Roll Up for Corning’s New Willow Glass

Corning is showing off its new Willow glass at SID DisplayWeek 2012. The glass is similar to the company’s familiar Eagle glass that is used as substrates for LCD panels and other display applications. The big difference is that Willow is thin: really thin. It is just 100 microns thick, which is about the same as a sheet of paper.

The glass is produced using Corning’s fusion method, which gives it the smooth surface and uniform thickness that makes other Corning glass so well-suited for flat-panel display production. The fact that the glass is so thin, however, means that it can be bent without breaking. It also is much lighter than the thicker versions. The result is a glass that can be rolled up on spools, and that is light enough to make it practical to ship to customers around the world. Corning is making Willow glass in its Kentucky plant. The glass can be made up to 1 meter wide, and up to 300 meters can fit on a single spool.



While the glass can be used as sheets in traditional batch processing, it can also be used in roll-to-roll production. This probably won’t be continuous processing in most cases, though some coatings could be applied this way. Instead, it will probably be used for “step and repeat” production, which still promises to be much more efficient that the current practice of batch processing individual sheets of substrate.

Willow glass also is a good barrier for air and water vapor, which makes it attractive as a layer to encapsulate thin-film solar cells as well as OLED displays. It also tolerates high temperature processes which would cause flexible plastic substrates to stretch, buckle, or melt. – Alfred Poor, HDTV

Exciting E-paper Papers

In terms of e-paper, unlike last year's Display Week, this year it is not as much about prototypes on the floor as as it is about the sessions. There are numerous papers showing major gains in reflective brightness and greatly improved color. Fuji presented -- and demonstrated at author interviews with a 3-4 deep crowd of people -- a multi-color particle electrophoretic display that showed dramatically improved color. The paper was given by Hiji-san of Fuji, whom we have seen present innovative e-paper technologies for numerous years at Display Week. CMY color generation seems to be gaining momentum (HP, Ricoh, and now Fuji.)

Some further e-paper excitement later this week: HP's late-news paper (Thursday 2:30, 52.4) on electrokinetic technology has a provocative title: "Ultra-Low-Power Reflective Display with World’s Best Color". This will be interesting because what they will present is a 3-layer display using oxide-TFTs. – Jason Heikenfeld

TouchTurns: A US-Based P-Cap Module Startup

TouchTurns, a nine-person projected-capacitive (p-cap) touch module startup in Santa Clara, CA, is going after a market that is without question currently underserved: commercial p-cap applications in the US. TouchTurns’ differentiation derives from several interesting aspects, as follows:

1. The particular sensor being exhibited by TouchTurns (in 3.5”, 5” and 7” sizes) uses a single layer of ITO without bridges or metal routing traces, yet it uses mutual capacitance, not self-capacitance. This is accomplished by running drive electrodes vertically down the sensor and forming individual sense pads in a column beside each drive electrode. This also allows the sensor to be borderless on three sides! The photo below shows a close-up of the FPC on the top edge of a 3.5-inch sensor; you can see from the trace pattern that there are 10 drive electrodes and 15 sense electrodes per drive electrode.







Photo by author

2. The sensor is built on a substrate of Corning’s 0.1 mm “Willow” glass, using laser ablation for patterning (no photolithography!). Laminating the sensor to a 0.5 mm cover-glass with 0.1 mm of OCA yields a total stackup of 0.7 mm. This is about the same thickness as a “sensor-on-lens” configuration, but without the yield issues of that configuration (which, from the rumors I’ve heard, are significant).

3. The sensor can be driven by popular p-cap controller ICs with TouchTurns custom firmware and sensor patterns. The resulting module specs appear to be in the ballpark of the Microsoft 8 Touch Logo (10 touches, <1 mm accuracy error, 12 mm minimum between fingers, ~100 Hz scan rate, etc.) – although meeting the Logo spec is typically unimportant in commercial applications.

4. TouchTurns has a complete prototype line in Santa Clara for quick-turn development builds, and an offshore partner (CN Innovations in Shenzhen) for low-cost mass production. The prototype line is capable of building a wide range of sensor architectures, as well as printing custom artwork on custom-shaped cover-glass.

