System Architecture Recently, UHD systems have been in demandfor high-resolution applications. Technicalconcerns include the bandwidth of the archi-tecture and the data transmission of the display port. Essentially, this technology hasnot matured enough for commercial applica-tions, and many system makers are still tryingto integrate the hardware and software.

The major initial concerns for a 4K × 2K display are transmission line loading and image process bandwidth. Hence, a panel is usuallydivided into four units (1920 × 1080 by eachunit) to overcome the difficulties of the panel,field-programmable gate array (FPGA), andgraphics card, as shown in Fig. 9(a).

One common problem with the approach inFig. 9(a) is that a block boundary can often beobserved in the image along the center cross

on the panel. The vertical boundary resultsfrom the time delay between the dual-DVIports. The image is detected as a space shift along the center line. The horizontal bound-ary is caused by the signal difference of thedata line. As mentioned above, the research-ers adopted an FPGA (Stratix series fromALTERA) to synchronize the graphic card(from AMD) and the 110-in. panel as shownin Fig. 9(b). The cell is designed with double-sided gate/data driving to minimize the distortion caused by the RC delay. Under a specified algorithm in the FPGA, the resolution of each unit becomes 1920 × 2160,which is synchrocontrolled by opposite con-trol boards, referred to as C/B-A and C/B-B.For commercial applications, the 110-in. 4K × 2K panel is also capable of 3-D func-tionality at 120 Hz.


Fig. 7: On the top is the gate output chargefor the waveform without pre-charging. Onthe bottom is the gate output charge with pre-charging. The duration of higher timesshould be extended. The longer charging timewill overcome the lack of pixel voltage.

Fig. 8: The image at left (a) shows degrada-tion due to error charging. The image at right(b) demonstrates that this has been eliminatedthrough pre-charging modification.

Fig. 9: Shown is (a) a diagram of a popular current panel driving concept and (b) the proposedalternate architecture for a UHD system.


Advanced Mura-Free TechnologyBecause the 110-in. panel size was larger thanthe photomask size on the Gen 8.5 productionline, it was not possible to complete the production of the entire panel by using onlyone shot. Stitching-mask technology wastherefore used in the development.

As is well known, controlling the unifor-mity of stitching areas is extremely difficult.Uniformity issues or mura often appear as aresult of multiple time exposures at the shotstitching point.

In the early stages of the project, the shotmura could be easily seen on the panel. Afterthe researchers fine-tuned the process parame-ters, the shot mura was greatly reduced. InFig. 10, reduction of shot mura is apparent inthe middle of the image on the right.

Besides process optimization as mentionedabove, another solution uses algorithm adjust-ment in the graphics engine. This systemcompensation was also developed andadopted for mura suppression in critical areas.The adjustment flow, or “de-mura” function,is a software-based approach to fine-tuningthe gray levels of the panel in the areas wherethere is mura that cannot otherwise be fixed asdepicted in Fig. 10.

Based on this algorithm with FPGA coding,the panel demonstrated improved performance,as shown in Fig. 11.

3-D Stereoscopic Technology 3-D functionality was incorporated into the110-in. LCD by using the L-R field-sequentialmethod combined with active shutter glasses.

In order to prevent crosstalk, the designershad to adjust the turn-on sequence of thebacklight to minimize the ratio of overlap-ping. Based on a direct-type LED backlight,they utilized a vertically scanning backlightconsisting of 16 sections to improve the 3-Dperformance. After optimized sequencesbetween the LED backlight, glasses and LCD,a crosstalk performance of 2.5% could beachieved with a comfortable visual quality.Changes in the detailed gray levels with afixed right-eye observation and left-eye patterns resulted in good uniformity, as shownin Fig. 12.

Creating a 110-in. UHD LCD TV Table 1 summarizes the main characteristicsof the UHD LCD TV. A 110-in. panel withsuch high performance is a significantachievement. The brightness can exceed 1000 nits, the resolution is four times that ofstandard HD, and the TV has extremely real-istic color reproduction. This large-size andhigh-resolution technology was made into acommercial product that is vailable now fromseveral Chinese retailers. (The TV won theSociety for Information Display’s Display ofthe Year Silver Award for 2013.) CSOT hopesthat it has created a completely new viewingexperience that establishs a brilliant landmarkfor LCD-TV technology in particular.

References1M. Sugawara, K. Masaoka, M. Emoto, Y. Nojiri, and F. Okano, “Super-Hi-Vision —

An Ultra-High Definition Television and ItsHuman Factors,” IMID/IDMC ’06 Digest, 81–85 (2006) . 2M. Sugawara, K. Masaoka, M. Emoto, Y. Matsuo, and Y. Nojiri, “Research onHuman Factors in Ultrahigh-Definition Tele-vision (UHDTV) to Determine Its Specifica-tions,” SMPTE Mot. Imag. J. 117, no. 3,23–29 (April 1, 2008) . 3S-S. Kim, B-H. You, J-H. Cho, S-J. Moon, B. H. Berkeley, and N. D. Kim, “An 82-in.Ultra-Definition 120-Hz LCD TV Using NewDriving Scheme and Advanced Super PVATechnology,” SID Symp. Digest Tech. Papers,196–199 (2008) . 4B-H. You, J-S. Bae, D-W. Park, S-Ha Hong, S. Saito, and J. T. Moon, “UD Resolution240Hz LCD TV Display System with HighSpeed Driving,” SID Symp. Digest TechPapers, 395–398 (2012). 5B-H. You, J-P. Lee, D-G. Kim, K-Ho Park, Y-J. Kim, B. H. Berkeley, and S. S. Kim, “A Novel Driving Method Using 2-DimensionSpatial Averaging for High Speed Driving ofAMLCD,” SID Symp. Digest Tech. Papers,1275–1278 (2007). n



Fig. 10: Shot mura reduction can be seen inthe image at right (center of image).

Fig. 11: Panel performance is depictedbefore (a) and after (b) algorithm adjustment.

Fig. 12: 3-D luminance stability (crosstalk) isshown with gray-level switching.

Table 1: The TV’s main parametersare shown.

Specification Output

Diagonal screen 110”

Frame rate 120 Hz

Resolution 3840 x 2160 (R/G/B)

Brightness 1000 nits

Color coordinate (0.275, 0.28)

Contrast4200:1 (Static)50000:1 (Dynamic)

Color saturation 92%

View angle 178°/178° (H/V)

Gray to gray 6.5 ms

3D crosstalk 2.5%


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SINCE the invention of the cathode-raytube (CRT), efforts to further develop emissive display technology have been con-siderable and include field-emission displays(FEDs), plasma-display panelss (PDPs), and,recently, organic light-emitting diodes(OLEDs), among others. Compared with abacklit panel such as a liquid-crystal display(LCD) or a reflective display such as amicrodisplay-based projection system, emissive displays may offer significant advantages, e.g., large viewing angle, superiorimage quality, and color richness.

With the idea that a combination of emis-sive and projection technology might be usedfor a new type of digital-signage application,Sun Innovations developed an emissive-projection-display (EPD) system that uses fluorescent emission and projective excitation.This system can be readily applied to com-mercial advertising and digital signage; it canturn a glass window of any size or shape intoa fully transparent digital sign with an unlim-ited viewing angle.

Fluorescent Emission and Light-Projective ExcitationThe EPD system consists of a fully transparent

fluorescent screen and a projector source thathas a light output that operates in the blue-to-violet wavelength range.1 The screen technology is based on down-conversion fluorescent nano-materials, with high fluorescent quantum effi-

ciency for brighter emissive images. Unlike conventional phosphor screens in CRT or plasma displays, this type of structureless emissivescreen can be mass-produced economicallythrough a roll-to-roll manufacturing process.

Novel Emissive Projection Display DigitizesGlass Windows An innovative emissive-projection-display (EPD) system consisting of a fully transparent fluorescent screen and a blue-light-emitting digital projector can be used for digital signageon the windows of buildings or vehicles. The screen can be applied to any window withoutobstructing the view through the glass.

by Ted X. Sun and Botao Cheng

Ted X. Sun and Botao Cheng are with SunInnovations, Inc., in Fremont, California. TedSun can be reached at [email protected].



Fig. 1: (a) The conventional projection display, (b) the CRT, and (c) the projection-based fluorescent display are shown in simple schematic form as a basis for comparison.

ID Sun p18-24_Layout 1 11/9/2013 12:47 PM Page 18


Figure 1 compares EPD with a direct-viewCRT and a conventional projection display.CRT technology, while obsolete due to volume and weight, offers an excellent basisfor comparison due to its superior displayqualities, including high image contrast andlarge viewing angles. In a conventional pro-jection display [Fig. 1(a)], visible light passesthrough a micro-imager device (microdisplay)and is projected onto either a reflective (forfront projection) or a scattering screen (forrear projection), which are also largelyopaque. In a conventional CRT display [Fig. 1(b)], images are formed on an opaquephosphor screen that is excited by raster-scanned electrons in a vacuum tube. In Fig. 1(c),an EPD employs the projector as an excitationsource for the fluorescent materials in thescreen. Hence, it combines the superiorimage quality of an emissive display such as aCRT and the image scalability of projectionwith a fully transparent screen.

Novel Color-Rendering Approach inEPDsAs opposed to other emissive display tech-nologies (e.g., CRT or PDP), EPD employs ahomogeneous, structureless fluorescent screento eliminate the need for projector-to-screenalignment. Three layers of vertically stackedtransparent fluorescent films can be addressedseparately by excitation light in multiple discrete wavebands.2 Figure 2 shows theworking principle of the full-color EPD.

In order to display full-color images, thetransparent fluorescent screen can be con-structed by stacking films (e.g., red, green,and blue fluorescent films) with distinctiveabsorption and emission characteristics. Theprojector encodes the original color imageinto the projected light at several excitationwavebands (three for full-color displays). Onthe screen, light of each waveband will exciteits corresponding film and generate color

emissions at visible wavebands (RGB). Eachfluorescent layer absorbs its designated exci-tation light with high efficiency, but passesvisible light and the excitation light of otherwavebands. Since each fluorescent film isvery thin, high-resolution and full-colorimages are synthesized in a direction perpen-dicular to the screen. Such a color-renderingmethod is completely different from a conven-tional full-color emissive display (e.g., CRT,PDP, and OLED), which lays out the RGBpixels in the in-plane direction.

Recently, Sun Innovations developed mate-rials that can be effectively excited in threeseparate wavebands in the range of 350–500 nm.Researchers at Sun measured the emissioncolor of the fluorescent film. The blue filmcan be excited by a UV light in the range from

380 to 420 nm; the red film can be excited bylight from 350 to 380 nm and the green filmcan be excited by light from 430 to 470 nm.The color coordinates on the CIE 1931 andCIE 1976 system are listed in Table 1. Thedominant wavelength is 618 nm for the red,438 nm for the blue, and 532 nm for thegreen.

The display color gamut of the fluorescentscreen can achieve performance similar to thatof conventional CRT displays. The quantumefficiencies (QEs) of fluorescent conversionamong the RGB emission films vary in therange of 40–60%. Since the emissive materialson the screen have extremely fine particlesizes in nanometer ranges, the image resolu-tion on the screen is principally dependent on the resolution of the projector. An EPD can be


Table 1: The color coordinates ofEPD film are listed for red, green,

and blue.

x y u’ v’

R 0.678 0.322 0.492 0.526

G 0.378 0.594 0.161 0.57

B 0.148 0.132 0.138 0.277

Fig. 2: The full-color image-formation process takes place in multiple layers of transparentfilm. The excitation light has three wavebands; each excites a specific film/layer and generatesvisible emission at one of the RGB wavebands.

Fig. 3: This possible system architecture for a laser projector uses a galvanometer scanner.


readily implemented onto existing glass win-dows or windshields. It offers an extremelycost-competitive display solution, with scala-ble projection and a flat screen that can beeconomically manufactured roll-to-roll.

