HOW DISPLAYS ARE HOLDING US TOGETHER

Abstract

Very first thing, I hope this finds each of you, your families, and friends healthy. These are difficult times for all of us and there are priorities much greater than our professions at the moment. For those of you facing hardship, we extend our heartfelt sympathies and wish your circumstances to improve soon.

THE MAY/JUNE ISSUE IS NORMALLY OUR DISPLAY WEEK SHOW ISSUE. But, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and limits on events and travel virtually around the world, Display Week has been postponed to early August 2020 and will become an online conference. SID leadership has been working hard to manage the transition and create the best possible experience for everyone. As President Helge Seetzen and President-Elect Takatoshi Tsujimura explain in their joint letter on page 5, the digital Display Week will include a full calendar of symposium papers and seminar presentations, interactive sessions with exhibitors, and even some new features. Many details are being worked out as of this writing, but thanks to the generous efforts of some dedicated volunteers, great preparation is well underway. For all the latest details, please check displayweek.org, and please consider joining in what promises to be a truly original and innovative event.

I've seen a number of world events affect our industry in my years as editor of ID. The tsunami in Japan, the financial crisis in the US, stock and oil market collapses, and SARs and H1N1 flu all come to mind. But nothing I can remember comes close to what we are experiencing today. The only rational reaction we can have to COVID-19 is to stay at home, away from others, and protect both ourselves and our families. We do this by sacrificing many things that are important to us, including working together, attending parties, meetings, schools, and sporting events, eating in restaurants, and so much more. Our vocabulary is consumed with a new term I'd never heard before: social distancing. The phrase sounds benign and certainly like something a bureaucratic institution would devise. However, the changes required significantly impact the way we all engage with the outside world.

The inevitable result of this has been businesses closed and jobs lost (hopefully all temporarily) on an unprecedented scale. The Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to the late 1930s, saw worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) drop around 15 percent and unemployment in some regions rise as high as 30 percent. That happened over a period of several years. Reports have the current unemployment rates and economic impacts on world economies similar or worse, but happening in less than six months. Consider this—in that short time, we went from barely a news story about a new virus to shutting down most of the world's economies for extended periods. There can be little doubt that we are living in a truly global economy and society today.

There are some significant technological differences, however, between today and 1929. Computers, the internet, cell phones, and displays all come to mind. Methods of electronic communication, remote working, virtual meeting, and distributed computing exploded over the last two decades just waiting for a moment like this. Essentially, all of our videoconferencing and business collaboration tools rely on electronic displays—and in this time of uncertainty, the industry has not let the world down. We were ready for this.

Large-area high resolution monitor, tablet, laptop, and cellphone displays are everywhere in our homes and enable an unprecedented amount of virtual interaction. Many businesses are sustaining and some are even growing during this time as a result. Online education has never been more accessible in so many forms and formats. Connections among families and friends can continue almost unabated through video calls—minus the handshakes and hugs, of course. Even entire television programs are being created over videoconferencing tools. It's not truly the same as it was before COVID-19, but it's much better than it could be. In various ways, all of you in this industry have been working toward this moment during your careers. You have been helping to build an infrastructure of products, tools, and technology perfectly suited for times like these and enabled by electronic displays. They seem to work quite well. Congratulations!

Soon the worst of the pandemic will fade. We'll begin reopening businesses again and see our colleagues in our workplaces. We'll return to our family gatherings and sporting events. But the techniques we've learned from social distancing may make it easier for us to still work from home, connect remotely to avoid lengthy business trips, run our businesses more efficiently when we are engaged, and actually have more time to be disengaged at home to spend with our loved ones.

A Deep Dive Into the Issue

As we anticipate an eventual return to normalcy, we still look forward to the advances emerging in our field. Our cover story highlights the winners of SID's Display Industry Awards, which are recognized in three categories: displays, components, and applications. There are some very exciting picks in this year's group, including two examples of leading-edge OLEDs, some notably high-performance LCDs, really cool haptic technology, and great new display materials. Please enjoy these announcements and consider supporting the companies involved and their products. I also want to recognize members of the Display Industry Awards Committee, a highly skilled team of technologists who work diligently to select the best from a wide array of nominations. Their efforts and integrity are worthy of much praise.

As we are deep into the disruptions from COVID-19 right now, let me draw your attention to our Industry News section written by Glen Dickson, with significant contributions from Ross Young, the founder and CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants. It outlines how the current crisis has accelerated the downsizing and consolidation in LCD manufacturing capacity while at the same time opening more doors for gains in the OLED share. Overall, though, orders are down significantly and we will see more damage ahead of recovery later in the year. Even before this pandemic started, we had asked Ross to review the landscape for capital expenditures and display manufacturing capacity. His Display Marketplace feature “The Outlook for OLED Remains Bright” takes on even more significance now. This article paints the broader picture of the state of the industry before the pandemic, what mechanisms and pressures were already in place, and where it will likely go. I came away from these two articles considering once again how hard it really is to make sustainable profits in displays—even without a black swan event.

We have a full Frontline Technology package this month featuring several great articles. First, in “Bringing True Colors to MicroLED Displays,” authors Tobias Steinel and Martin Wolf of Instrument Systems GmbH explore what it takes to combine high-resolution luminance imaging with spectroradiometry to achieve high speed and accuracy together in a display measurement system. In a similar vein, our next feature, “Critical Considerations for Characterizing and Standardizing ILMDs,” by Udo Krüger, Ingo Rotscholl, and Alexandre Fong with TechnoTeam Bildverarbeitung GmbH discusses the critical considerations for performing large-area luminance measurements. These are both highly informative, well-written articles with special interest to those of us who follow the display metrology space.

I can't even count the number of times in my career when I have wanted to wave a magic wand and change the index of refraction on some optical component. There are so many things this one parameter can affect, and so many challenges we face when we're stuck with it. Well, Rüdiger Sprengard and his colleagues at Schott AG found a way to do this and describe their work in “High Index Glass Wafers and the Path to Mass-Marketing AR Glasses.” Perhaps they have a magic wand?

Some of you may remember a few years ago when we ran a multipart series on the Leahy–Smith America Invents Act (AIA), a sweeping reform of the US patent system signed in 2011. Practicing patent attorney and author Clark Jablon, a founding partner of Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel LLP, wrote about various aspects of the new legislation and advised us on strategies to best navigate the new process and protect our IP more effectively. Recently, we wondered how things were going. Well, Clark's chosen title might be the clue: “Is the Sky Falling in the US Patent Industry?” It turns out the AIA has had a significant impact on inventors and their companies, as well as on the process for litigation and damage awards. This is a great example of how good intentions sometimes lead to unintended consequences—depending, of course, on which side you are on. We're thankful yet again to Clark's exceeding generosity with his time and expertise in supporting Information Display readers.

You may have forgotten by now, but just before social distancing became our mantra, the folks in SID's LA Chapter were able to hold their annual One Day Symposium, and what a great event it was. Now in its 15th year, the conference offered excellent coverage of augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR), microLEDs, and high dynamic range (HDR), among other things. We're grateful to chapter members Martin Kykta, Peter Baron, Larry Iboshi, and Adi Abileah for bringing us highlights from the event.

Before I wrap up, I just want to express much gratitude and respect to all the authors and guest editors who continue to support ID in a time filled with urgent matters. But, hopefully this humble publication and the wider SID community can provide at least a small amount of support, diversion, entertainment, and dare I say inspiration? Please keep supporting us, and by extension, all of those in our industry with timely technical and business content we can enjoy during and after our isolation. Stay well, everyone!