Aris Silzard

So Easy to Forget… Happy New Year! Welcome to the second half of the first decade of the 21st century. For me, this new year – 2005 — has a nice round-number feel to it. It’s also interesting to observe how quickly time does pass. A few days ago, I was reviewing a technical article and the author made a reference to something that happened in the “last century”. It took me a few seconds to realize he was referring to the 1900’s and not the 1800’s. I guess the saying that “time sure flies when you’re having fun” is getting to be ever more applicable. It seems that the start of a new year and the passing of the previous one has become a traditional time to look back and also to look ahead. Reviewing and preserving memories of past events can have great educational value for all of us as well as for the generations yet to follow.The coming of the “Digital Age” has brought both blessings and challenges in this regard. Much has been written about how the “Information Age” is all about “bits” versus the old fashioned “Industrial Age” having been about “atoms”. Yet when it comes to storing our memories, the only way that we know how to do it is to use “atoms”. Information with no storage medium can only float around in the “ether” while moving at the speed of light. So without atoms, we would have to invent a new form of instantaneous travel so we could get ahead of the information coming at us by the conventional speed of light propagation. It would be like looking at a far off galaxy where the light originated many years ago. Somehow this doesn’t seem like an immediately practical approach to how we should manage information storage and retrieval. Unfortunately, many of us are behaving as if we actually had something like this science fiction fantasy already in place. We are using our desktop and laptop computers to keep our most important archival information with no back up other than perhaps a CD or a memory card. The good side of this is that digital information can be copied and recopied presumably forever with no loss or degradation of the data. That is an obvious benefit over analog media such as paper or film. However, the scary part is that the media itself can suffer catastrophic failures such as when a hard drive “crashes”. The other scary part is that over the last few decades we have continued to introduce new storage technologies while abandoning the old ones. Thus, it has required the periodic transferring of data to whatever storage technology is currently in vogue. Not everyone has been diligent in doing this and as a result there are many floppy disks out there that can no longer be read. I know, since I recently tossed out several dozen. Were these memories especially important? Perhaps not, but they are nevertheless gone. The recent rapid growth of digital photography is one area where I think we should be especially concerned. Last week I read an article in a Seattle newspaper that a number of photo labs in the Seattle area are going out of business. The requests for film processing and printing are declining and the decreasing volume no longer makes it possible for these businesses to keep their doors open. Digital photography now constitutes a majority of the images being captured. In this newspaper article, one photo-lab owner is quoted as saying that he thinks the photo labs have not done an adequate job of explaining to people that they can produce results that are superior to what can be done on a home printer. But I think there is a far more significant opportunity that so far no one has addressed. The one advantage film has always had is that the images are in a format that can be instantly viewed and no special technologies are, or will be, needed to retrieve them. The other advantage is a very high information content per unit volume of storage space with one letter-size page containing more than a Gigapixel’s worth of image data. And while film will show a slow degradation over time, with reasonable care, the newer films will retain over 90% of their image quality for periods approaching 100 years. Therefore, I have a great new product opportunity to propose. Frankly, I don’t understand why one of the two large film companies – Kodak or Fuji – has not already taken advantage of this potentially great way to sustain and perhaps even grow their existing film business. What I would like to have is a little box that sits by my computer and has a large roll of film in it – perhaps several hundred images worth. For my purposes, I would like to have the highest resolution so I would propose a format larger than 35-mm. Perhaps the 2 _-inch format would be optimum. Then, whenever I download or create an image that I like well enough to archive, I can simply click on “print-to-film” and it is captured for posterity. After the roll is full, I can take or send it to a lab to have it developed and an index-sheet printed that has all the images for me to view. Of course, the reciprocal product to this would be a scanner that will allow me to put the images back onto my computer should I need to do that. If not, I always have them to view and print with non-digital media. Won’t it be sad if in 20 or 30 years, our next generation tries to look back on what we did during the first decade of the 21st century and has almost nothing to see? Something like this already happened once before in the early days of color negative film. Professional photographers call it the “lost decade”. Fortunately, people were still also using black and white films

Low Hanging Fruit… Some years ago in a business development meeting with a Senior VP, it was suggested to me that in order to accomplish the short term financial results that the company needed, I should be focusing my energies on “finding low hanging fruit”. What this apparently meant was that I should be searching for those opportunities that would be quick to materialize and would not take much effort or resources to bring in. My unspoken reaction to this directive was: “Right… And just where do you think I am going to find this ‘low hanging fruit’?” Not too long after that, a new business opportunity came my way that allowed me to depart gracefully – never having found any of this easy-picking fruit than my boss seemed to think was so plentiful. However, I have never forgotten his comment and whenever a situation arises where someone is looking for an easy path to business success I find it hard not to ask them where and how they expect to find the elusive “low hanging fruit”. It seems to me that such easy pickings don’t exist today and perhaps never did. Can you think of any successes in display technology that didn’t take extraordinary effort and dedication to accomplish? I sure can’t seem to find them in the significant technologies that are currently seeing the fastest growth. Let’s look at a few