The Projector in an EPDThe EPD system requires the projector to out-put UV/blue light onto the fluorescent screen.There are several technical platforms for the design of the projector. For example, agalvanometer or MEMS scanner-based laserengine with a UV/blue-light laser could beused, or a DLP projector with a gas-dischargelamp, UV/blue-light LED, or laser.

Figure 3 shows a possible design architec-ture for a laser projector based on a galvano-meter scanner. The projector consists of acontroller board, protection board, LD opticsmodule and LD driver, X/Y galvanometer anddrivers, projection lens, power board, temper-ature sensor, IR detection, and I/O interface.

A microcontroller unit (MCU) embedded inthe controller board serves as the master con-troller of the projector and provides the linkbetween image display and input data read.There is a temperature sensor built into thesystem for monitoring the LD status. Gal-vanometer drivers will feed back scanner status to the MCU; if the scanners behaveabnormally, the MCU will shut down theentire system to prevent a stationary laserbeam emitted from the projector. An IRdetection module is employed to execute thesafety function, ensuring that the safety level

of the laser display is Class 3a or less. Shouldsomeone or something accidentally enter the laser-projection space, the MCU will shut down the system and will not restart it until the person or obstacle leaves the projection area.Such IR sensors can define a “virtual” barrieron the solid angle of projection to prevent anyaccidental exposure of the laser image tohumans or animals and making the projectionsystem safe for operation in the public.

Results and DemonstrationSun Innovations has developed and demon-strated a laser-vector scanning projector system named Line-Art, in combination witha full-color fluorescent screen (Fig. 4). Threelaser diodes with dominant wavelengths of375, 405, and 445 nm, respectively, werecombined to create the projector’s lightsource. The fully transparent display screenincludes three different layers of fluorescentmaterials. As shown in Fig. 4, the resultingemissive image is easily visible in normalambient room light. The viewing angle of theemissive surface is unlimited. The screen isfully transparent but presents a slight greencast due to the visible-light excitation of thegreen screen.

Instead of a laser projector with a galvano-meter scanner, a DLP-based projector with agas-discharge lamp as a light source can beused.3 In Fig. 5, a commercial DLP projectorwith a UHP lamp has been modified to outputlight in the approximate wavelength range of360–410 nm in order to excite a single blue or

white emission from the screen. The esti-mated UV intensity at the screen surface isabout 0.3 mW/cm2. A water-clear, single,blue fluorescent film was utilized in thisexample. A fully transparent white, red, anddual (red/blue) screen, all without body colorand haze, are other options.

Sun has also recently developed a projectorbased on a DLP scanner and LED or lasersources. Solid-state sources such as high-power LEDs and lasers have excellent powerand a spectrum matching the excitation of theemissive materials of the screen. They arealso smaller, consume less energy, and offersignificantly improved optical efficiency andreliability (with a lifetime >10,000 hours).

Other “Transparent” Digital DisplayTechnologies There are a number of other display technolo-gies in the commercial market that claim to betransparent, including a TFT-LCD-basedtransparent “display box,” conventional head-up displays (HUDs), transparent OLEDs, andholographic projection screens (Fig. 6). Thedisplay box places an LCD module with 15–20% transparency in front of a brightlight-box assembly. It is best used in anenclosure such as a vending machine; it doesnot perform as well on an open glass windowwithout a strong and stable backlight. A con-ventional HUD is a virtual image display,using a glass window or windshield as a trans-flective “mirror” for digital projection. AHUD has an extremely limited viewing angle,



Fig. 4: The Line-Art projector based on a galvanometer scanner (left) is used in a full-color (RGB) EPD display system that uses a clear fluorescent multi-color screen (right).


limited image size, and is typically used invehicles only for the driver. Both transparentOLED and holographic screens are only par-tially transparent, with significant haze andpoor image contrast in well-lit environments.

Advantages of EPDCompared with the other commercially avail-able transparent display technologies, the EPDoffers significant advantages for a digital-signage solution on glass windows or clearpanels:

1. EPD offers an unlimited viewing angledue to the isotropic nature of the fluores-cent emission. The image is equallybright on both sides of the transparentprojection screen.

2. EPD presents a water-clear screenwhether an image is being displayed ornot. The screen has virtually no haze;the visible-light transmission is around90% and can reach 95% with anti-reflec-tive coating. It is a true see-through dis-play system for either front or rearprojection.

3. The projected image does not go throughthe emissive screen; there is negligiblephysical penetration for projected lights,unlike a holographic projection screen.

4. Like a projection display, the EPD screenhas no pixel structure. The EPD screencan be manufactured roll-to-roll.

5. As with a projection system, the displayimage size is scalable.

6. Like an emissive display (e.g., PDP orCRT), the image quality of an EPD isexcellent, with a good color gamut andimage properties that are largely inde-pendent of viewing angle.

7. It is versatile. In addition to a fully trans-parent display on a window, it can be

applied to a black substrate4 to create afront-projection display with superiorimage contrast in bright ambient light, atlower projection power.

ApplicationsThe EPD system is able to turn any clear surface into an emissive digital display. It allows audi-ences to experience a vivid, high-definition image while clearly seeing through the transparent screen. This enables a wide variety of potential applications for displaying digital information.

Applications in the digital-signage marketinclude storefront windows and other in-store

advertising displays; shopping malls; windowglass in airports, train, subway stations, andother high-traffic public areas; large advertis-ing displays on the glass walls of buildings;HUDs for various vehicles; and much more.

An example of EPD technology in use isthe Line-Art projection system (shown in Fig 4), which displays messages and anima-tions on storefront windows using a scanninglaser projector. The system enables text andpictures to appear to float in air with no appar-ent display boundary. They appear to float inair like an animated neon sign. This systemoffers commercial brands a fresh, exciting


Fig. 6: Shown above are several transparent display technologies and their applications.

Fig. 5: The display shown uses a transparent and water-clear EPD based on DLP projectionwith a UHP lamp source.


look and is designed to maximize the cus-tomer experience and attract foot traffic toincrease sales. Figure 7 shows one frame of a continuous animation displayed on the window glass of a furniture store in the San Francisco Bay Area.

As an example of an in-store application,Fig. 7 demonstrates a digital showcase forjewelry or watches. The EPD projector isbeneath the products and projects onto trans-parent fluorescent film that is mounted on theshowcase’s cover glass. In this way, theshowcase has been turned into a novel trans-parent digital display without affecting theviewing of the articles inside. Furthermore, ifcombined with an interactive module such asa transparent touch film, the digital displayshowcase could enable people to search forproduct information on the cover glass of theproduct cabinets in an interactive fashion.

EPD systems have also been applied successfully in various exhibitions. The window glass of a booth or hall can displaycreative, dynamic, and see-though signage,including traffic-stopping commercials. Figure 8 shows an example: the EPD productlaunch at World-Expo 2010 (Shanghai,China).



Fig. 7: EPD technology (left) on the window of a home-furnishings store in the San Francisco Bay Area enhances a product launch; at right,EPD enables a dynamic transparent display showcase for jewelry.

Fig. 8: The EPD product launch at World-Expo 2010 (Shanghai) featured six red Chinese words on the glass.


The Line-Art-based EPD system can alsopotentially be used to create large advertisingdisplays on the glass curtain walls of modernbuildings. The unique display screen presentsthe projected image, while being highly trans-parent to visible light. Figure 9 is a computerrendering of such a display on the glass curtain wall of a hotel building. Up to 10,000sq. ft. of the digital display can be producedwith a screen and a high-powered laser pro-jector for glass-wall laser displays at night.

For such an application, a high-poweredlaser projector would be placed on either sideof the glass screen for front or rear projection.An additional UV layer would block the laserlight from penetrating the screen and reachingviewers. Since the screen is water clear, thewindows continue to provide natural light andan uninterrupted view. Any advertising displayed by the projector would be viewablefrom miles away at night. Such a displaywould be easier to install and disassemble andmore cost-effective than a large LED sign,without affecting the aesthetics of the buildingor the functioning of the windows.

As a final example of a signage application,the full transparency and large viewing angleof the EPD system make it ideal for display-ing information on the windshields or otherwindows of cars, trucks, trains, buses, aircraft,and other vehicles. The EPD system couldfunction as a novel HUD and could utilize anypart of a windshield as the display screen.

A problem facing almost all projection displays in such an application is the degener-ation of image quality due to intense sunlight.In order to reduce the influence of sunlightand improve the contrast, the display screencan be used in conjunction with a tinted film,which basically eliminates the overlappingexcitation wavelengths from sunlight. Figure10 shows a clear 50-in.-diagonal image onglass facing direct sunlight. This large HUDproduct with unlimited viewing angles hasHDMI and VGA interfaces and is ready to beimplemented in many commercial vehicles(Fig. 11).

A Clear Future for Novel Applications Sun Innovations has spent the past 6 yearsdeveloping a novel transparent emissive pro-jection display that combines the high qualityof an emissive display with the scalability ofdigital projection. It enables the display ofdigital images on windows or windshieldswithout affecting the view or the transmission


Fig. 9: This artist’s rendering shows how a high-powered EPD system could be applied as avery large-scale display on the glass-curtain wall of a commercial building at night.

Fig. 10: An EPD screen with a transparent green emissive film and tinted film is applied on awindow facing direct sunlight.


of light through the glass. This innovativenew display system has many commercialapplications where information or advertisingneeds to be presented on glass, without affect-ing the view through the glass.

While the technology is still in develop-ment, multiple products have been developedover the past few years, including a laser animation display based on scanning laserprojectors and a transparent information display (including HUD) on glass. The supe-rior image quality, unlimited viewing angles,best-of-class clarity, economy, and ease ofimplementation make the EPD the potentialtechnology of choice to digitize the glass ofthe future.

References1T. Sun, and J. Q. Liu, U.S. Patent No.6,986,581.2J. Q. Liu, T. Sun, and M. Duan, U.S. PatentNo. 7,537,346.3T. Sun and B. Cheng,”A new emissive pro-jection display technology and a high contrast

DLP projection display on black screen,”Proc. SPIE 7932, 793209 (2011).4T. Sun, G. Pettitt, etc, “Full color high contrast front projection on black emissivedisplay,” Proc. SPIE 8254, 82540K-1 (2012).

n


Fig. 11: The current EPD HUD product as shown in Fig. 10 can be readily implemented ontovarious vehicle windshields, including (clockwise) cars, tractors, trucks, and ships.

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PUBLIC DISPLAYS are a fascinating topicfor those of us who love to see how marketswork. These displays can be broadly dividedinto two groups. There are those that “inform,”such as flight or train displays. These “inform”displays have a cost for a purpose. “Promote”displays are those that may be partly or whollyfunded by advertisers – the kind of displaythat might be seen in an airport terminal or ashopping mall displaying products or servicesfor sale rather than time tables.

The European market is something of anenigma. At one level, it is considered a singlemarket. However, the region has some of thecountries with the highest incomes per capita,but also big countries with incomes thatwould be normal for a developing region.From Norway at $47,545 per capita, theregion goes down to Albania at $4,090 percapita for 2012. This means a huge differencein the way that economies and advertisingwork.

Europe also has a wide range of cultures,which makes it much harder to develop adver-tising campaigns that are effective across thewhole region. As soon as you put a person

into a scene in an advertisement, it can evokea wide variety of different reactions in differ-ent countries. In some regions, for example,showing computers being used in an officecan lead to a surprising range of views on, forexample, how and whether women areincluded in the scene. Of course, the sheernumber of languages makes pan-Europeanadvertising and media more challenging aswell.

MarketsRetailers are also broadly national. Althoughthere are companies that have some success in a number of markets (e.g., Carrefour in grocery and Media Markt/Saturn in electronics),even those companies tend to work a bit differently in the different regions, as buyingbehaviors vary. Retail is the biggest marketfor digital signage, so the decisions in thissegment have a big influence on the rest of theindustry. Some of the electrical retailers suchas MediaMarkt simply make use of the low-cost TVs that they sell as digital signs in theirstores to draw attention to promotions andoffers. High-end fashion retailers in London,Paris, Germany, or Milan often invest heavilyin digital signage of different kinds to maketheir stores more dynamic and more easilychangeable according to the season.

