Dr. Whang Ki-woong is Chairman of the Korean Information Display Society -- Ed.
Q: Which presentations are you interested in
A: My students are presenting papers, so mostly PDP papers.
Q: All of the presentations that I've attended have been in English. Is every presentation in English
A: Every presentation, yes.
Q: Is that difficult for some of the presenters
A: I guess so. Especially for the students. Our mother tongue is not English so there is some trouble in presenting their material in English.
Q: Who are the majority of the presentation attendees
A: Mostly university students so far. Mainly university students.
Q: And how about the majority of the presenters
A: The presenters come some from university and some from companies.
Q: Is there a trend in the display industry of including more organic molecules in different areas
A: Yes, of course. Organic molecules will also soon be used to make transistors. They can use simple methods to make them, and also they can be flexible. Some of these materials are synthesized in a lab and some are commercial materials already available in the market. Some new companies are interested in developing processes to make organic materials. You need special processes to make organic materials in the form of devices.
Q: What is the advantage of using organic materials over inorganic materials
A: You can make the device cheaply. Because you can put them into the system to make the transistors. The process is simpler, and cheaper, and also if you make the transistor with organic materials, it is more flexible, so that it can be folded. And there are other functions that you can derive from the organic materials.
Interview with Mr. Walter Zywottek
Mr. Walter Zywottek is an Executive Board Member of Merck KGaA, Germany -- Ed.
Q: In your keynote address at IMID 2007, you listed three main areas of improvement in TFT-LCDs, contrast, backlight, and moving picture response time, and that Merck was working to improve all three. Is there an upper limit to these areas of improvement, and if so, what is your estimate on when that upper limit will be reached
A: Contrast luminance and response times are typically display parameters. Consequently optimal values are not only determined by the liquid crystal properties. Especially for contrast and luminance properties of the backlight unit and polarizers play an important role as well. With respect to the response time current liquid crystals effects will soon show their limitations. Therefore Merck together with its customers is involved in research programs to optimize the project further to less than 1 msec.
Q: You mentioned that TFT-LCDs dominate TVs, monitor, and notebook display markets. What other possible markets could LCDs create or move into in the near future Are there novel applications for LCD technology that have not been developed yet
A: Currently the application of large size TFTLCD is considered for public information displays. Furthermore an interesting field may be the field of flexible display technology.
Q: What were some of the most interesting technology presentations or new product demonstrations that you were able to see at IMID 2007
A: The product [Motion Blur Reduction] from LG received the grand award from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy in part of Industrial Display Technology at IMID. And, the TV [LED RGB Local Dimming] from SEC has a specific back light system which reduces power consumption.
Interview with Larry Weber
Dr. Larry Weber is the President of the Society for Information Display -- Ed.
Q: I'd like to ask you a little bit more about what you mentioned this morning in your welcome speech, about how companies need each other.
A: I believe that very strongly. So many managers misunderstand this. They are always very competitive and they have to do better than the competition. But they don't realize that they really need that competition badly. To take example, there's a good example of a company who's actually making a mistake. And that's Canon with the SED technology. Its very good technology, but nobody else has it.
They have no competitors. There's nobody else doing SEDs because Canon has that technology and is holding that very closely. They would do much better if they told these secrets to other companies. And the other companies started believing in this technology. And then there would be many players and they would attract the infrastructure and the materials and equipment and things like that.
But as a one-company show, the only one who has this technology, they can't build on that. LCDs are strong because they've got many many companies that are all working very hard. So the LCD companies need their competitors, their competitors are very important. But in the example of the SED it's not going very far because Canon has this philosophy that they know this magic and they're not going to tell anyone else this magic. So it's actually somewhat counter-productive to not let your competitors know some of the particulars. And it's very good to try to be ahead of the competitors and that's what everybody tries to do and that's fine. But you don't want to be so far ahead that you're the only one because if you are, you'll fail.
And so that's what I meant by that. These conferences are very useful because they allow the different people who are doing the hands-on work to discuss things with each other and they learn a little bit here, and learn a little bit there. If they don't come to these conferences then they are working just in their company and they don't get a chance to talk to anyone else and they don't help each other you see. You really need to keep your competitor alive, and help them. That's what I meant, does that make sense to you That's a little counter to what you normally hear. People are very competitive, but they could do better if they were a little more open. And a lot of times your competitor is the other technology.
And so you miss who your competitor is. Your competitor isn't the guy who is working on the same technology as you, it's the guy working on the other technology. So the only way your technology can triumph over say, liquid crystal and plasma. It would be much better if the plasma guys, who are sort of the smaller group, if they would all start cooperating with each other in a great amount.
If the Japanese and Koreans would start cooperating with each other -- that could happen in plasma -- then the plasma could gain some advantage over the liquid crystal. But they're not doing that kind of thing, so that's what I'm talking about. It's an important thing that just seems like it's in the wrong direction but its really in the correct direction.
As long as you stay competitive with your immediate competitor you could help compete against the other technology.
Q: I heard a rumor that you're basically responsible for this entire industry.
A: Oh I don't think that's true. Oh, I wouldn't say that. I started working as a young student in the late 60s, so I've worked on it for 38 years. And I had a lot to do with the success of plasma displays.
I was the student of the two professors that invented the plasma display. I wasn't the inventor of the plasma display but I was the student of the inventors. And so I've had a number of inventions over the years which have advanced plasma displays, and these inventions you'll find in virtually all the plasma displays that are out there.
So in terms of large screen displays, the large televisions, I had a big impact on that because plasmas were the first that were out there. But I did nothing for liquid crystals, other than plasma sort of led the way and showed liquid crystals that there would be this giant market for largescreen televisions. Plasma demonstrated that market existed, and once plasma developed it of course the other technologies took the opportunity to get some of that market.
And they've done rather well; liquid crystals have done very well. But I wouldn't claim that I'm the guy that created this industry, not at all.
Q: Can you tell me a little bit more about what you said about a South America display industry conference starting up this year
A: They've got a new name, they're calling it Latin Display. We have Asia Display, we have Euro Display, why not Latin Display. I think they're at the beginning of this kind of thing, but they have a pretty good program. They are good at inviting people from all over the world. This is in Brazil, and so its going to be fun to be in Brazil. We start these conferences in places that don't seem very likely initially. I remember when we first had the first conference in Japan, it didn't seem like it was going to go very far. And it didn't. It was a good start but it didn't produce any startling results other than it got things going in Japan. That was in 1983.
And I remember when we had the first one of these conferences in Korea. It was in 1998, I want to say. Anyhow I remember how this first started. And they were successful conferences in that they got people interested in displays but they didn't have any earth-shaking results. But now, you come to a meeting like this, where this meeting in Daegu is one of the three major conferences in the world in displays. It's not second to the others, its equal. In some areas they're going to be a little stronger, some areas are going to be a little weaker.
So Brazil is in a similar situation like that. It's in the very beginning; they've got people who are interested in it. There's a lot of smart people in Brazil and the government seems to be wanting to support it. And there industry is really not there yet but it will be.