examples. Liquid crystal displays started their difficult path to success back in the mid-60s. There were plenty of reasons why they might not succeed. Contrast was low, the response time was insufficient for video, the viewing angle was terrible, and they were too temperature sensitive for many applications. Even when TFT technology began to be applied, the industry consensus was that we would never have LCDs larger than about 20-inches. Anyone looking for low-hanging fruit in this technology area would have given up many years ago. Is this an example of atypical serendipity? Well then, for comparison let’s take a look at plasma technology. Plasma panels also started their path to eventual success in the late 60s. And it seems to me that the road to success was no easier, and perhaps even more challenging, than for LC technology. At least LCs had the small-display market (with segmented and passive products) to rely on as a motivator for ongoing development. The challenge for plasma was that a monochrome display in a neon-orange color is not something that has a wide range of interesting applications. IBM was able to get a few products to market that had modest success in the banking industry for teller transaction terminals. The compactness of these flat-panel terminals over ones made with the traditional CRT was of some commercial value in this limited market. But achieving a useful color display proved to be a major challenge until 1994 when Fujitsu and Noritake solved the technical problems with the invention of the three-electrode AC panel using a ribbed back-plane. This breakthrough development encouraged other innovations and in the next few years we witnessed the rapid introduction of products that could compete with the traditional CRT for picture quality and could provide the larger sizes that direct-view CRTs could not. Prices were still very high by CRT standards but at least the technology was proving its capability to deliver commercially useful products. There were more times than we would now like to admit that nearly every effort to develop plasma technology came close to (or was) cancelled either through management decisions or because funding for projects ran out before success could be demonstrated. It took extraordinary dedication by a few engineers and scientists in companies large and small for this technology to finally become the business success that it is today. These dedicated pioneers, who struggled through these challenges — sometimes at great risk to their careers, I think would not appreciate their efforts characterized as having picked “low hanging fruit”. Another, perhaps more recent, example is the TI micro-mirror display, known as the DLP. It has become the display of choice for many front-projection systems. However, it too had a rocky path to success. It did not even start out as a display technology and even when the display potential was recognized there were skeptics who claimed that it would never be “good enough” or cheap enough. Performance issues such as motion artifacts, color break-up, and the “window screen” effect were considered serious performance limitations. While it may not be the lowest cost projection technology, it has proven to be capable of creating products that are compact, efficient, and produce bright images suitable for many applications. But was the path to success direct and obvious? Not from what I have read and heard.What about some of the newer display technologies that are not quite as far along as LCDs, Plasma panels, and DLP projectors? Can we perhaps see some “easy answers” among those? Two of the more recent display technologies being explored are FEDs and OLEDs. So far FEDs for sure have had an especially difficult path. The few attempts to introduce commercial products have not succeeded. It will be very interesting to see what happens with the Canon/Toshiba effort to commercialize the SED approach. If it succeeds, the engineers at Canon and Toshiba will deserve great credit for perseverance against tremendous odds. OLED technology has also encountered significant challenges in spite of the potential benefits. The differential aging of the emitting materials and the new manufacturing methods needed to assure reliable products may or may not yield to adequate solutions. Success is especially difficult to assure when fundamental materials issues have to be resolved. Remember how promising inorganic EL displays looked until years of development efforts could not produce a blue phosphor of adequate brightness? Such challenges can, over time, stymie the introduction of what otherwise might have been really interesting products. The more we look, the more it seems that the expectation of finding “low hanging fruit” is mostly the wishful

The Too-Small Windows Into the Information Age… Last week was that annually-dreaded time when I have to get all of my business and personal records together so that I can spend a few hours with my “tax person”. Since my life consists of an intricately interwoven combination of business and personal activities, I decided a long time ago that trying to do this task on my own would be an exercise in futility. Either I would have to spend many days trying to understand the intricacies of the tax code or I would end up making errors that would put me in the “bad person” category with the Internal Revenue Service. Or worse yet, I would end up paying more than was required. Besides all that, I always appreciate working with someone who really knows what they are doing. As the various records were reviewed and the entries made, I became fascinated with the methodology that my “tax person” was using and with the efficiency of his process. Instead of a computer, my “tax person” simply had a stack of worksheets and various IRS forms in front of him. With the examination of each income or expense item, he would quickly thumb through the stack of papers and find the proper one on which the entry needed to be made. His hands and pencil literally flew over the pages and each entry took no more than a few seconds. I tried to imagine how this process would work if he had been using a computer screen instead. Each form would have to be brought up from a menu. Each entry would have to be made by scrolling down (or up) to the right line and then the description and dollar amount would have to be entered in exactly the right format. Could this be done? Of course it could. But it would have taken much longer and there would have been numerous times when we would have been returning to earlier entries to make modifications that would have to be re-retrieved and re-displayed. The methodology that my “tax person” had found to be more efficient is to do the entries by hand, create a first cut estimate of the taxes owed, and if everything made accounting and logical sense, then turn it over to a