Projects and display networks in other markets for digital signage, such as banking/financial services and transport, are also usually based on national boundaries. Digitalout-of-home (DOOH) advertising is also a

very national market because of differentviews on how out-of-home advertising shouldbe used and because of different local plan-ning restrictions and local and national government regulations. For example, the UKhas a good number of large light-emitting-diode (LED) displays and video walls that aredeliberately placed next to the busiest roads tocatch attention, while in Sweden temporarylicences for roadside signs were withdrawn asa result of research on driver distraction.

In sum total, the public-display market forEurope, whether digital signage or DOOH, isfundamentally a collection of national marketsrather than one regional market.

Scale, Scale, ScaleThe market, then, is very fragmented and thismeans that digital-signage projects are moredifficult to develop. This is not connected todisplays or display-related technology, butbecause in any application like this, the devel-opment of content is one of the most signifi-cant cost elements. When that content needsto be delivered in multiple languages, or withdifferent visuals because of varied culturalnorms, the costs and complications go up.And as costs go up, the viability of networks,especially those funded by advertising, comeunder pressure. Although infrastructure costsare a factor in roll-outs, it is the cost of creat-ing and maintaining high-quality content thatis the biggest challenge.

When the content costs are divided oversmaller populations than those of China, the

Public Displays in Europe (and elsewhere)Public displays have been slow to make inroads in many European markets, although therehave been pockets of progress. It is difficult to generalize about the digital-signage market inEurope, let alone the Middle East and Africa because every country is a market unto itself,with unique economic, cultural, and regulatory requirements.

by Bob Raikes

Bob Raikes is an experienced manager andanalyst and a specialist in the European display market. Since 1994, he has publishedthe weekly Display Monitor newsletter, thejournal of record for the display industry. His company, Meko, researches and publishesdata on the European display market. He canbe reached at [email protected].


display marketplace

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U.S., or Japan, the cost may simply be toomuch to support digital-signage projects.There are many that go through a “pilot”stage, but do not get to a full roll-out. A proportion of projects get as far as roll-out,but some commercial networks, hoping toraise revenue by selling advertising, havealready been closed and removed because ofthe difficulty of making a profit. At this stageof the market, that’s a pity. In Germany alone,the networks PosterTV, Cityboomer, andCityUp have closed down. Cityboomer was anetwork that was set up to provide digital-signage space funded by advertising, but wentfrom IPO to bankruptcy in less than 2 years.

At the 7th OVAB Digital Signage Confer-ence in Munich, in September 2013, it waspointed out that a number of global multi-nationals that have tried to establish busi-nesses in the region have failed to obtain scaleand growth in their businesses. Part of thereason is that so much of the installation andsupport needs to be tailored to the local geog-raphy and that means a lot of input from part-ners in each country. (Interestingly, althoughbilled as a European event, the audience wasdominated by players from the German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria, andSwitzerland)

NEC is developing its Vukunet platform, which it calls a “Universal Digital Place-Based Ad Server,” to try to make it easier for Euro-pean advertisers to identify networks that theycan use for messaging, and as a way to deliverthe content for play-out quickly and easily.Vukunet, which launched in the U.S. a coupleof years ago, is an automated ad delivery platform for digital out-of-home media that isdesigned to allow owners of screen networkslocated in public venues to earn revenue byshowing advertisements. Vukunet claims thatits web-based platform is the first universalinventory management, ad delivery, billingand payment, and reporting system to workacross hundreds of operating networks. Thedisplays themselves are primarily large liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) used singly or ingroups as video walls.

Geographic FocusThe digital-signage market in Europe isstrongly centered on Western Europe.Although the UK was the earliest market todevelop, with a strong position in the largestmarket 7 or 8 years ago, the growth in thatcountry has been somewhat more limited in

recent years (although there was a good boostto installations and investment around thevery successful Olympics in 2012). CBS Out-door and Clear Channel are two of the majorplayers.

Germany became the largest market at the end of 2008 and has kept that position,although very close to the UK in volumewhen it comes to displays. The transportindustry in Germany has been very strong inadopting and investing in digital signage.Ströer is a large media company that has beeninfluential in developing the German market.

France has grown steadily year on year as amarket for digital signage and saw only aslight slow-down after the financial crisis in2008. The European Soccer Championshipsin 2016, which will take place in 10 stadiumsthroughout France, should help with invest-ments in preparation for the tournament. JCDecaux, based in France, is a strong globalplayer in the conventional-signage businessand has also been heavily involved in digitalsignage.

The Nordics have been developing wellover recent years, and Russia, after a numberof years of limited development, has seen verygood growth in the last few years and mostrecently with the build up to the Sochi WinterOlympics. Outside the West, the Nordics, andRussia, the digital-signage market has beenmuch slower to develop. The countries alongthe Mediterranean have been slow for the lastseveral years, although there are interestingprojects here and there, such as a kiosk-typedisplay in Milan’s transport system that wasdeveloped by M-Cube with software supplierScala using Samsung displays (Fig. 1).

BrandsMost of the display brands that are active indigital signage in Europe are the major globalbrands such as Samsung, NEC, and LG. Samsung has a very dominant position currently and both that company and LG,which is the third largest supplier, have sub-sidiaries in all the major countries as well asregional companies to allow a lot of local contact and management. NEC is the secondlargest brand and has a strong history of work-ing closely with its resellers on projects andintegration.

There are a number of small vendorslocally, with most of them concentrating onnational markets. However, the region alsohas specialist suppliers such as Conrac, which

is a significant global brand in the FlightInformation Display (FID) market.

Hardware All of the brands supply global digital-signageproducts, as, unlike TV, there is no need todeal with regional tuner and broadcast issues.Europe was an early adopter of LCDs, andplasma-display panels (PDPs) have beenmuch less important than in some markets,such as the U.S. LCD volume surpassed thatof PDP volume in the middle of 2006, andPDP volume dropped to less than 5% of themarket by 2011. Smaller stores still like touse 32-in. sets, which maintain a share of 15%or so, but 40–47-in. sets make up 60–65% ofthe market. 55-in. sets are the ones that havethe best growth at the moment. In Eastern andSouthern Europe, commercial TVs are quiteregularly used for digital signage where professional-quality displays might be used inthe main economies.

Hard-to-Grow Public-Display SalesOne of the frustrating factors for the majordisplay brands is that within a project the costof the hardware, including the display itself, is


Fig. 1: This interactive kiosk-type LCD isconnected to Milan’s transport system andoffers a touch interface for users to find infor-mation on train schedules, weather, andevents.


often only a relatively small portion of thetotal cost. Even within the hardware budget,only a portion of this goes to the display, withcosts associated with installation, mounting,cabling, networks, media players, and war-ranty and service. This makes it quite difficultfor companies that are used to driving volumeby reducing prices, as has been the practice inthe TV and monitor markets.

ChannelsThe major multinational distributors such asIngram Micro and TechData have interests inthis market; Ingram has a specialist group atthe European level and TechData ownsTDMaverick, a specialist subsidiary for audio-visual products. However, most A/V distribu-tors are organized on a national basis. Thatmeans that brands need to support the distrib-utors with national representation and support.

Software and ArchitecturesThe Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau(OVAB) Europe is a trade association that isworking to develop standards and has pub-lished standards for audience measurementand service levels. These standards shouldhelp the development of commercial networksthat can deliver advertisements to consumers,which should drive revenue growth from

advertising, a major challenge for the market.One of the challenges on a global level is thatthe digital-signage market has too many soft-ware packages. Although there are largercompanies such as Scala, it has been sug-gested that there may be as many as 700 different packages available in Europe! Thatcauses real problems in support and develop-ment and leads to complications in developingmulti-national content. Software developersthat want to supply products through the fullarea of the region have to make decisions notonly about the languages that their softwarewill support on the displays, but how manylanguages can be used within the software todevelop the content.

This year, Samsung was the first to launchnew digital-signage products based on adding“Smart TV” systems-on-chips (SoCs) to itsdigital-signage products. These are relativelylight clients, but can be used in conjunctionwith software from Scala, Signagelive, andothers. The company has been developingtools to help smaller resellers sell simple solu-tions to small- and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs). At present, it is not clear that thisstrategy will gain traction, but it’s an innova-tive and positive approach to expanding themarket for digital signage, especially inSMEs.

RegulationsThere are a number of extra pressures on themarket in Europe, especially in the countriesin the European Union. One of the simpleones is the EU Directive 90/269/EEC – whichcovers the manual handling of loads andeffectively limits the maximum weight thatcan be lifted by a single individual. Environ-mental issues are very important in every partof the European market. The French govern-ment, among others, has environmental regu-lations (the Grenelle II law which came intoforce in July 2012) that limit advertising usingdigital signs.

Middle East and AfricaThe Middle East and Africa have many of thechallenges that beset the market in Europe inculture, language, and content. In addition,the region has some particular current prob-lems. In the Middle East, one of the mostimportant economies is Egypt and the politicalsituation in that area is causing a lot of multi-national consumer companies to cut theiradvertising budgets. The effect of this drop inadvertising revenue is having a “knock-on”effect on the entire region and impacting digital signage and DOOH revenues. Never-theless, the market in EMEA is on a steadyrise. Meko divides the EMEA geography into10 regions. In Q2 2013, the MEA market represented 8% of the total market (comparedto 7% for the small countries of Benelux)(Fig. 2).

An interesting project in Africa is SolarPowered Advanced Rural Communication(Sparc). In much of rural Africa, there is littleTV because of the lack of electrical power.However, phones and smartphones have veryhigh penetration.

In the Sparc project, digital-signage kiosksare being set up using solar power (Fig. 3).They communicate with the “cloud” by usingmobile-phone technology, which is widelyavailable (it’s just GPRS, but that, combinedwith satellite-sourced video, provides enoughdata for simple advertising). The terminalswere developed with Amscreen, which claimsto be Europe’s largest DOOH network (andhas display networks in the UK, Germany,Poland, Switzerland, UAE, Oman, Kenya,Angola, and South Africa, totaling around6,000 displays).

The Sparc system allows advertisers to create simple local advertising at very lowcost and with detailed control of where the

display marketplace


Fig. 2: Digital-signage sales volumes by relative percentages show that German-speakingcountries, the UK and Ireland, and the Nordics are currently the heaviest users. Source: Meko, Ltd.


content plays (down to individual kiosk level).Few individual consumers can afford news-papers, and with little TV advertising this kindof advertising can have a significant impacton small businesses and local economies aswell as for national brands that cannot use TV.

A Challenging MarketThere are opportunities in the EMEA digital-signage market, with steady growth. How-ever, entering the market with an aim ofgetting a significant share needs a commit-ment to developing business in multipleregions over a period of time. Products needto be built to professional standards and forlong life as buyers are very demanding. It’scritical to develop relationships with the chan-nel partners and key integrators in multiplecountries to support the scale needed to be anactive player over the long term. n

Fig. 3: Solar-powered digital-signage kioskssuch as these are providing Internet connec-tivity (and digital advertising) to areas ofrural Africa that are largely without electricity.