These four aspects make TouchTurns highly competitive in a market that I believe will welcome it with open arms. You can find TouchTurns in the Corning booth (123), to the right of the big roll of Willow glass.-- Geoff Walker, Walker Mobile, LLC.

The I-Zone Rocks!

This year, SID DisplayWeek has added a refreshing new feature to the Exhibit Hall: the I-Zone. This is a special section that gives “researchers space to demonstrate their prototypes or other hardware demo units for 2 days free of charge.” The section was made possible through the sponsorship of E-Ink.

With fewer than two dozen tables, the I-Zone is a hotbed of innovation and enthusiasm. From clothing with embedded fiber optics that light up segmented displays to lenses made of liquid crystals that can be programmed to change their focus, there are many technology demonstrations that are likely to make you look twice.

One of my favorites was a demonstration by Citizen Holdings. A device that looked sort of like a table-top basketball backboard had a jumble of hardware where the net should have been. This device turned out to be a robotic combination of camera and projector. When you held out your hand, the camera would find it and the projector would display a control icon on the palm of your hand. Press the icon, and it would control the computer. For example, if a movie was playing on the attached computer, you could make it pause or play by touching the icon in your hand. Instead of projecting onto your hand, it could also project onto the table. You could tap the table twice to “summon” the control icons. They would be projected close to where you tapped.

This could be the precursor to a rich new user interface for television. Instead of having to make broad gestures, speak repetitive commands, or deal with a complex remote, this system could let you control the television system through a series of context-sensitive control displays. And if two or more people are watching, you can easily tell who has the attention of the controller by seeing where the icons are projected.

This clever demonstration was just one of many fascinating projects on display at the I-Zone.--Alfred Poor, HDTV

Head-Tracking 3DTV

Another I-Zone innovation was demonstrated by PolarScreens. The system relies on a head-tracking system to drive a no-glasses 3D display that uses a regular 120 Hz LCD panel plus a patterned active shutter panel to steer the separate images to the viewer’s two eyes. According to the company, the system can deliver the full resolution to each eye.

The system is also designed to “fail” gracefully. If you turn your head sideways to the point where the stereoscopic effect cannot be maintained, the display automatically switches to 2D mode. The head-tracking system can see when your eyes are close enough to horizontal again, and it will turn the 3d mode back on automatically.

Information Display’s own Steve Atwood took the system for a test drive, as seen in the photograph below. A demonstration screen displayed what the system camera saw, and how it was able to identify the major features on Steve’s face, such as his eyes (in spite of his substantial beard).

The system is intended for a single viewer, and is aimed at high end applications where the user may be moving around but still needs to see a high-resolution 3D auto-stereoscopic image. This design could be well suited for people who edit 3D movie and video content, and have to move around or look back and forth at other screens while working.--Alfred Poor, HDTV

The Master of Touch

Jeff Han, the Founder and CTO of Perceptive Pixel, demonstrated once again in his presentation today at the Display Week Investors Conference that he is the Master of Touch. What I mean by that is that Jeff consistently has the clearest vision of how touch needs to evolve to allow professionals to accomplish real work using touch, and he articulates that vision with exceptional clarity. Perceptive Pixel isn’t a touch-screen company – although it does make and sell a high-end 27-inch touch monitor; it's a company dedicated to inventing solutions to user interface problems in the knowledge-worker world.

Presentations at the Investors Conference aren’t frequently reported in Display Week coverage, perhaps because the conference is somewhat specialized and takes place during the first day of exhibits. The conference, which is run by Cowen and Company, the leading growth investment-banking firm focused on the display and touch-screen supply chain, is an excellent venue for learning more about important private and smaller public firms in the sector. This is the 8th time the conference has taken place; there were presentations by nine public and eight private companies.

It’s particularly difficult to describe a Jeff Han presentation because (a) he always presents at lightning speed, (b) he usually makes heavy use of simultaneous video, text and spoken content, and (c) he never gives the audience a copy of his slides. Jeff started his presentation today by making the same point that I made in my Sunday Short Course and Monday Seminar on touch: projected capacitive (p-cap) has won the war. It’s over. A billion users now expect touch to work like p-cap. If another touch technology provides a different user experience, the user is likely to be uncomfortable with it or simply reject it. Jeff believes that the touch industry therefore needs to focus on figuring out how to use p-cap to solve user interface problems beyond simply zooming an image on a smartphone or tablet.