lower-paid assistant for the final entries and calculations. This task would typically include the more complicated, and computer calculated, depreciation schedules and anything else that may require special forms and/or interpretation. But what is it that makes it so much easier to use paper and pencil when clearly the eventual result has to end up on a computer? Are there dynamics at work here that hint at why we are, today, generating more paper than ever? Have you heard anyone mention the “paperless office” recently? It seems to me that the biggest obstacle to reducing the use of paper is that most of our computers can only display one page of information at a time. Whenever we have to work with multiple pages, the pages are far easier to access from a stack of papers spread out in front of us. For example, I have come to the conclusion that no matter how I try I cannot create or edit a document using a computer screen when that document requires the layout and arranging of multiple pages. I need to be able to see how the various combinations might look the best. To do this kind of work requires visual cues that the single computer screen simply cannot provide. For us in the display community, this is exactly the kind of problem that could and should lead to a major opportunity. What could we do to open up or enlarge the currently too-small window into the Information Age? Should we simply make the display screens larger? That is already a trend that we have been following for the last few years. Should we consider the use of multiple screens or ones in new aspect ratios? For the last several years, engineers at Microsoft have been exploring “desktops” that have a segmented screen that surrounds the user and can display as many as six pages of text at one time – or a spread sheet with a ridiculously large number of boxes. Studies have been carried out to show that there is indeed an improvement in worker efficiency of over 30% when such a multi-screen computer interface is used. Would this improvement be enough to satisfy my tax person? My only-slightly-scientific observation would conclude that it still would not be as fast or convenient as his method of using paper and pencil. And most certainly this multi-screen arrangement is not portable. In fact, most of us don’t even have desks large enough to accommodate such a multi-screen display. However clumsy this arrangement appears to be, I do think it is beginning to get at one of the biggest problems we have today in working with our computers. There is simply not enough information being displayed at any one time. Not so many years ago — about the time that flat panel displays were beginning to make significant inroads — there was a phrase coined referring to displays as “windows into the Information Age”. Unfortunately, today these windows are more like peepholes. We need to see entire information vistas and we are instead forced to view these information panoramas one little peek at a time.Perhaps how we seek to improve our ability to view all this information holds an immediate and exciting opportunity for the display industry. While we may not end up with display monitors that can present five or six pages all at once, we may transition to using two or maybe even three displays at one time. The operating systems already have provisions for working with multiple displays so there is no software obstacle. Our colleagues in the financial institutions have already figured out that multiple screens are good for what they do.

There’s No Paper in the Office and No Film in Your Camera?… If you want to get my immediate attention don’t send me an e-mail. Send me a fax. When a fax arrives, it just begs to be looked at. And it is so convenient to instantly see what it’s about. It’s real and something simply must be done with it or it just sits there in the middle of my desk staring back at me, taking up useful space. E-mail has no such desire for instant attention. It arrives – along with dozens of spam messages — and can easily be saved for “later.” “Later” can become “quite a bit later” as the screen-saver conveniently covers up the offending messages and any feelings of guilt are thereby also put off until “later.” As the list of unanswered messages grows ever longer, there does come a time when one is compelled to generate the expected responses. For me this is typically undertaken at the end of the day when I have taken care of the items on my desk, including, of course, any faxes that may have come in. Thus, the convenience and instant visibility of the fax seems to win out every time. Even with print quality not as good as laser-printed e-mail, a fax wins because I did not have to do anything special to get the printed copy. It just showed up. The paperless office seemed so obvious to the technology prognosticators of a few decades ago. Now, it is almost embarrassing to think that such wild and off-base predictions were made and accepted as fact. If the prognosticators were so far off on this topic, can we believe anything that is being touted today? Well, actually probably not. I think we, as active participants in the display community, can do about as well, or perhaps even better, as any of the folks that try to become famous by making outrageous claims – such as predicting the imminent demise of the auto industry, or the paperless office, for example.I recently read that HP actually abandoned the fax machine business in 1994 and then got back into it in 1998 when they realized that the fax machine was not going to go away. Today the fax-machine business is healthy and growing with sales of over 1.5 million machines last year in the US alone. However, I think there is more to appreciate here than just noting that the paperless office did not happen. The way we generate paper today is much different than twenty years ago. Even though I like my fax machine, the reason why it is so useful is often tied to my computer-generated information. And the reason we have so much information to put onto those pieces of paper that come spewing out of our printers and fax machines is because we create it using compute power and data communications capability that didn’t exist two decades ago. It just turned out — to the surprise of many — that we found paper to be a very nice container for much of this information. Because of the visual cues, quick retrieval, and archival capability that paper documents provide, we are going to keep using them for the foreseeable future. In the late 80s and early 90s there was a magic period when the PC was evolving and we all finally figured out what we could do with it. And soon thereafter, why we could no longer live without it. We are now going through a similar period with imaging technology. Digital cameras are reaching image capture capabilities that are matching and recently even exceeding the