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THE first thing to understand about thebusiness environment for display companiesin Europe is that there is not one environment,but many. While every region of the worldhas its internal differences, these differencesare especially pronounced in Europe, wherecountries have their own laws, languages, andcustoms that in some cases go back more thana thousand years. The 28-member EuropeanUnion has created a measure of political andeconomic uniformity, with the Euro its mostvisible result, but the EU has not homoge-nized Europe. The EU has also been losingfavor in many member countries.That said, the European business “environ-

ment” does have some common characteris-tics that distinguish it from other regions, suchas Asia and North America. These include a proud history of scientific research and discovery that continues to this day, a strongermanufacturing presence than might beguessed, and a consumer culture that favorslong-term relationships over the next newthing. Europe is slowly and steadily recover-ing from a poor economy, although many ofthe southern nations are not yet in anythingresembling recovery mode. In terms of environmental issues, Europe,

and specifically the European Union, hastended to promote policies more proactively

than is the case in North America and Asia.Restrictions on incandescent bulbs began inEurope, by EU directive, in 2009, and theywere banned outright for home use in 2012.1(In the U.S., the bulbs are being phased out aswell, but far more slowly.) The EU has a non-binding objective to cut energy use to levels20% below business-as-usual projections by2020 and has, in addition to the light-bulblaws, instituted numerous measures pertainingto recycling, emissions levels, and water qual-ity.2,3 Across the region, regulations and stan-dards tend to be set at an EU level, whichmakes navigating any hurdles somewhat morepredictable than would have been the casepre-EU. That said, the Nordic nations and theGerman-speaking countries tend to be themost sensitive to environmental issues – theyare the “California” of the EU.

Material FoundationsMany core display discoveries have beenmade in Europe. This year marks the 125thanniversary of the discovery of cholesteric liquid crystals, a joint effort between Austrianchemist Friedrich Reinitzer and Germanphysicist Otto Lehmann.4 Years later, George

Gray’s research team at the University of Hullin the UK made major research contributionsthat led to liquid crystals being usable for displays.5Materials continue to be an area of strength

in this region. The Fraunhofer Institutes inGermany currently contribute significantresearch to OLED, LED, and liquid-crystaltechnology, and Novaled is a powerhouse inOLEDs, with an emphasis on lighting. Germany’s Merck, founded in 1668, is theworld’s largest producer of liquid crystals.Another German firm, OSRAM, a mere 100years old, is a major player in LEDs. Europe is also home to a number of equip-

ment companies, including Germany’s Aixtron,a maker of deposition systems; France’sELDIM, which makes cameras and measure-ment equipment; and Sweden’s MicronicMydata, which manufactures pattern generatorsand surface-mount technology. Measurement instrumentation has been a

European specialty for years; in addition toELDIM, there are Instrument Systems, LMTLichtmesstechnik Berlin GmbH, X-Rite, andBYK-Gardner, all located in Germany. (For an update on recent consolidations in theGerman instrumentation industry, see theMay/June Industry News.) Much of theexperimental work is performed by the com-panies. “There is not much R&D at universi-

The Display Business Environment in Europe:Together but DifferentThis article, the second in an occasional series that looks at business environments aroundthe world, describes historical, economic, and other conditions that affect display companiesdoing business in Europe.

by Jenny Donelan

Jenny Donelan is the Managing Editor of Information Display magazine. She can be reached at [email protected].


regional business review

1http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/9498092/Retailers-avoid-ban-on-traditional-light-bulbs.html2http://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/an-overview-of-eu-environment3http://europa.eu/pol/env/flipbook/en/files/environment.pdf4http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/physics/liquid_crystals/history/

5http://www.hull.ac.uk/chemistry/research/LCgroup/history.htm

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/9498092/Retailers-avoid-ban-on-traditional-light-bulbs.html

http://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/an-overview-of-eu-environment

http://europa.eu/pol/env/flipbook/en/files/environment.pdf

http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/physics/liquid_crystals/history/

http://www.hull.ac.uk/chemistry/research/LCgroup/history.htm

http://informationdisplay.org/IDArchive/2013/MayJune/IndustryNews.aspx

ties related to instrumentation for displayapplications,” says Richard Distl, a ManagingDirector of Instrument Systems, adding thathis company puts a lot of effort into R&D onits own, with current projects including 2-Dcolor measurement for homogeneity analysesof displays.Well-established display system integrators

in this region include Barco (Belgium; projec-tors and digital signage), Conrac (Germany;industrial, marine, and ruggedized displays),and GDS (Italy; digital signage and more),which compete globally in their respectivemarkets. The French-Italian semiconductorcompany ST Microelectronics (with head-quarters in Geneva) does a reportedly heftybusiness making the MEMs gyroscopes andaccelerometers for the iPhones 4 and 5.6When it comes to making the products thatend users love to buy, Finland’s Nokia isprobably the prime example. This 150-year-old company began as a paper mill and trans-formed its portfolio over the years to includeelectronics, including the hugely successfulLumia smartphones. The company’s smart-phone business was recently purchased byMicrosoft. Such acquisitions are a familiar story in

Europe. According to market analyst BobRaikes of Meko, “Once out of the R&Dphase, [European] companies often end upbeing bought by the global display makers.”As examples, he offers Liquavista (a Dutchcompany originally spun off from Philips)being acquired by Samsung (and later byAmazon), Germany’s Novaled by Samsungand Cheil Industries, the UK’s CambridgeDisplay Technology by Sumitomo in 2007,and Scotland’s Forth Dimension (a maker ofnear-to-eye technology) to Kopin in 2011. It should be noted that acquisitions do not

always mean that operations cease in thehome country. Nokia, for example, will retainmany operations in Finland post-acquisition.Instrument Systems continues to operate inGermany since being acquired by Konica Minolta, as does Cambridge Display Technology in Cambridgeshire, UK, since its acquisition.

Continental ManufacturingEurope does not spring to mind as a hotbed of manufacturing. Common associations forthis region tend to be more along the lines of

limited land for building, strict environmentalregulations, and some of the world’s highestpaid workers. But, in fact, manufacturing inEurope still makes sense in many markets,says Raikes, pointing out that being close tothe people who are buying the goods and having access to the latest technology andskilled workers can offset the cost savings ofassembling in Asia. “There are also tariff barriers,” he says. “TVs imported to Europefrom Asia carry a 14% duty, unless they comefrom Korea, in which case a free-trade dealwith the EU will bring the duty down to 0%by 2016.” One of Europe’s answers to low-cost manu-

facturing, a sort of “onshore/offshore” move-ment, has been Eastern Europe. A minormanufacturing boom began there about 10 years ago, notes Raikes, with most of the factories geographically arranged in a ringthat is referred to as “JOG,” for “Just OutsideGermany.” To paraphrase writer Mark Morley in his Driving B2B blog from Octoberof last year, Eastern Europe is an appealinglocation for manufacturers for several reasons.First, many of its countries – Hungary, theCzech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia –border Western Europe. Second, costs forboth services and labor tend to be low, andmany local governments are eager to offerincentives to incoming manufacturers. Thetransportation infrastructure, in terms of roadsand waterways, is in place.7 Last but notleast, some countries, Hungary and the CzechRepublic most notably, have a long traditionof precision manufacturing as well as scien-tific innovation. Hungary, in particular,already has manufacturing momentum, andcompanies from all over the world, such asFoxconn, Denso, Philips, and others havemanufacturing operations there.7Manufacturing does exist outside Eastern

Europe as well. Nokia has operations in Finland; Barco has factories in Belgium, etc.There is a certain eagerness on the part ofmany countries to renew economic opportu-nity in the form of homeland manufacturing.The UK’s Raspberry Pi is a poster child ofsorts. This credit-card-sized computer,designed to plug into a TV and keyboard and

enable word processing, spread sheets, etc.,was created by a not-for-profit group primarilyto enable accessible computing for kids on aglobal basis. The first Pis were made in Chinain 2011, but operations have been “resourced”to a Sony factory in Wales. In October 2013,UK production exceeded 1 million boards, apiece of news that was widely and fondlyreported around the world.8

Retail ConservatismElectronics buyers in Europe like good designand good value and are unlikely to replaceelectronics as rapidly as do their North American and Asian counterparts. SaysRaikes: “They are happy to pay for goodproducts as long as they are likely to last –think of the success of German cars!” Displaycompanies looking to expand into Europe, henotes, should be aware that buyers tend to beless tolerant of product failure and mayrequire a higher level of warranty and servicethan North Americans. Another factor to consider is that for

European electronics consumers, bigger is notalways better. Homes in Europe tend to bemore compact than in North America andapartments are more prevalent, so the verylargest TVs may simply not be practical here.It is worth noting that 3-D did not induceEuropeans to buy new TVs any more readilythan it did North Americans, so it will beinteresting to see how UHD will fare. Thereis some promising movement. In January ofthis year, Eutelsat Communications launched the first dedicated demonstration UHD channel in Europe.9 Reporter (and Information Displaycontributing editor) Steve Sechrist wrote in aDisplay Daily blog that “4K content anddelivery, long considered the gating issue formainstream UHD adoption, is developing at afast pace in Europe as evidenced by the recentIFA in Berlin.” He noted new UHD satelliteand cable signal announcements, Internetdelivery of UHD signals, and new SOC chipsand STBs designed to enable 4K contentdelivery.10 If the quality and value are there,Europe can be very forward-thinking, Raikesnotes, pointing out the previous successes of3G and mobile technology in general.


6http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/ 4396870/Tear-down—Inside-the-Apple-iPhone-5

7“Why Eastern Europe Could Benefit from the ‘PerfectStorm’ Currently Brewing in the High Tech Industry,” byMark Morley: http://www.gxsblogs.com/morleym/2012/10/why-eastern-europe-could-benefit-from-the-perfect-storm-currently-brewing-in-the-high-tech-industry.html

8www.raspberrypi.org.shtml9http://news.softpedia.com/news/Europe-Welcomes-the-First-4K-UHD-TV-Channel-320926.shtml10http://www.display-central.com/free-news/display-daily/in-eu-4k-content-delivery-gets-ready-for-prime-time/


http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4396870/Teardown-Inside-the-Apple-iPhone-5

http://www.gxsblogs.com/morleym/2012/10/why-eastern-europe-could-benefit-from-the-perfect-storm-currently-brewing-in-the-high-tech-industry.html

http://www.display-central.com/free-news/display-daily/in-eu-4k-content-delivery-gets-ready-for-prime-time/

http://www.raspberrypi.org.shtml

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Europe-Welcomes-the-First-4K-UHD-TV-Channel-320926.shtml

In terms of consumer confidence, this isrecovering, but slowly (Fig. 1). SouthernEurope continues to be in an economic slump.Greece and Spain had unemployment over25% at press time, Raikes says, and France,Italy, and Poland were all above 10%. North-ern Europe is faring better. “Germany, in particular, is doing well,” Distl says. “Capitalequipment industry and machinery is veryhealthy and this is driven by export sales,mainly.” A few countries in Europe are strug-gling, he adds, but even outside Germany, theoverall outlook is more positive than negative.“I see this when talking to customers and others,” he says.Another factor to note is that retailers tend

to be national rather than regional. Key elec-tronics retailers are MediaMarkt/Saturn inGermany and Benelux, Dixons in the UK, andDarty in France. This is a reflection of bothlocal tariffs and buyer tradition. Global retail-ers such as Best Buy have not been successfulin Europe, with the exception of Amazon,says Raikes.

Lofty GoalsBecause Europeans – at least some Europeans– have money to spend, and there is a longtradition of technical excellence at both thecommercial and the university level, Europecan look very tempting to a display companylooking to sell or make displays there. Even

though total display sales have dropped some-what since 2010, the EMEA market for TVs,desktop monitors, and digital signage still tops100 million units for 2013, according to datafrom Meko. But Raikes likes to compareEurope to the Alps – from a distance, they arebeautiful and compelling, but once you are inthem, you face harsh conditions. Mistakes areeasy to make unless you know the territoryquite well. If you are willing to make theeffort to learn, however, and play according tothe local rules, you may find it a rewardinglandscape.

AcknowledgmentInformation Display thanks Bob Raikes ofMeko, a European market-research consul-tancy with special expertise in displays(www.meko.co.uk), for his invaluable contri-butions to this article. n

regional business review


Fig. 1: Consumer confidence is higher in Sweden and Denmark than in the other depicted nations, but almost all countries show an upward trend in 2013. Source: European Commission/Meko.