With this goal in mind, Perceptive Pixel has figured out how to scale p-cap to unlimited sizes with no visible electrodes (unlike current large-format p-cap implementations that use visible 10-micron-wire electrodes). Jeff said that even 200 inches is no problem; if there is a display that large, Perceptive Pixel can make a p-cap touchscreen for it. The largest the company has actually demonstrated so far is 82 inches (at CES 2012) because that was the largest display it could easily buy. (This product also just won a 2012 Silver Display Industry Award from SID for Display Application of the Year.) The key elements of Perceptive Pixel's solution are (a) a custom, extremely high-performance p-cap controller re-imagined from the ground up, and (b) a method of applying invisible non-ITO p-cap electrodes on glass. Jeff showed a variety of demo videos of commercial touch applications on screen sizes ranging from a 27-inch reclining desktop monitor to a 20-foot wall of tiled touch-displays. The applications included broadcast-screen manipulation, 3D CAD, manipulation of multi-dimensional oil-well-exploration data sets, and many, many more. The impression this barrage of sophisticated touch applications makes is far beyond anything else I’ve ever seen from any other company in the touch industry. It’s so intense that it’s very difficult to describe.

Jeff ended his presentation with a video demo showing why simultaneous touch and stylus is highly desirable. (His implementation of p-cap, by the way, is capable of this at any size.) The demo showed an artist making changes in a sketch using a stylus in his right hand. The artist’s left hand was sometimes resting on the screen doing nothing (yet not interfering in any way) and sometimes adjusting the perspective of the drawing or making other control-type changes. The transition of the artist’s left hand between resting and active was almost imperceptible – unless the hand was making a specific gesture or touching a control spot, the application ignored it. This is what “ignoring unintended touches” is really all about; this is why Perceptive Pixel’s p-cap controller supports “an infinite number of touches”.

What I saw was both electrifying and frustrating. It was electrifying because the clarity and articulation of Jeff’s vision (and Perceptive Pixel’s execution) of what touch should be is so great that it literally leaves your mouth hanging open. It was frustrating because the only time Jeff’s vision is exposed is at two or three conferences a year. Since he never provides a copy of his slides at those conferences, there’s nothing to remind you later of what you experienced and of his thoughtful insights into the touch industry. I hope we'll hear more in future from the Master of Touch. -—by Geoff Walker, Walker Mobile, LLC

P-CAP LCD Integration and Alternate Transparent Conductors

Two great seminars today were given by Bob Mackey of Synaptics and Geoff Walker of Walker Mobile. While we all know projected-capacitive touch technology, commonly called "P-CAP" is taking off in handheld and mobile applications, I don't think I realized just how complex the options were for implementation and integration with LCD and OLED panels. A great deal of investment has been made to explore ways of integrating the technology directly into the LCD cell and combining it with the LCD manufacturing process. Some say this is the future; some, like Geoff, think this is a long shot because of all the existing business infrastructure around LCD module integrators, an estimated $8 billion or so. These are the companies that combine the LCDs and the P-CAP touch panels into modules for the device manufacturers. I guess we'll see how it all turns out.

I also learned that there has been some real innovation and progress in the area of alternative transparent conductors - essentially options for ITO replacement. Silver nanowires, carbon nanotubes, blackened copper mesh, and various other technologies are not yet ready for wholesale deployment but they are gaining traction. ID magazine recently covered the development by Cambrios of wet-processed silver nanowires and since then Cambrios has seen the launch of the "Cricket" smart phone by Samsung, which used its silver nanowire material for the touchscreen, along with Synaptics electronics. Still, as Bob Mackey pointed out, the perceived shortage of Indium is not nearly as bad as people have been saying, and the economic motivation for these alternative materials may not be as severe as we think. – Steve Atwood, Executive Editor, ID magazine