best that film can offer. And digital cameras are now being incorporated into all kinds of electronic devices. Surely it is only a matter of time until chemical photography is only of interest to a few old-time hobbyists or “artsy types”! Are you really sure? If that happens, such an outcome will be a diametric opposite to what computers did for the use of paper. Therefore, let me suggest a possible alternate scenario. Today, what gives me great discomfort is that the images stored on my computer will one day abruptly and unexpectedly disappear – like a permanent power outage. What if my hard disk crashes? What if my computer catches a nasty virus? What if some other key component fails? If I were diligent, I would be backing up my files onto some independent storage medium on a daily basis. But I don’t have the discipline, the time, or the interest to do that, at least not on the regular basis that it should be done. Would I even trust the back-up medium? However, what would work for me would be to have a film recorder attached to my computer, just as I now have several printers, that would record all of the images I wish to retain onto a roll of film. I personally would prefer a 6x7cm format for the highest resolution and image content. Then I could get these processed whenever it was convenient for me to take them, or send them, to a local lab. A few days ago, I was searching through some of my 2_ format negatives (and positives) for certain images to put up on this site. It was comforting to see “real” images that could not be destroyed by a virus or a computer crash. And the retrieval process was instantly obvious and comfortable. Looking over page after page of images was no different than glancing through a printed document. The advantage of archiving on film rather than simply printing out a photo, or putting it on a CD, is that film (especially in a larger format such as 6×7) can archive the equivalent of at least 50 megapixels of information for each image in a compact, long lasting, and instantly recognizable format. And this storage medium does not depend on the latest developments in computer memory. I can just as

Lost Innocence… A few days ago, I received an e-mail notifying me that it was time to renew two of my web domain subscriptions. From what I could remember, it has been about a year since my last renewal, so the timing was right and all the information on the notification seemed to be correct. The notification had the correct domain names and was addressed specifically to me. Nevertheless, when it came time to enter my credit card number, I thought long and hard about whether I should do it. Was this a legitimate request or another “phishing” attack? Would my credit card number end up in some identity thief’s computer who would then use it for a short-term shopping spree? A year or two ago, I would not have had such concerns. Then, my biggest worries were with viruses and worms, and/or that my Windows-98 software would freeze up just as I was about to save several hours worth of work. With continuous attention and a subscription to a virus-scan service that updates my computer automatically every time I log on, the virus and worm problems don’t seem to be as serious anymore. The ugly bugs that several times in the past required outside intervention are no longer able to get through. And the latest versions of Windows seem to be reasonably stable. We have become comfortable using our computers for word processing, for spreadsheets, for doing presentation slides, and for searching out information. It only took a few years for technical conferences to change over from overhead foils and 35mm slides to computer generated visuals. I find it somewhat amazing just how quickly this conversion happened and how completely it changed the way we do presentations. I don’t think it would even be possible to speak at a technical conference in 2005 using slides or overheads without having to make special arrangements. And most likely that would place one into the “slow group” category. We have become dependent on e-mail for much of our business and personal communications. However, I still like the telephone because I can cover more topics in the same amount of time and receive instant feedback. For me, there is also great benefit to getting a sense of the emotions that go along with the factual statements. Somehow those feelings don’t come across as well by e-mail, often leading to misunderstandings when sensitive topics are being discussed. The cost of communicating to any spot on the globe has become essentially free. But there is a dark cloud that most of us in the technology community did not anticipate while creating all of these wonderful tools for computing and communicating. As basically honest, trustworthy — and perhaps somewhat naive — technologists we did not adequately take into account the darker side of human behavior. We did not anticipate how much effort some folks would be willing to put into finding ways to use these new electronic communication capabilities for nefarious purposes — to basically lie, cheat, and steal! And because the cost of reaching essentially everyone on the globe is now so low, and because a sender can easily hide somewhere out there in “electronic space”, the past controls of communication cost and sender identification no longer exist. Finding “likely victims” has never been easier. Mass mailings to e-mail addresses that have been obtained using automated “web-crawlers” can now be done with ease and essentially at no cost. There is no one to monitor the legitimacy of anything that is promoted. As long as there are countries somewhere on this globe that condone dishonest behaviors, the seedy characters will have protected sanctuaries. Thus, each day my electronic in-box becomes the repository of at least a hundred junk e-mails – in spite of a mild spam-filter that deletes at least a hundred more. Not only are they junk, but they are deceptive and dishonest junk. All those offers for prescription medications, for various body-part enhancements, announcements of lotteries won and promises of money transfers, are worse and financially more dangerous than the “snake oil” salesmen of centuries past. The sad similarity is that both prey on the gullibility of honest and trusting people. Perhaps one could take the position that if people are going to be so gullible and trusting then they deserve whatever happens as a result of responding to these improbable offers. But what happens if even the most knowledgeable of us can no longer tell what is legitimate and what is a scam? Not so many years ago, there were all kinds of wonderful predictions about how electronic commerce and the Internet would replace traditional stores. And indeed there are a few major successes. For example, many people now purchase their airline tickets and make