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THUS FAR in this Venture Capital series,we have covered the fundamental three “P’s”of building a technology venture: people,product, and pesos. But the last often comeswith a bit more paperwork than the first two.In this article, we will look at common struc-tures for venture capital deals, the motivationsof the players involved in venture funding,and some of the pitfalls that could destroyyour company (or your stake in it) if you arenot careful.At the highest level, an investment deal is

an exchange of ownership for money. Theprevious article in this series, “Raising Capitalfor Technology Ventures” in the September/October 2013 issue, discussed some of thevaluation mechanics, but as a reminder, aninvestment deal sets the amount of capital tobe invested and the pre-investment valuationfor your company (often called “pre-money”).

The sum of the two gives the post-money valuation of the company and effectively thepost-money ownership. For example, a pre-money valuation of $4 million with an invest-ment of $2 million means that the newinvestors will own one-third of the companyafter closing. Sounds simple, right? If only itweren’t for those pesky terms …Entire books have been written about

investment terms, but we will try to cover atleast some of the key ones, as well as some ofthe tricks used in the inherently asymmetricgame of term sheet negotiation.1 To startwith, most investments these days are made inexchange for so-called preferred shares. Asthe name implies, these have some character-istics that make them preferable to commonshares, which are generally the type of sharecapital held by founders, employees, andinventors.2 Those preferences can varygreatly, but we will cover at least some of themore common types:Straight vs. Convertible: Later-stage venture

investments are almost always straight pur-chases of shares for money. But early on it isoften difficult to accurately value a company.Convertible debentures, a form of debt that

later converts into shares, are a way to solvethis problem by deferring the valuation dis-cussion to the next round of financing. Themoney invested through the convertibledebenture is available to the company imme-diately, but the investors only receive theirshares when the next round closes (usually on the terms of the next round with some dis-count on the new valuation to reward them forinvesting early). Convertible debentures alsousually have a time limit and convert at somefixed share price, usually low, if the deadlineis missed.

Interest and Dividends: Some preferredshare deals include a required minimum divi-dend (e.g., each year the company has to pay

The Ins and Outs of Venture CapitalRaising venture capital funds is an exciting and often necessary step for your start-up. It’salso fraught with potential pitfalls that could cost you your company. The third article in ourventure capital series examines key terms used in investment deals and offers valuableinsights into the venture capital business model.

by Helge Seetzen

Helge Seetzen is CEO of TandemLaunchTechnologies, a Quebec-based company thatcommercializes early-stage technologies fromuniversities for its partners at major consumerelectronic brands. He also co-founded Sunnybrook Technologies and later BrightSideTechnologies to commercialize display tech-nologies developed at the University of BritishColumbia. He has published over 20 articlesand holds 30 patents with an additional 30pending U.S. applications. He has a Ph.D. ininterdisciplinary imaging technology (physicsand computer science) from the University ofBritish Columbia.


venture captial series

Example: The Start-up

Emilie, our intrepid entrepreneur, sets out to build her display company – SuperTech, Inc. She partners with John and Steve on equal terms (300K shares each) andreserves 10% of the company for employees (100K shares). After some initial efforts,they convince an angel investor to provide$300K in seed capital on a convertibledebenture with a 25% discount to the nextround.

Contributor Shares OwnershipFounders & 1,000,000 Common 100%Employees

1Asymmetric because the investor is usually afinancial professional who has made dozens if nothundreds of investments, whereas the entrepreneuris usually a technologist or business builder raisingmoney for the first or second time in her life.2If your investor is the rare kind that still takes com-mon shares then you can pretty much ignore the restof this section and count your blessings.

ID Seetzen p34-38_Layout 1 11/9/2013 1:53 PM Page 34

out $1 per share to the holders of the preferredshares). For convertible debentures, this usu-ally takes the form of annual interest on thedebt instead. In both cases, the amount mighthave to be paid out or just accrued for conver-sion into more preferred shares. Unless theamounts are exorbitant, these clauses are gen-erally not a problem – just take the expectedcash drain into account when budgeting youroperations.

Anti-Dilution Preferences: A variety ofpreferences deal with anti-dilution. This cantake the form of straight share capital adjust-ments, warrants, or similar mechanisms, butall boil down to keeping the investor whole ifthe company has misjudged a particularfinancing valuation. A common scenario is anoptimistically priced seed round followed by aseries A round that adjusts the valuation of thecompany back down to market prices. (Formore about seed rounds and series rounds, see“Raising Capital for Technology Ventures,”Sep./Oct. 2013.) In that scenario, anti-dilutionpreferences would retroactively give the seedinvestors more equity at the expense of com-mon shareholders (e.g., founders, employees,etc.). Anti-dilution formulas are usuallybenign, broad-based, and weighted-average,

but some clauses, such as full ratchets, can getnasty.3

Special Consent Requirements: Preferredshares often come with additional control benefits, such as the ability to force theappointment of seats on the Board of Directorsor veto certain business decisions. Within rea-son, those are benign preferences that serve asan exaggerated minority protection. Note thatthe biggest control benefit often does notappear explicitly in the term sheet: Mostcompanies have bylaws or shareholder agree-ments stipulating that each class of sharesmust vote independently for major decisionsin the company such as an acquisition, newfinancing, or change of business strategy. Soeven if your new investors own only 10% ofyour company, but 100% of those 10% arepreferred class shares, the investors mightvery well be able to dictate company deci-

sions simply by holding their share classhostage for all major decisions.

Liquidation Preference: Liquidation pref-erences function like a LIFO buffer – last in, first out – for investor’s cash ahead of all other shareholders during an exit, public offering, orsimilar liquidity event. A basic 1× liquidation preference is practically the default for allventure financings these days, ensuring thatinvestors get their money back first. Some investors push for higher multipliers or so-called participating liquidation preferences, which can make things rapidly more difficult. The latterensures that the investors first get their moneyback at some multiple and then participate in the remaining cash according to their ownership of the company – a structure usually reservedfor the desperate or innocent entrepreneur.4


3If none of these words make any sense to you, I recommend reading Brad Feld’s very good explanation here: http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2005/03/term-sheet-anti-dilution.html

4Such a participating liquidation preference with amultiple is often used as a mechanism to forceentrepreneurs to pursue high-risk strategies evenagainst their economic interest (see the sidebar onventure capital compensation).

Example: Enter the Venture Capital InvestorEmilie’s convertible debenture carries a10% annual interest that accrues. As luck,at the author’s wishes, would have it, sheraised her second round of financingexactly one year after the convertibledebenture at a valuation of $4 per share($4 million pre-money valuation). Thesecond round with a venture capitalinvestor brings $2 million into the com-pany in exchange for 500K preferredshares ($2 million divided by $4/share).The debenture holders have invested$300K plus $30K in accrued interest andget 25%, so they receive 110K preferredshares ($330K divided by the discounted$3/share).

Contributor Shares OwnershipFounders & 1,000,000 Common 62%Employees

Angel Investor 110,000 Preferred 7%

Venture Capital 500,000 Preferred 31%Investor

Example: The Fine Print Rears Its Head

Over the next 2 years, Emilie’s businesshits a few snags. None are fatal, but sheprobably was a bit too aggressive with her$4 million pre-money valuation of the lastround. Either that or Steve just isn’t sell-ing enough! She goes back to her VCinvestors to see if they might be willing toput in some more money, even at a lowervaluation, to keep the company afloat.The investors seem amenable to investinganother $1 million at a pre-money valua-tion of $2 million. This is not an optimaloutcome, but Emilie, John, and Steve arewilling to accept the loss of another thirdof their company as the price of keeping italive. That’s when their lawyer explains the

anti-dilution clause of their original deal.The new valuation is lower than the previ-ously raised amount, causing the fullratchet iterative anti-dilution calculation toconverge on a price of $0 per share andthus handing the VC investor 100% ofEmilie’s company regardless of how muchhe actually invests. Game over.

Example: Almost Saved by the Sale

Emilie starts to panic as soon as her lawyer is done with the explanation of anti-dilution. The choices seem horrible: the only wayto keep the company alive is to effectivelylose her ownership in it. The only optionout of this mess seems to be the sale of thebusiness. The team members cut theirsalaries, tell their families good bye fornow, and plunge into the crazy whirlwindof startup acquisitions. After severalmonths, they have an offer from Mega-Corp, Inc., to buy SuperTech, Inc., for $5million. Proudly, Emilie goes to her boardand explains the last-minute rescue deal.It turns out that the VCs do not like thedeal and instead advocate a re-launch planwith new leadership and new financing(wiping out both Emilie’s job and owner-ship). Fortunately, Emilie and her fellowfounders still have majority control of thecompany so this cannot happen – right?In fact, accepting the acquisition offerrequires a shareholder vote with both thecommon shareholders (which Emilie winseasily) and the preferred shareholders (inwhich Emilie and her friends do not get toparticipate). Motion denied.


http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2005/03/term-sheet-anti-dilution.html

http://informationdisplay.org/IDArchive/2013/SeptemberOctober/VentureCapitalSeriesII.aspx

As the story of poor Emilie hopefully illus-trates, understanding these investment terms is

critical. First-time founders would be welladvised to have advisors (or co-founders) who have been through the cycle a few times,especially if the amounts involved are dazzling.Of course, venture capitalists are not inher-ently evil – I am essentially one myself,though my company invests on commonshares – but the incentive model and economicsof venture investing mean that Emilie’s storyis not particularly uncommon. (See the side-

bar, “Venture Capital Goals and Compensa-tion.) These investment terms of engagementessentially give savvy investors a high degreeof downside protection at the expense of othershareholders. Usually, none of this matters ifthe company consistently grows, but suchterms can trigger very dramatic changes to thewealth distribution in the company as soon askey milestones are missed (and usually do notallow for any recovery later on).

venture capital series


A Common Founding Valuation Misconception

There is a commonly held but incorrect belief that “founding” somehow creates value. A common example is the lone engineer who leaves his $100K/year employment to start anew venture for which he approaches angels for an investment against a valuation of $1 million. Magically, so the mistaken belief goes, $1 million of free value has been cre-ated by declaring the business “founded.” Not so. Assuming that the founder commits toworking on the venture for free for a year, the value of the venture is essentially $100K (theapproximately fair market value of the engineer’s future contribution). Having spent $500to incorporate an entity does not make anything more valuable. This, of course, does not mean that founders should not receive significant rewards in

the company, just that “founding” itself does not create value. Assembling a team, invent-ing concepts, building product, and making sales – these things all create value. If ourlone engineer goes out for a year and does all of these things, then his venture might verywell be worth $1 million. It could also be worth nothing – the engineer has effectivelyinvested his $100K in fair market value compensation and now rides the same uncappedrollercoaster of valuation from $0 to millions based purely on the value of the venture withno consideration for the amount sunk into getting it to that point. Apart from making for amusing anecdotes in discussions with first-time entrepreneurs,

this has some serious consequences:(a) Accelerator (or other “pre-activity”) investments are often made at verylow effective valuations precisely because the founder contribution is lim-ited to future work at fair market value (e.g., Ycombinator, grand-father of all Accelerators, invests in teams of 2–4 people at an effective val-uation of ~$200K, which is very closely comparable to the combined earn-ing power of most of those people during the 3–9 months that they willnot be drawing pay).

(b) Founders who leave ventures early really should have reverse vestingmechanism in their share allocation to largely remove them from the capi-tal table of the company (similar to and ideally on the same terms of otheremployees who leave early). Anything else ascribes a magic power to the“first guys” and will create nothing but morale problems for the remainingpeople (who then have to work extra hard just to make the quitter rich).

(c) Major contributors joining during the same “valuation stage” as thefounders should get founder-like equity grants (e.g., joining a venture a fewweeks after it was “founded” should not magically lower your equity stakeby 10× compared to founders of similar function).

