Thin Is More than In! Pity the Microdisplay Which Kicked Off This Trend
October 24th, 2007By Ross Young, Founder and President, DisplaySearch
I have always felt bad for microdisplay TV manufacturers and the microdisplay supply chain. They have been one of the most innovative market segments, but there is little hope for them to grow.
It was microdisplay RPTVs that ushered in the HDTV era in the United States. They were also the first to go to 1080p. They were arguably the first, although CRTs may take exception, to significantly narrow their footprint. 12″, 10″, 8″, now there is talk of 6″ or even thinner with laser illumination. When I hear the thickness talk, it reminds of the movie “There’s Something About Mary” and the guy promoting 7 minute abs which was much better than 8 minute abs. But let’s give microdisplays credit, they also were the first to introduce narrow bezel TVs, to incorporate LEDs at reasonable prices and are now the first to commercialize 3D in mainstream TVs. Microdisplays were first with most of the major innovations over the past 10 years.
However, as LCDs and PDPs get thinner and OLEDs become available at mind-boggling form factors and prices for all flat panel technologies continue to fall rapidly, is there any hope for microdisplay? DisplaySearch does not think so. We believe the peak was in 2006 with global shipments of 2.8M units. We are expecting a 41% decline this year, a 38% decline next year and a 50% decline in 2009 to around 500K units.
One of the challenges has been LCDs and plasma TVs becoming more affordable at larger and larger sizes pushing microdisplay RPTVs to ever increasing sizes. In general, the larger the size over 42″, the smaller the market, especially overseas. So, with microdisplay RPTVs focused on 50″+ which have a very small presence overseas, they become even more dependent on the US market. Interestingly, the US 50″+ market is currently not growing as quickly as TV brands would like as consumers trade down to smaller, higher resolution flat panel TVs. From January to August, according to NPD which aggregates data from over 120 audio/video retailers, 50″+ TVs are up 28% while 40-49″ TVs are up 103%. Furthermore, LCD and plasma manufacturers fully intend to boost their 59% share in the 50”+ market with larger glass substrate fabs under construction optimized for this market segment such as Panasonic’s 6-up 55″ line and Sharp’s upcoming 8-up 57″ line.
To help overcome their inherently higher costs, look for flat panel manufacturers to continue to emphasize their advantageous form factor. At CEATEC and FPD International, we are seeing LCD manufacturers demonstrate new, impressive form factors such as those pictured in Figure 1 from Sharp, Hitachi and JVC at CEATEC. Three of the LCD TVs shown below are less than 21mm thick, which can be attributed to RGB LED backlights, some of which contain innovative light guides to further reduce the number of LEDs required. In fact, at FPD Taiwan earlier this year, Global Lighting Technologies showed a 37″ LCD TV requiring just 14 LEDs, as shown in Figure 2 with the use of a lightguide, which should allow for very narrow form factors. JVC adopted a custom designed panel using a JVC designed CCFL backlight adopting know-how from its microdisplay TV technology reducing the panel thickness from 35mm to 20mm.
Figure 1 Thin LCD TVs Shown at CEATEC
Figure 2 Global Lighting Technologies’ LED Solution
Also enabling narrow form factors is the ability to pull the TV electronics out of the TV and put them in separate box as Hitachi has done with its recently introduced 35mm thick LCD TV as shown in Figure 3. Hitachi calls this separate box a media station and it has a wireless option that dramatically simplifies wall mounting. It is also available at 37″ and 42″. Look for more brands to adopt this not just from a form factor perspective, but for the wireless aspect.
When it comes to exciting consumers over form factor, OLEDs have the biggest opportunity. Sony’s 11″ OLED TV was just 3mm thick and believe it or not it can get thinner as they used two 0.7mm glass substrates. They could use thinner glass and they could also replace the upper substrate with a thin film encapsulation layer, resulting in a TV potentially just 2mm thick. Is this like 5 minute abs or do you believe it has tremendous value? What premium would you pay by going from 30mm to 20mm, to 10mm or even 2mm?
Figure 3 Hitachi’s New 35mm Thick 32″ LCD TV
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