other travel arrangements on-line. Ebay has become an outstanding success with the creation of a worldwide auction house. This has provided a tremendous new service, especially for new technology start-ups. Shopping for used electronic equipment and parts has never been easier or more enjoyable. The key to making it work is a feedback systems that keeps most sellers (and buyers) reasonably honest. The darker side of human behavior is quickly exposed and not allowed to flourish. Negative and positive feedback is posted for everyone to see. Perhaps this is no different than an electronic circuit where a feedback loop is used to keep it operating within specified tolerances. Unfortunately, such controls are sadly lacking for most of the rest that masquerades as electronic commerce on the Internet. Other than Ebay, Amazon.com, and merchants we already know from their “brick and mortar” or conventional mail-order reputations, the Internet has become a “den of thieves.” Not only do we have to put up with spam, we now have to deal with “phishing” attacks that imitate banks, credit card providers, and other legitimate businesses — and even Ebay itself. And that is not all. Certain sites, once accessed, insert programs into our computers that take over control of certain vital

A Top 10 List… This year’s SID Symposium in Boston (May 23 – 27) was an exciting place to be. The display industry is in the midst of a rapid scale-up of manufacturing capacity. Bigger – and then even bigger yet — seems to be the driving impetus for the construction of new factories, for the sizes of the glass sheets used to make the new flat panel displays, and also for the screen sizes of the computer monitors and televisions that are being manufactured and delivered to enthusiastic consumers. Bigger, but also cheaper. Competition for market position among the giants of the industry is becoming incredibly intense. Everyone it seems is able to manufacture products of acceptable quality. That being the case, all that is left is to drive costs and prices ever lower. And since consumers have already demonstrated a willingness to pay a substantial premium for these “exciting new digital flat-panel displays,” we are seeing the brewing of a “perfect storm” — a convergence of consumer excitement combined with an increasing capacity to supply products that are ever-closer to mainstream affordability. It is a scenario for almost unlimited growth, potentially encompassing most of the next decade. This year I had the pleasure of chairing the SID Business Conference. Thus, for two days I had the opportunity to listen as high-level display industry executives presented their views on how the display industry will evolve and how their companies expect to participate in — and perhaps even dominate — this evolution. As I listened, I began to wonder if it would be possible to formulate a few fundamental guiding principles that could help us to understand and predict what lies ahead. In addition to the current drive for bigger panels at lower prices, should we consider the possible influence of new technologies or other as yet unknown surprises? Will something come along that will change our display-world in ways that we cannot yet imagine? For example, is realistic 3-D technology the next great opportunity for new display products? As I listened, the following list began to emerge. And while I did not plan for it, I ended up with a list of ten items. Uh, oh! Does this make it look like I am trying to be a poor imitation of David Letterman on the Tonight Show? Perhaps there is a tiny similarity in that it was my intent to provide a quick stimulant to my Business Conference audience near the end of the second day — when everyone was beginning to feel quite overwhelmed by all the information that they had been absorbing. And as a stimulant, this list does not necessarily provide explanations. It simply states the ten conclusions. So, here is my list. • The mainstream display technologies that we will have 10 years from now are known to us today.• The best and perhaps only leading indicator of what we will see in 10 years and beyond is the current status of new materials. Once we understand the basic physics and chemistry of materials – the rest is history.• Technology is not the only key to commercial success. There are other influences of equal importance – economic, political, societal, and ecological. The basic question to answer is; will customers find a new product sufficiently exciting to buy it?• New technologies can reset traditional price points.• There are nearly unlimited opportunities in displays beyond computer monitors and television. The next 10 years will bring more exploration of this broader display space.• Over the next decade, the worldwide display business will overtake the semiconductor business.• For indoor viewing conditions most displays today are “good enough” – good enough in resolution and good enough in brightness. For outdoor viewing in sunlight that is not the case.• Truly realistic 3-D, such as needed to create a believable virtual reality experience, is at least 25 years away for single viewers and perhaps 50 years away for multiple viewers – and that is at the unlimited cost level.• Toys and games will provide a wonderful playground for exploring new display technologies.• There will be more light at work, at play, at home, and everywhere in between. We are living in exciting times for the worldwide display industry. Well, what do you think? Do you agree, disagree? Do you not have enough information to decide? Would a more complete explanation be helpful? Let’s explore that path. A number of these summary statements were stimulated not only by the Business Conference but were also the outgrowth of a talk that I prepared for the Pacific Northwest Chapter of SID. That presentation was based on work that I have been doing in the display industry for quite a number of years. Therefore, if you would like to explore some of the foundations from which my top 10 list evolved, you may wish to go to the “New Display Technology” section on this site and scroll down to where is says you can “Link to PPT slide show.” You can also find an even more complete version if you go to “sid.org” and then go to “Chapters” and look up the Pacific Northwest Chapter. You will find my talk listed under “Meeting Calendar” and there you will find that under “February” is the title of my presentation. Click on the title and it will download a complete set of the slides that I used. I would enjoy hearing your reactions — whether you agree or have some contrary thoughts about the future of our display industry — and perhaps how we can all become successful participants. You can reach me from this site, directly by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, by telephone at 425-898-9117 or by fax at 425-898-1727.