Of course, this does not mean that the ownership gap between founders and otheremployees can’t still be huge. Contributors who join at future valuation stages will, andshould, have major reductions in comparable equity. Similarly, people who invest little inthe form of lower salary or similar risk contributions generally will not receive much of astake in the new venture regardless of their time of arrival.

Example: Modest Payout, Major Lessons

In desperation, Emilie turns to the originalangel investor, Jenny, and explains all hertroubles. Jenny is by far the smallestshareholder of SuperTech, Inc., so legallyshe doesn’t carry much weight. But shehas done a number of deals together withthe VC and has a lot of stature in the localinvestment community. Using that lever-age, Jenny is able to work out a dealwhere the founders cancel 100K shareseach, but the MegaCorp deal can goahead. The final ownership distributionstill leaves Emilie with 15% of the com-pany and the team collectively with 53%. There is, however, that little line about a

2× participating liquidation preference inthe investment agreement. After anothertrip to the lawyers, the situation doesn’tlook quite as rosy. The holders of pre-ferred shares have collectively invested$2.3 million, so the first $4.6 million ofthe MegaCorp purchase price is theirs.The remaining $400K is then splitbetween all shareholders.

Contributor Shares Ownership Payout

Founders & 700,000 53% $212,000Employees Common

Angel Investor 110,000 8% $632,000Preferred

Venture Capital 500,000 39% $4,156,000Investor Preferred

The VC has turned its $2 million invest-ment to a bit over $4 million, a solid 108%return. Jenny, our angel, also made thesame return on her $300K (though Emiliedoes not feel so bad about that). When allthe dust has settled, Emilie gets a checkfor 60K (15% of $400K) – not much for 3years of hard work, but it comes with a lotof lessons learned about life and invest-ment terms! Now, MegaCorp is talkingabout something called “earn out”.5

5Acquirers often add requirements to a deal that keycontributors, like Emilie, have to remain on-staff for2–4 years to actually get their payout. This is fre-quently done by locking up their payout or convert-ing it into vesting options of the acquirer. Emilie’stroubles might not be over yet.


Getting RichSo you have raised money, avoided the worst ofthe financial terms, and even built a nice littleventure with growth momentum. Now what?The first thing to remember is that nobody getsrich from receiving shares. (A related issue isthat of founding valuation: See the sidebar, “ACommon Founding Valuation Misconception.”)The concept of shares is probably the source ofthe biggest misunderstanding in the entrepre-neurial community and the root of countlessfrustrations in start-up board rooms across theworld. Let me repeat this: getting lots of shareswill not make you rich. Why is that?Shares, like all other considerations in a

business, are given in exchange for somethingof comparable value. As a founder, that’s usually your time and possibly your reputation. As an investor, the exchange is more straight-forward – for cash. As an inventor, it will befor the value of your contributed intellectualproperty. And so forth. Any such exchange ishighly unlikely to yield significant wealth foranybody involved regardless of when or howyou do it. As a founder you will get a lot ofshares; as a later-stage employee you will get fewer shares, but ultimately you are still trading beans for carrots at market prices. Even if you somehow manage to trick the other side intogiving you a bit more value in the exchange,say, by elevating your reputation or the valueof your idea, it is virtually impossible to turnthat into significant wealth gain – especiallysince the monetization of such wealth willultimately require several other seasoned valuators to buy into your price.6 The inability to understand the exchange nature of equityhas led to some odd behaviors – such as com-panies creating millions of penny sharesinstead of thousands of dollar shares so thatpeople feel like they “own” more.Emilie’s example shows that share owner-

ship itself, and the manipulation of valuation,rarely help very much. Few ventures have happy outcomes if they continue to raise money at flat or nearly flat valuations. Instead, eachround of financing is an opportunity to gener-ate wealth, even if it will be illiquid for awhile. Most successes follow a fairly steady

climb of valuation until they finally hit thecash-out jackpot during an initial public offer-ing or acquisition.

So, if not by amassing shares, how does oneget rich as an entrepreneur? The key is toincrease share value – make those shares


6In other words, even if you manage to convince aninnocent angel investor that you invented the LCDin 2013 and thus your company should be worth$100 million, it is unlikely that any acquirer willever actually pay that $100 million in the future –thus leaving you with the satisfaction of havingtricked the angel but not much else.

7I will ignore more advanced elements of VC compensation such as the distinction between committed andinvested capital, hurdle adjustments, stacking of parallel funds, and so forth – these structures are compli-cated enough as it is.8If you are curious about this situation, I recommend reading the Kauffmann Foundation study titled “WeHave Met the Enemy … And He is Us,” released in 2012, which describes the authors’ last 20 years as amajor LP and concludes with the observation that the abysmal returns are a direct consequence of the align-ment problems outlined in this sidebar: http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/we-have-met-the-enemy-and-he-is-us.aspx.

Venture Capital Goals and CompensationUnlike angels or other direct investors, venture capitalists do not invest their own money.Instead, they are paid to manage the capital of others, their so-called Limited Partners(LPs). Like all human beings, VCs act upon incentives, but those are subtly different fromthe straightforward goals of direct investors. The latter, including the actual LPs of VCfunds, want to invest money and get more money back in return. That’s not entirely thecase for their fund-managing VCs, though. Most VCs are paid using the “2 and 20” model,which provides an annual management fee of 2% of the total capital as well as 20% of anycarried interest (return on invested capital after return of the principal investment). Whilethis sounds straightforward, it introduces two fundamental alignment conflicts involvingthe VCs, their LPs, and effectively, the entrepreneur:(a) Downside Misalignment: The management fee covers the operating cost of the

fund, but also generally provides the fund managers with high compensation – regardlessof whether the fund performs or not. A traditional $200 million fund running for 10 yearswill pay out a solid $40 million to the 3–8 fund managers even if the entire $160 million ofinvested capital goes down the drain.7 This creates what, thanks to the recent Wall Streetdebacle, we now know as a “moral hazard.”(b) Upside Misalignment: As bad as the moral hazard of downside protection is, it pales

in comparison to the impact of upside misalignment. Even though the fund managers’participation in the upside by 20% appears to nicely align their success to that of the entrepreneur and LP, it creates a curious disconnect: Imagine two $10 million investmentopportunities available to a VC. One is guaranteed to double your money in a year. The other has a 10% chance of yielding $150 million during the same year. From the perspective of any rational investor, including the LPs and entrepreneur, the first option is preferable with an expected exit value of $20 million vs. $15 million for the second.Unfortunately, VC math is different. The first opportunity will yield $2 million for thefund manager (20% × $10 million in gained interest). The second will yield $28 million if it works (20% × $140 million) and $0 if it doesn’t for an expected value of $2.8 million($2.8 million × 10% probability). In other words, the VC is encouraged to make badinvestments by virtue of its compensation structure.Combined, these two elements of the VC compensation structure encourage VC fund

managers to push their companies toward high-risk avenues – often up to and beyond thepoint of reasonable risk taking for their LPs and entrepreneurs. A viable counter argu-ment might be that a venture capital firm could somehow increase the probability of thebig wins occurring so that its LPs and entrepreneurs might still benefit from the skewedcompensation model. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem supported by market observation:for almost 20 years, the VC industry has consistently returned less money to its LPs thanmuch safer asset classes such as blue chip stock indices.8 This by no means implies thattaking venture capital is fundamentally wrong for a new venture – in fact, it is often theonly viable option – but it is important to understand the biases introduced by venturecapital and incorporate those into your strategic planning.


http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/we-have-met-the-enemy-and-he-is-us.aspx

worth more after you receive them. Increas-ing your number of shares tenfold is virtuallyimpossible in a fair exchange, but multiplyingtheir value 10 times can be done. It willrequire significant growth of your business,careful husbanding of resources, developmentof innovative products or services, and, aboveall, a good eye for opportunities that maxi-mize value increase. And therein lies themagic of entrepreneurship.

As a corporate employee, your compensa-tion is largely decoupled from the value ofyour work product. If you invent the next big thing, you might get a 20% increase during a promotion, but your company willgain millions or billions in value. Not so forthe entrepreneur. If you raise money at a $1million valuation and then use that money toachieve a new valuation of $10 million, youhave just created a massive amount of wealth– for yourself and your other shareholders.The next article in this series will discussways to monetize your hard-earned equitythrough exits, licensing, and public offerings.

n

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2013 SHOW

ISSUE/3-D

TECHNOLO

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2013

Vol. 29, No

. 3

TABLETS AND INTERACTIVITY ISSUE

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Highlights from EuroDisplay2013

by Ian Sage and Alasdair Campbell

For the fourth time since 1987, EuroDisplay –the Biennial International Display ResearchConference (IDRC) – came to the UK. TheSeptember 2013 event, co-sponsored by theSociety for Information Display and the Insti-tute of Physics, had, as always, a distinctEuropean flavor compared to other display-related meetings. The program this year provided a concentrated insight into the partthat Europe and the UK in particular continueto play in the invention and development ofcutting-edge display technologies. The venue this year was Imperial College, the prestigious, science-based university in the heart of London’s museum district and a stone’s throw fromfamous landmarks such as Hyde Park (Fig. 1).Three plenary presentations started off events

with a show of strength from the Europeandisplay research and development community.Two of the technologies described originatedin Cambridge University’s Cavendish Labora-tory. Jeremy Burroughs (Cambridge DisplayTechnology) provided an excellent summary of the latest developments in solution-processed organic semiconductor-based display technolo-gies. Improved efficiencies have been achieved in light-emitting- polymer (LEP) based OLEDs through such factors as emissive dipole align-ment, and triplet-triplet annihilation has been

shown to boost the singlet yield of fluorescent polymer OLEDs from 25 to 40%. For lighting and backlights, 6-in. tiles with a slot-die-castwhite-emitting LEP have achieved 42 lm/W.Polymer-based electrochemical-cell OLEDscurrently have a long turn-on time, but could be used in low-cost flexible devices. Improved organic TFT performance for backplanes hasalso been achieved by lowering contact resist-ance through improved formulation design. Henning Sirringhaus (University of

Cambridge) took as his theme the rapidimprovements in solution-processed organicsemiconductor and oxide TFTs. Such TFTscan be used in both backplanes and driver circuitry for flexible displays that are shatter-proof and robust and feature novel form factors and usage modes. AMOLED drivecurrents require TFTs with mobility values ofabout 2 cm2/V-sec, but TFT instability canrequire compensation circuits with values of5–10 cm2/V-sec for video. Oxide TFTs caneasily reach these values, but normally requireprocessing at temperatures too high for plasticsubstrates. Sirringhuas has developed a sol-gel method for oxide TFTs with wet-atmosphere processing at temperatures of250°C and has used dopants such as Ba (barium) and Sr (strontium) instead of Ga(gallium) to produce much higher stability.Donor-acceptor polymer organic field-effecttransistors (OFETs) have also been achievedwith values of 5–10 cm2/V-sec. The quality of liquid-crystal displays

(LCDs) is so routinely excellent that the

underlying technology is largely lost to view.Michael Heckmeier (Merck KGaA) provideda broad overview of the electro-optic effectsused in the latest devices and the special mate-rial properties required by each. Each leadingtype of display occupies its own place in theapplications field, with different types of VA-mode devices dominating TV displays and in-plane switching (IPS) and fringe-fieldswitching (FFS) displays used in computerand mobile devices. Not only the liquid-crystal fluids but their accompanying reactivemonomer materials are crucial for PS-VAdevices and optical films. Heckmeier contin-ued by describing emerging device modessuch as blue phase and uniformly lying helixdisplays, which offer the promise of still fasterresponse speed and higher-quality images.

