Cautious Optimism for Display Market as Display Week Show Opens

The post-COVID slump in consumer electronics sale has hit the display market rather hard, but there are signs of an uptick as Display Week 2023, one of the largest events in the display industry, takes place at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles from May 21 through 26.

Sponsored by the Society for Information Display (SID), Display Week encompasses a business conference, technical sessions, educational courses and seminars, and exhibits looking at current and future trends and developments in display technologies and applications.

Display Week kicks off as the market outlook for displays is a bit less pessimistic than a few months ago. Omdia’s Display Practice noted in a market report last month that total display fab capacity utilization is starting to recover, thanks to surging orders for LCD panels during the current quarter. However, OLED fabs, many built or expanded in recent years, are still facing challenges to raise capacity utilization.

David Hsieh, Senior Director in Omdia’s Display research practice said: “OLED fabs are in lower capacity utilization than the mature, smoother running LCD fabs. The issue for OLED now is slow demand, rather than these process parameters.“ Omdia forecasts that smartphone OLED demand will not fully recover through 11H23 while OLED TV fabs will face slow market demand.

Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC), another market intelligence firm, also noted that LCD TV panel prices have been surging in the current quarter, which the firm attributed to a flushing out of excess TV panel inventories after several quarters of tumbling demand. DSCC expects rising LCD fab utilization will result in TV panel prices stabilizing in the third quarter.

Effects of COVID

Monday’s Business Conference will kick off Display Week with several presentations on the states of the industry. Ross Young, CEO and co-founder of market research firm Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC), will discuss how COVID has impacted the display industry and projects when the industry will resume growth. Young will examine the growth prospects for technologies such as OLED, Mini-LED, Micro-LED, and Micro-OLED, and break down the outlook for display units and revenues by application, technology, supply/demand, and equipment spending.

While OLED display sales are currently slow, they are expected to pick up as demand for higher resolution displays dictates the use of new display technologies. Max McDaniel, Vice President and CMO, Display Group, Applied Materials, will look at the status of OLED display technologies. According to McDaniel, OLEDs will first take over large area displays such as TVs, then move into mobile displays.

Ian Jenks, Chairman and CEO, Smartkem, will look at market adoption of semiconductor technologies by the display industry. This presentation will look at how SmartKem’s TRUFLEX® organic semiconductor inks that are used to make organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) are being used in the existing display applications.

Automotive Displays

SID will also feature several sessions looking at developments in automotive displays. Kyle Davis, Senior Analyst, S&P Mobility, will discuss the growth of center stack, instrument cluster, and head-up displays, and examine the technology trends related to these components included digitalization, size, orientation, augmented reality, and more.

Mathias Stegemann, Global Director Product Management, VIA optronics GmbH will discuss technology developments to enable curved displays. Since Porsche launched the Taycan in 2019, curved displays have gained popularity in vehicles. Shapes like V-Shape, C-Shape and S-Shape as well as more complex ways of integration like Pillar2Pillar are being requested by vehicle suppliers.

New Products on Display

Some products and technologies being shown at Display Week include:

-Himax Technologies, Inc. a leading supplier and fabless manufacturer of display drivers and other semiconductor products, will unveil its - Color Sequential Front-lit LCoS technology. The microdisplay solution occupies a total volume of around 0.5 cc, comprised of the illumination optics and the LCoS panel. It is aimed at advanced AR (augumented reality) glasses.

-Metavista3D will demonstrate its Super-Multiview, AI-enhanced 3D display technology. According to the company, Metavista 3D offers a glasses-free 3D viewing experience with no additional memory requirements. The displays reportedly generate crystal-clear images and better depth perception while eliminating the common drawbacks of traditional 3D displays, such as fuzziness, headache, and eye strain.

-MICLEDI, a supplier of micro-LED arrays, will demonstrate its portfolio of R, G and B µLEDs. The micro-LED arrays are fabricated on 300-mm wafers.

-Chroma will showcase its display and optical color test solutions. Featured is the A223814 Signal Module, an advanced gaming monitor test solution that supports HDMI 2.1a, 10K@120Hz resolution output, Gaming-VRR, FVA, ALLM, QMS-VRR and other test modes.

For more information on Display Week, visit the Display Week site.

Spencer Chin is a Senior Editor for Design News covering the electronics beat. He has many years of experience covering developments in components, semiconductors, subsystems, power, and other facets of electronics from both a business/supply-chain and technology perspective. He can be reached at [email protected].