A Top 10 List… This year’s SID Symposium in Boston (May 23 – 27) was an exciting place to be. The display industry is in the midst of a rapid scale-up of manufacturing capacity. Bigger – and then even bigger yet — seems to be the driving impetus for the construction of new factories, for the sizes of the glass sheets used to make the new flat panel displays, and also for the screen sizes of the computer monitors and televisions that are being manufactured and delivered to enthusiastic consumers. Bigger, but also cheaper. Competition for market position among the giants of the industry is becoming incredibly intense. Everyone it seems is able to manufacture products of acceptable quality. That being the case, all that is left is to drive costs and prices ever lower. And since consumers have already demonstrated a willingness to pay a substantial premium for these “exciting new digital flat-panel displays,” we are seeing the brewing of a “perfect storm” — a convergence of consumer excitement combined with an increasing capacity to supply products that are ever-closer to mainstream affordability. It is a scenario for almost unlimited growth, potentially encompassing most of the next decade. This year I had the pleasure of chairing the SID Business Conference. Thus, for two days I had the opportunity to listen as high-level display industry executives presented their views on how the display industry will evolve and how their companies expect to participate in — and perhaps even dominate — this evolution. As I listened, I began to wonder if it would be possible to formulate a few fundamental guiding principles that could help us to understand and predict what lies ahead. In addition to the current drive for bigger panels at lower prices, should we consider the possible influence of new technologies or other as yet unknown surprises? Will something come along that will change our display-world in ways that we cannot yet imagine? For example, is realistic 3-D technology the next great opportunity for new display products? As I listened, the following list began to emerge. And while I did not plan for it, I ended up with a list of ten items. Uh, oh! Does this make it look like I am trying to be a poor imitation of David Letterman on the Tonight Show? Perhaps there is a tiny similarity in that it was my intent to provide a quick stimulant to my Business Conference audience near the end of the second day — when everyone was beginning to feel quite overwhelmed by all the information that they had been absorbing. And as a stimulant, this list does not necessarily provide explanations. It simply states the ten conclusions. So, here is my list. • The mainstream display technologies that we will have 10 years from now are known to us today.• The best and perhaps only leading indicator of what we will see in 10 years and beyond is the current status of new materials. Once we understand the basic physics and chemistry of materials – the rest is history.• Technology is not the only key to commercial success. There are other influences of equal importance – economic, political, societal, and ecological. The basic question to answer is; will customers find a new product sufficiently exciting to buy it?• New technologies can reset traditional price points.• There are nearly unlimited opportunities in displays beyond computer monitors and television. The next 10 years will bring more exploration of this broader display space.• Over the next decade, the worldwide display business will overtake the semiconductor business.• For indoor viewing conditions most displays today are “good enough” – good enough in resolution and good enough in brightness. For outdoor viewing in sunlight that is not the case.• Truly realistic 3-D, such as needed to create a believable virtual reality experience, is at least 25 years away for single viewers and perhaps 50 years away for multiple viewers – and that is at the unlimited cost level.• Toys and games will provide a wonderful playground for exploring new display technologies.• There will be more light at work, at play, at home, and everywhere in between. We are living in exciting times for the worldwide display industry. Well, what do you think? Do you agree, disagree? Do you not have enough information to decide? Would a more complete explanation be helpful? Let’s explore that path. A number of these summary statements were stimulated not only by the Business Conference but were also the outgrowth of a talk that I prepared for the Pacific Northwest Chapter of SID. That presentation was based on work that I have been doing in the display industry for quite a number of years. Therefore, if you would like to explore some of the foundations from which my top 10 list evolved, you may wish to go to the “New Display Technology” section on this site and scroll down to where is says you can “Link to PPT slide show.” You can also find an even more complete version if you go to “sid.org” and then go to “Chapters” and look up the Pacific Northwest Chapter. You will find my talk listed under “Meeting Calendar” and there you will find that under “February” is the title of my presentation. Click on the title and it will download a complete set of the slides that I used. I would enjoy hearing your reactions — whether you agree or have some contrary thoughts about the future of our display industry — and perhaps how we can all become successful participants. You can reach me from this site, directly by e-mail at silzars@attglobal.net, by telephone at 425-898-9117 or by fax at 425-898-1727.

We Solved the Wrong Problem… In spite of the soothing sounds of classical music coming from his clock radio, Jeff decided that he may as well get up and get ready for work. He expected today to be much like any other typical workday. He arose, showered, got dressed and checked his e-mail. After deleting the sixty spam messages that had accumulated overnight, he headed for his car and the drive to his office. While creeping along in rush hour traffic, he made a few quick phone calls and then stopped at a Starbucks for a latte and a breakfast roll. While having his coffee, he took care of a few more e-mails using the in-store Wi-Fi connection. Once at work, he had a brief meeting with his boss and then went on-line to search for several new components that he needed for his project. Having found what he was looking for, he noticed that he had only about one hour left to work out some design details and try a computer simulation that he thought might solve a pesky output mismatch problem. All too soon he had to head for the airport for a short overnight trip to visit his most important client. Fortunately, the computer simulation showed that the mismatch problem was most likely resolved. Although he would not know for sure until he built a prototype of the complete module, at least he had something concrete to present during his project review the next day. While waiting for his flight, he had a few minutes to once again check his e-mail – this time using the airport’s complimentary Wi-Fi connection. Then while getting on the airplane, he used the time to retrieve the latest voice messages and responded to a few of these calls that had come in since he left the office. Later that evening after reaching his destination, he spent several more hours responding to more voice mail messages and working through the e-mails that had accumulated during the day. Finally, some time after midnight, he was able to shut down and get some badly needed sleep. On this same day in Germany, Ernst, an engineering manager at a large electronics company, was