Beyond the Status QuoA number of presentations gave views of displays which, if realized, will greatly extendthe capabilities of present technologies. Oneof the highest profile initiatives is the drivetoward ultra-high-resolution (8K) televisiontechnology, referred to as Super-Hi Vision andpresented by a team of authors from NHK.The highly ambitious specifications for such asystem include a screen resolution of around7680 × 4320, combined with frame rate, colorgamut, and bit depth all exceeding HDTVstandards. Such a system will provide animmersive experience based on very-large-diagonal displays. No technologies currentlysatisfy all the requirements of the proposednew standards, while impressive demonstra-tion devices that achieve the target resolutionand approach other specifications have beenmade using plasma, LCD, and projection systems. This talk stimulated a lively audi-ence discussion, centering on the practicalityof such systems against their requirements forbandwidth, power, and footprint.Adrian Travis (Microsoft Corp.) and Adrian

Geisow (Hewlett-Packard Laboratories) each presented stimulating talks describing are-think of LCD technology. The Hewlett-Packard work addressed the unsatisfactoryperformance of reflective color displays anddescribed the company’s work in providingbright, saturated colors using a stacked subtractive-color dichroic LCD. In the past,attempts to exploit subtractive-color stackshave suffered from absorption spectra in thecolorants, which are far from ideal and resultin poorly saturated “muddy” colors. Geisow


Fig. 1: Tower Bridge by night was just one of many iconic views that EuroDisplay 2013 attendees could take in during the special event dinner cruise along the Thames.

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ID SID News Issue6 p40-42_Layout 1 11/10/2013 12:48 PM Page 40

described how to radically improve color rendering by incorporating color-selectivereflectors between the dichroic LCD layers;each reflector avoids the corresponding colorof light having to traverse the layers deeper inthe display stack, and the brightness and satu-ration are markedly improved. Reflectors canbe based on vacuum-coated multilayers or oncholesteric polymer layers.Travis described radical approaches to

power savings in LCDs, based on providingsteered backlight illumination that directslight specifically toward the users’ eyes bymaking use of head-tracking. Steering theoutput light to follow the user while maintain-ing a compact form factor presents a real challenge, which has been overcome using ahybrid system incorporating one small andone linear tracking mirror, allowing a compactgrating to scatter light into the correct opticalpath in a slab waveguide. Such a systemallows steering of light in the x-y plane, butthis is not sufficient for a display backlight,which should also converge light toward theeye. A switchable grating in the waveguidesynchronized with the optical scan angleallows this, and Travis offered his audiencethe prospect of future displays with a near-zero power budget.Herbert deSmet (CMST, Ghent) presented

truly futuristic work directed toward the ulti-mate goal of incorporating a viable displayinto a contact lens. Even the generation of animage on the retina from such a close distanceis difficult; deSmet described how projectionfrom an array of LEDs equipped with pinholeapertures and microlenses could achieve this,albeit with limited resolution. A large rangeof materials-related problems have to besolved in order to provide air permeation tothe cornea as well as barrier properties to protect electronic components from water andthe eye from contact with any toxic materials.Power from organic photovoltaic or inductivepickup sources could provide enough energyto run a display as well as additional devicessuch as biosensors to monitor conditions likediabetes or glaucoma.

Holographic FuturesIn consecutive talks, Tim Wilkinson (Univer-sity of Cambridge) and Jamieson Christmas(Two Trees Photonics) gave contrasting andfascinating views of their approaches to holo-graphic displays. Wilkinson began from thefundamentals of off-axis holography and

succinctly described an efficient approach togenerating holograms that can be projected toa screen, or alternatively viewed directlyusing the eye’s lens to provide the Fourierimaging element. A wide field of view is thenavailable. This increase in image size requireshigher-resolution pixels at the SLM than areavailable from standard liquid-crystal–on–silicon (LCOS) configurations. The problemarises from the LC pixel rather than limita-tions of the underlying silicon, and Wilkinsonwent on to describe approaches to ultra-high-resolution devices achieved through the use ofnanotube arrays in the pixel to concentrate theelectrical field into smaller volumes. Thischallenging approach has borne some fruit; a static hologram based on submicron-resolu-tion nanotube arrays shows plasmon-enhanceddiffraction efficiency and a diffraction angleup to 70°.Jamieson Christmas was this year’s recipient

of the Ben Sturgeon award, given annually bythe UK & Ireland chapter of SID to mark asignificant development in display science. Inhis award lecture, Christmas described for thefirst time his use of holographic principles toprovide a light engine for 2-D head-up displays(HUDs). Improved algorithms for hologramdesign minimize computational load, and theuse of a holographic light modulator leads to asubstantial improvement in the overall opticaland power efficiency of the system. The tech-nology is understood to be targeted at roadvehicle use and is under intense developmentfor inclusion in high-end cars in the nearfuture.

Organic Electronics Workshop and MoreSeveral additional presentations coveredOLEDs, other organics, and oxide TFTs –areas that are moving forward, particularlywith regard to new device architectures, newmaterials, and flexible displays. The confer-ence included a one-day workshop on organicelectronics, which covered not only organiclight-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and organicthin-film transistors (OTFTs) and their use indisplays, but many other areas of the field.The workshop began with presentations fromPeter Skabara (University of Strathclyde) onorganic semiconducting materials, whichexplored the design rules for achieving prop-erties such as a particular energy gap and fromAnna Hayer (Merck KGaA), who focused onsolution-processable OLEDs, how they work,and how to maximize performance.

Ian Underwood (University of Edinburgh)discussed designing and driving active-matrixOLED (AMOLED) displays, and AlastairBuckley (University of Sheffield) describedthe production of OLED microdisplays basedon his industrial experience of a startup.Buckley covered all the challenges in goingfrom “lab to fab.” Ifor Samuel (University ofSt. Andrews) finished off the morning sessionwith a presentation on organic lasing and opti-cal amplifiers, and how these devices can beused as sensitive explosive detectors. The afternoon workshop session started

with a presentation from Giles Horowitz(École Polytechnique Paris) on the use ofOFETs in biomedical devices. This was thenfollowed by a detailed presentation fromSoeren Steudel (IMEC) on the fabrication of flexible large-area organic electronics circuitry using a batch process, while GerhardKlink (Fraunhofer EMFT) followed with atalk on the roll-to-roll processing of organicelectronics on foil. Following this was a presentation from Jonathan Halls (Solar Press)on the large-area roll-to-roll processing oforganic solar cells and a presentation by IlkkaKaisto (VTT) on the commercialization oflarge-area organic electronicsOther OLED presentations at the main

conference included one on major advances inlighting made possible through optical model-ing and design to increase light outcoupling inthe forward direction, reclaiming the 75% oflight lost horizontally in the organic, ITO, andsubstrate layers. By using a Si microspherestamp to pattern a hexagonal grating structureon the internal substrate surface of the OLED,and combining this with an external macro-


I-Zone 2014 Call for Submissions

The I-Zone at Display Week offersresearchers space to demonstrate theirprototypes or other hardware demounits for 2 days free of charge at thepremier display exhibition in NorthAmerica.

Visit www.sid.org/About/Awards.aspx to find out more, but don’t delay; the deadline is

March 1, 2014.


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lens and a high-index substrate, Franky So(University of Florida) was able to achieve animpressive 230 lm/W. With regard to novel OLEDs under devel-

opment, Russell Holmes (University of Minnesota) reported a high-efficiency OLEDconsisting of continuously graded electron-transport and hole-transport materials, andMatthew Fuchter (Imperial College London)reported a circularly polarized OLED basedon a conventional LEP doped with a helicallyshaped chiral small molecule.

State of the Art of DisplaysThe above presentations represent only someof the ground-breaking research presented atEuroDisplay 2013. The conference was aunique opportunity to learn about the latestand future developments in display technolo-gies – from OLEDs and LCDs to hologramsand contact lens displays. Although speakerscame from all over the world, the eventoffered a uniquely focused look at the worknow being done at companies and universitiesin Europe. The next conference in the seriesto be held in 2015 is now being planned bythe Mid-Europe chapter and again promisesan event to look forward to.

Ian Sage is the SID European Conventionchair. He can be reached at [email protected]. Alasdair Campbell is Vice Chair of theSID UK and Ireland Chapter. He can bereached at [email protected].

SID Appoints Senior MembersSID’s Senior MembershipGrade Committee has ele-vated Yasushi Motoyamaof the Japan Chapter andPatrick Green of thePacific Northwest Chapterto Senior Members, inrecognition of their out-standing professionalachievements and volun-teerism. Motoyama hasbeen a member of the Society since 2002. Hecurrently conducts plasma-display research at NHKScience and TechnologyResearch Laboratories.Green has been an SIDmember since the early

1980s. He is an engineer with Planar Systems.n


Senior MemberDr. YasushiMotoyama

Senior MemberPatrick Green

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Join Today SUSTAINING MEMBERSHIPS

Sustaining or corporate members of SID are companies and universities who are deeply involved in the display industry, typically providing papers for the Digest or JSID and speakers for events, as well as providing minor financial support to SID. In return they receive discounts, free memberships, and valuable marketing benefits that enhance their brand and business opportunities.

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The year’s hottest displays, display applications, and components.They’ll all be competing for SID’s annual Display Industry Awards.

So get creative and tell us why your exciting, innovative product picksshould be selected.

Submit your contenders today for the Display Industry Awards.Remember, it’s the industry’s most prestigious honor, given annu-

ally by the Society for Information Display (SID). SID members and non-members alike can nominate one or more products, choosing from any of those introduced into the market during this calendar year.Self nominations are encouraged.

For more information, or to submit a nomination, visit: http://www.sid.org/About/Awards/DisplayIndustryAwards.aspx. All

nominations must be received by December 31, 2013. The DisplayIndustry Awards will be announced and presented at Display Week,the annual SID International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, tobe held in San Diego, California, June 1–6, 2014.

THIS YEAR, BE PART OFSID’S DISPLAY INDUSTRY AWARDS

NOMINATIONS ARE NOW OPEN

CATEGORIES:Display of the Year AwardGranted to the display with the most significant technological advances or outstanding features.

Display Application of the Year AwardGranted for a novel and outstanding application leveraging a display.

Display Component of the Year AwardGranted to a novel component that significantly enhances the performance of a display.

Gold and Silver Awards are presented in each of the

three categories.

Display Week 2014 Ad_Layout 1 11/12/2013 6:30 PM Page 44

The remaining stake of approximately 10% iscurrently held by Samsung Venture Investment,which will maintain its current shareholding.The transaction includes a €30 million contin-gent payment, which is conditional on reach-ing certain milestones.

Most industry experts say the acquisition isclearly designed to bolster Samsung’s OLEDexpertise, making it more competitive indeveloping large OLED TVs for the massmarket, for example. Cheil Industries’ CEOJong-Woo Park had this to say in Novaled’spress release: “Leadership in [the] future display market will be determined by techno-logical capacity,” and “this acquisition isexpected to generate significant synergy innew-generation OLED materials R&D andwill play a critical role in enhancing CheilIndustries’ market position as a global leaderin electronic materials.”_____________________________________1http://www.novaled.com/press_news/news_press_releases/newsitem/cheil_industries_to_acquire_novaled_ag/

Apple Announces New Productsbefore the HolidaysAs Information Display was going to press,Apple announced new iPads and computers,as well as a free version of the OS X upgradeMavericks. A thinner, lighter version of thecompany’s larger (9.7-in.) tablet, named theiPad Air, was scheduled to go on sale Nov. 1,at prices starting at $499. A new iPad miniwith a Retina display (2048 × 1536) and amore powerful processor (A7) than previousversions was slated for availability later inNovember for $399. The company alsoannounced an updated line of Retina MacBookPros and a new Mac Pro desktop in what isperhaps the company’s most minimalistdesign yet – a small black cylinder.

New Deposition Systems TargetMetal-Oxide TFTsApplied Materials, a manufacturer of systemsfor the semiconductor, flat-panel display, and solar photovoltaic industries, recentlyannounced new deposition systems for manu-facturing large-sized and ultra-high-definitionLC and OLED displays. The Applied MaterialsAKT-PiVot 55K DT PVD, Applied AKT-PiVot 25K DT PVD, and Applied AKT 55KS PECVD

systems are designed to work with metal-oxide films to manufacture smaller, faster thin-filmtransistors required to create high-resolutiondisplays.