spending his day much the same way. And in Japan, Shigeo, a program manager at a well-known display company was also performing many of these same activities. And so was Sasha, a professor at Moscow State University, and many other engineers and engineering managers in almost every corner of the globe. As with most of us, Jeff works with at least one computer at home, one at work, and a laptop for in between. All of these machines have multi-GHz microprocessors with massive computation capabilities. But just how much of this power is needed to receive and respond to e-mails? How much computation power is needed for Jeff and his counterparts to perform their typical activities? How much is needed to search the Internet? How much for word processing, or for downloading images from a digital camera? It seems that the only time during this typical day that Jeff used the computational power of one of his machines was when he ran the simulation program for his new module design. Since the mid-80s, when the PC first came into being, we have been on a race to make it and its laptop variant ever more powerful. The assumption apparently has been that somehow we would figure out how to use this ever-increasing power if it was simply made available to us. Well, about the only application where all this computing power has turned out to be useful is for games that generate rapidly moving images of ever-higher realism. For most of us doing our never-ending e-mails, searching the Internet, writing memos, and creating an occasional spread sheet, all this computing power is sitting there simply not doing much of anything. We don’t need more powerful computers. Instead, we need further improvements in how we communicate and access information. My cell-phone drops me in the middle of a call on a regular but unpredictable basis. My e-mail inbox is full of spam each day in spite of using a mild spam filter. I have to be continually alert for viruses that can wreck my computer and that can intrude from virtually any source. My personal and financial information is at ever-greater risk. I get notices from well-known companies that turn out to be well-engineered fakes instead. My communications ability is limited to certain places and by arbitrary charges imposed by the providers. I can compute but I can’t communicate. And this, while my ratio of communicating to computing is now significantly greater than 10 to 1. What, I wonder, would have happened if back in the mid-eighties we had realized that communicating would be even more important than computing. What if the power of the Internet had become apparent to us sooner? What if Google had become the dominant company before, or instead of, Microsoft? Would this have made our lives easier? And for all of us in the display community, would this have changed the way display technology evolved? It seems to me that if we could turn back the clock and do it all over again, we would pay far more attention to the communication and security aspects. Had we done that I am sure that by now our cell phones would be more reliable. It would not be necessary to have to search — and frequently pay — for an Internet connection whenever we sit in an airport or arrive at a hotel. In fact, even en-route we would most likely by now have access to communications channels. The reason that today we don’t have any of this is because the few dominant companies decided to work on and solve the wrong problem. They drove the technologies that they knew how to drive and did not appreciate that there were other even more important problems to solve. Do most

August 2005 Distorted Images… After a long day of cross country travel that included a three-hour wait on a taxiway in Denver — for the weather to clear in New York — the uneventful taxi ride and check-in at the midtown hotel was a welcome relief. I like this particular hotel because it is close to Central Park and that gives me an opportunity to go for a run at the end of most business days. On this visit, upon entering my room, I immediately noticed that the traditional décor was now competing with a new, very contemporary looking, plasma panel television. Gone was the old CRT-based set, now replaced by a 42-inch plasma panel with a bright metallic-silver surround. Clearly this hotel was intent on providing the latest and best technology for its clientele. And I planned to enjoy this new experience to the fullest.Unfortunately, that is not what happened next. My initial high expectations quickly turned to disappointment. As I scanned through the channels, the images jumped out at me in overly saturated colors, but with a limited color range. This was not just a minor annoyance. The picture quality was truly awful. The second problem was that the standard 4:3 TV images were being stretched into the 16:9 format with no compensation. All the people looked fat and distorted. The remote control provided with this TV did not have any buttons on it that would allow the user to adjust either the color saturation or the image aspect ratio. And unlike most CRT sets, the TV unit itself was also devoid of any accessible means for adjustment. This plasma panel was certainly not producing images close to anything resembling the quality I had recently seen at the SID Symposium in Boston. In fact, by now I was wishing that this hotel still had their old CRT televisions. It’s embarrassing to admit, but what I was seeing on this new plasma panel television was worse than anything I have seen even on a poorly adjusted CRT television. The combination of distorted images, overly saturated colors, and limited gray scale made for a truly bad viewing experience. Well, perhaps this was simply one of those situations where I happened to be the one to end up in the room with a faulty or poorly adjusted set. However, during my next stay a few weeks later, I had the same bad experience in a different room with a different set from the same manufacturer. About the only positive comment that I could come up with is that these panels were certainly very futuristic looking with their bright silvery metal bezels. They captured the look and feel of a product that could have the promise of a great new display technology. But they sure didn’t deliver on this promise. This upscale hotel had made a major investment to provide something special to their clientele and the result was worse than the old technology they had abandoned. They would have been better off buying new $300 CRT-based televisions instead of these $3,000 plasma panels. Perhaps by now, you are beginning to think that, for some unexplained reason, I have decided to be overly critical of plasma panel televisions. Well then, let me tell you about another recent experience that involved LC televisions. On a visit to the local Target store a few days ago, I wandered into the electronics section. At this particular store they have a large wall of traditional CRT televisions and on a display table in front sit the new LCD models in various sizes. I found the video-wall of approximately fifty CRT televisions impressive because they were all surprisingly well matched for color and contrast. The images were bright and the primary difference was in whether scan lines could be seen or not. The higher end sets were obviously using some form of line doubling to create the appearance of HDTV-like images. All of the LCD televisions came in a poor second. The color balance varied from set to set to the extent that even an untrained person would notice immediately. The same was true for contrast and color saturation. Not one of the sets produced an image comparable in quality to those seen on the CRT televisions. Should we then expect that consumers are going to be willing to pay a two or three times higher price for an inferior viewing experience? Maybe that is not a reasonable expectation from an engineer’s viewpoint, but the reality is that people seem to be buying “these great new flat-panel televisions” even at these high prices and even with inferior image quality. Of course not every experience will be as bad as the two I have described. I have visited electronics stores where all of the new flat-panel products were operating at their optimum settings and the images were just as good as those seen on CRT-based sets. But, it is nevertheless a disappointment to see display technologies that we in the display industry have worked so hard to perfect be presented in such an inferior way. What concerns me for our future is that in the drive to get selling prices ever lower, the quality of the images will suffer even more. New products will be introduced using low-cost designs and manufacturing processes that give up on image quality in order to achieve lower selling prices. This could then end up as a “good news” scenario for the few remaining CRT television manufacturers. If consumers begin to see that the extra money is only buying a more stylish looking product, but that the product is not providing them with a better viewing experience they may consider less costly alternatives. It is perhaps impossible to predict how the typical buyer will behave over the next few years. However, it could turn out that we have been premature in writing off the CRT as a viable display technology — for at least some portion of the consumer television market. Is

“When you notice a cat in profound meditation,The reason, I tell you is always the same:His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplationOf the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name.His ineffable effableEffanineffableDeep and inscrutable singular Name.T.S. Eliot Appreciation at Last … For over two thousand years we have had flexible displays. From my imprecise recollection of history, it would appear that papyrus roll-to-roll displays were around for quite some time before we decided to put written information onto “pages” in the shapes and sizes that resemble today’s books. Over many centuries, techniques for making these “pages” improved and new uses were found. Gradually, these flexible displays evolved into the variety of useful formats that we see today – books and magazines on paper, signs and banners on cloth and a variety of other materials, and even “wearable” flexible displays such as T-shirts and other articles of clothing. The one obvious limitation of all these display formats is that they cannot be readily and frequently updated. If we are finished reading a magazine and would like new information, we have to discard the old one and find a place that sells us a new one. Of course this information that we so casually discard is potentially reusable by someone else who has not seen it yet. As for the T-shirt slogans that were so cute just a few months ago, they may no longer fit into the latest fashion or political statement. This leads one to the “obvious” conclusion that a combination of flexibility and change-ability should be something that many of us wish to have.Some years ago, I was taught in a marketing class that the fundamental path to business success is to “find a need and meet it”. So what could more clearly be a need — if flexibility is good and change-ability is also good then the two together should be really good? This combination, therefore, surely must meet new needs that neither flexible non-changeable displays nor non-flexible changeable displays can satisfy. For the moment, let’s accept this premise. Given this assumption we are, however, still left with a “minor” nagging problem. Namely, once we have created our superbly flexible displays, how do we get new information into them? At this stage of our display technology development, the only way we know how to do high-information-content two-dimensional displays, that can be updated with a wide variety of images, is to use rows and columns with the junctures representing the information points we can address. That means that every row and every column must have a connection to it, and this connection must lead to some kind of electronic circuitry that will provide the voltages and currents to put the information into all of the pixels of our flexible display.With this requirement, our up-to-now elegant display medium has suddenly acquired a complicated umbilical cord. We could, of course, assume that there must be a way to make the electronics also flexible and easy to integrate into or onto the display itself. If we do that, then we will still need a connection to the information source, but the connection will be much simpler.However, by the time we have added the drive electronics and a power source, such as a battery pack, the promise of a display that will have the look and feel of a piece of high-quality paper is met only if we ignore these extra items needed to make it work. We may also be disappointed that the display does not really look and feel like “real” paper, and that the resolution is limited by the fixed format of the rows and columns.Nevertheless, if there is a market potential such inconveniences should not get in the way. An excellent example of this is the laptop computer. The early LC displays for these computers were truly awful. They were monochrome with poor contrast and virtually no gray scale. They were slow to respond and had limited resolution. But these rudimentary passive matrix-addressed LCDs were the only way to make a laptop computer. And we all wanted one! Therefore, in spite of all the imperfections, the technology was used and a revolutionary product was successfully brought to market. Is there such an opportunity for flexible displays?What could be some new applications where flexibility combined with updateable information is so important that we will make use of such a product even in its early stages of development? Hmmm… Books and magazines seem to be doing just fine in their existing formats. So far all of the attempts to make them “electronic” have not had much success. There is something very convenient and comforting about a book, and the turning of pages gives one a satisfying measure of progress. The cost of the paper medium is so low that buying a new one is not a concern. Posters and banners may benefit from flexibility along with updating capability but it may have to be at a cost that will have to be competitive with conventional printing. And, in any case, that may be a limited market because billboards and other “boards” that are not flexible can provide the desired information content in most applications. Well then, how about “wearable” displays or displays for portable electronic appliances? We are becoming more and more connected through cell phones and the Internet. But what advantage will we gain from flexibility? It seems to me that flexibility in itself may not do that much for us. However, suppose you could have a display that is not only flexible but is very thin. Suppose you can have a display that is emissive, i.e. does not require a back light, and that is in addition so thin that it can easily be implemented into all kinds of portable and “wearable” electronic appliances. And suppose that these displays can be scaled up to larger sizes and used almost like wallpaper. Perhaps now, we may be onto something. The interesting answer may not lie