Metal-oxide-based TFTs enable low-powerhigh-resolution smart phones and tablets aswell as some OLED TV technologies. Future4K TVs are also expected to use metal-oxideTFTs. However, this technology has provedchallenging in terms of uniformity and scalein mass production. The uniformity and parti-cle control of Applied Material’s PVD andCVD systems is designed to help realize thenewest display technologies with high yield inmass production.

Applied Materials’s AKT-PiVot DT PVDsystems (55K for 2200 mm × 2500 mm and25K for 1500 mm × 1850 mm substrates) usethe company’s proprietary rotary cathodearray technology to deliver uniform, homoge-neous, and low-defect active-layer depositionfor metal oxide as well as interconnect metalsand pixel electrodes (Fig. 4).

Applied Material’s new AKT 55KS PECVDsystem brings precision PECVD technologyto 2200 mm × 2500 mm size substrates. Thesystem deposits a dielectric-layer interface formetal-oxide transistors with a new advanced-quality silicon oxide (SiO2) process that mini-mizes hydrogen impurities to improvelong-term transistor stability and optimizescreen performance.

2013 Marks 125th Anniversaryof Liquid CrystalsLast September, at a scientific forum hostedby the German Chemical Society in Darmstadt,

Germany, liquid-crystal-manufacturer Merckhelped mark the 125th anniversary of the dis-covery of liquid crystals. Key properties ofcholesteric liquid crystals were discovered byAustrian scientist Friedrich Reinitzer and German physicist Otto Lehmann in 1888.

A highlight of the forum was Merck’s exhibition featuring items dating back to thoseoriginal discoveries, as well as future-orienteddevelopments such as a smart window inwhich liquid crystals are used to modify thelight transmission properties of the glass.

This year also marked the passing of LCDpioneer Rudolf Eidenschink, who performedgroundbreaking research in liquid crystals atMerck for many years. Eidenschink receivedSID’s Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize in 2011.His obituary can be found in the In Memoriamsection of Information Display online.

– Jenny Donelan


Fig. 4: Applied Materials’ new AKT-PiVot DTPVD system is designed for metal-oxide depo-sition for large-sized panels (up to Gen 8.5).

continued from page 3

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http://informationdisplay.org/InMemoriam.aspx

These TVs are also the subject of our firstFrontline Technology article this month.Being good engineers and scientists, we donot generally spend too much time gushingover new creations. We like to get our brainsbusy scrutinizing and analyzing them instead,and no one is better at this than well-respectedindustry metrologist Dr. Edward Kelley. Edgot his hands on one of each of these 55-in.OLED TVs and hustled them over to his opti-cal measurement lab, where he got to worknot only testing their performance but alsoroad testing his new ideas for OLED displaymetrology that will soon appear in the nextrevision of the ICDM Display MeasurementStandard (DMS). In the first in a series on this research titled,

“Considering Color Performance in CurvedOLED TVs,” Ed reports on the color andvideo performance of the two TVs as well asthe methods for getting accurate and repro-ducible measurements for comparison. Thereare clear differences in performance betweentoday’s OLED and LCD TVs, and there aresome differences in performance between thetwo OLED TVs. It’s too early to declare awinning technology, but for an almost perfectHDTV viewing experience these curvedOLEDs are certainly ready to deliver.However, one attribute that LCD technology

can still claim dominance in is the ability toscale to extremely large sizes, such as 110 in. The most recent achievement in thisarea is the world’s first LCD panel to offer 4K × 2K resolution and 3-D capability – andChina Star Optoelectronics Technology did itat 110 in., with a luminance of 1000 cd/m2 andan amazing 50000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. Intheir Frontline Technology feature titled,“Developing a 110-in. 4K × 2K TV,” authorsLi-Yi Chen et. al. explain why 4K × 2K resolution is important for panels in this sizerange as well as how much more immersivethe really large screen experience can be. There were actually several very complex

technologies combined in this effort, includ-ing a two-dimensional dynamic LED back-light, a novel pixel addressing and drivingscheme, and a custom video system architec-ture that includes custom calibration algo-rithms to optimize the panel performance invarious ways. We were especially pleasedwith the very detailed explanation of how thedevelopers overcame the challenges of tilingmany side-by-side photolithography exposuresto form the internal structures of the panel and

how they overcame the charge time limita-tions in a panel this size. For those of us whodo not work on the manufacturing side ofLCD technology, this represents a rare andvery vivid glimpse into the kinds of challengesthat must be overcome by innovative manu-facturers like China Star. I really learned a lotfrom this article and I think you will also. Bythe way, we thought it fitting to add this display to our cover as well.Continuing with our theme of large-area

displays, we also turn our attention to digitalsignage. To get a glimpse of the state of thisindustry, we invited veteran contributor TerrySchmidt to serve as our Guest Editor thismonth. Terry explains in his guest column,“Digital Signage that Captivates,” how far theindustry has come in the last few years owingto the reduction in prices for large-area displays suitable for signage applications aswell as a rapid expansion of the tools avail-able to create and manage sign content. With-out a content infrastructure that is affordableand easy to implement, the ROI for a digitalsign system just will not add up. But thoseingredients now exist, and the recent prolifer-ation of so many novel developments is a testimony to this. One new development that could become a

player in this market is the Emissive ProjectionDisplay (EPD) with a transparent fluorescentscreen described by authors Ted X. Sun andBotao Cheng in our next Frontline Technologyfeature titled, “Novel Emissive ProjectionDisplay Digitizes Glass Windows.” Justimagine, if you can, a digital image thatappears to be floating in mid-air that is visiblefrom any 2-D viewing angle. Traditional pro-jection systems require opaque or translucentscreens to render their images. TransparentLCDs can render seemingly floating imagesbut require a strong local source of ambientlight for viewers to see them. The EPD system,however, produces the viewable image by fluorescent emission, very similar to howphosphor screens on CRTs operate. The resultis a self-illuminated image that can appear onany transparent glass surface driven by frontor rear UV light projection. This technologywas first presented at Display Week 2013 andis now described for us in detail in this issue.Of course, digital signage is driven by com-

merce and culture. Different regions have different commercial and cultural needs. InEurope, there are somewhat unique culturalbarriers to widespread deployment caused by

the diversity inherent in the many differentcountries that make up the region. As welearn from author and analyst Bob Raikes inthis month’s Display Marketplace featuretitled, “Public Displays in Europe (and Elsewhere),” there is no one formula that canwork across the entire European market, andeven trying to think of the continent as onelarge market for digital signage is probablynot worthwhile. Bob did a great job of break-ing it all down for us in many different dimen-sions and his analysis shows what TerrySchmidt also said, that the recipe for successmust include low-cost high-value content creation and distribution that is regionally targeted. The overall display marketplace in Europe

is very complex, owing in part to the vastdiversity of independent countries involved –diversity in terms of culture, economic stand-ing, consumer preferences, historical factors,etc. Europe has been slower to recover fromthe economic recession and the EuropeanUnion countries tend to lead the way in areaslike environmental regulations and ergonomicstandards, making it harder to do businessthere than in other parts of the world.Nonetheless, there is a plethora of innovation,development, and consumption opportunitiesto be seen when you dive into the details, asour own Jenny Donelan has done for the nextinstallment in our Regional Business Review,“The Display Business Environment inEurope: Together but Different.” Jennyexplains how in several ways the consolida-tion of regulation and standards activitieswithin the EU makes it easier to navigate andnegotiate business than it used to be. Also,European companies continue to make someof the most important contributions to displaytechnology such as liquid crystals fromMerck, measurement technology from Eldim,and OLED materials from Novaled, and, ofcourse, the innovative and ever popular display-based consumer products from Nokia. Our last but hardly least feature this month

is the next installment in our Venture Capitalseries by Helge Seetzen. In this month’s article titled, “The Ins and Outs of VentureCapital,” Helge tackles the thorny details ofventure funding: valuations, preferred stock,dilution, liquidation, and other things youneed to understand before diving in to yournew venture. If you are lucky enough to cashout someday with heady gains after all yourefforts, I hope you will send Helge a thank



editorial


you note for his hard work and dedication incompiling this groundbreaking series forInformation Display that will continue nextmonth as well.And so, here we are at the end of another

great year for Information Display. I sincerelyhope all of you have a great holiday seasonand have enjoyed the efforts of our truly dedicated staff, including our Managing Editor Jenny Donelan, our Editor-in-Chief Jay Morreale, our colleagues at Wiley publish-ing, Simone Taylor and Joseph Tomaszewski, and the continuing support of the SID Execu-tive Committee, Publications Committee, andall our great Guest Editors throughout theyear. Without the relentless efforts of thesepeople, ID would literally cease to exist. There is one more person I want to mention

before I close – our Editorial Advisor AllanKmetz. Allan has been a mentor and trustedadvisor to ID for many years. Allan reviewsand edits the final copy of practically everyfeature article that goes into ID, bringing tothe task both a strong technical perspective aswell as a great sense of clear language andstyle. Many times he unlocks details we donot fully understand or reminds us of thingsthat may be confusing to readers not so skilledin the art. It is hard to overstate how much hehas contributed to the accuracy and integrityof this endeavor. Beyond his role with ID, Allan Kmetz is a

Fellow and Senior Member of SID as well asa Past-President. He is an active member andpast-officer of the SID Mid-Atlantic Chapter.He has served as both lecturer and organizerof the SID Seminars and as a program com-mittee member, program chair, and generalchair of the SID Symposium and the IDRC.We are all grateful and look forward to Allan’scontinued support of ID in the coming year.From all of us at ID, we wish you a safe,

healthy, and prosperous holiday season. n

capture the attention of an increasingly diffi-cult-to-reach target audience. If you can cap-ture someone’s attention for a few momentson a busy escalator at an airport, for example,the potential reach of each advertising dollarmay be very large.Even theater exhibitors, who are masters of

advertising to specific captive target audi-ences in their pre-shows, are showing interestin digital signage as a business. For example,Canada’s largest theater exhibitor, CineplexOdeon, recently completed a $40+ milliondeal to buy EK3 Technologies, a digital-signage company in London, Ontario. Cineplex Odeon surely has big plans for EK3’s patented tech-nology both inside theater lobbies as well asfor advertising in other locations.The displays typically used for digital

signage range from large, daylight-readabledirect-view LEDs employed for roadside billboards and marquees (the Las Vegas stripcomes to mind) to TV-sized conventionalLCD panels that are used, for example, toshow menus in fast-food restaurants and coffee shops. Special temporary venues canalso present opportunities for “projectionmapping,” where cleverly designed advertis-ing can be projected on outdoor buildings during evening-hour special events such astrade shows.In many cases, while the display itself may

be only a small part of the total cost of a digital-signage system, it plays an essentialrole in the system’s impact and effectiveness.As such, innovative new display technologiessuch as smaller seams for video walls, largerflat panels, transparent seamless glass displays,and larger, lower-cost OLED panels willalways be well received in the digital-signagearena. The opportunities in digital signage are

many, as are the pitfalls. Most developerslearn the hard way to heed the 3–7-sec attention-span rule-of-thumb for content creation! To assist in education on effectivetechniques, several organizations, blogs, andtrade shows have sprung up. For example, aprominent web organization at www.DOOH.com serves what is called the Digital Out OfHome market (DOOH). Digital SignageToday (www.digitalsignagetoday.com) haswell-organized research papers in addition toits regular newsletter. Futuristic videos ofwhat soon may be possible, as well as count-less news items and links to other resourcesfor planning of new systems, can be found

with keyword searches online. Take a look atthese web sites to gain a sense of the near-limitless possibilities of this exciting andgrowing area of display technology and applications. n

Terry Schmidt is a pioneer and recognizedexpert in the field of high-performance projec-tion. He can be reached at [email protected].



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