SID 2006 Last Minute Updates, Facts and Overview as of May 31, 2006.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Society for Information Display's (SID) 2006 International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition (SID 2006) is expected to be the largest in the event's 44-year history, attracting in excess of 8,000 attendees to the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. From the largest liquid-crystal display (LCD) in the world, to the smallest organic-light-emitting-diode (OLED) microdisplays, SID 2006 is overflowing with story lines. We are here to help you get the most out of your SID 2006 experience.

OVERVIEW

SID 2006 will take place June 4-9, 2006, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, USA. The San Francisco Marriott Hotel (55 Fourth Street, San Francisco, CA 94103) is the headquarters hotel for SID 2006, and is located across the street from the Moscone Center.

The Press Rooms are located in Rooms 110 and 111 in the Moscone Center. There will be phone, fax/printer and Internet service available in the Press Room. The Press Room Hours are as follows:

DAY            PRESS ROOM HOURS
Monday         7 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Tuesday        7 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Wednesday      7 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Thursday       7 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Michael Morgenthal and Jessica Quandt, plus additional support staff, will be on hand in the Press Room to handle any request you may have. All press registrations will take place in the Press Room. If you are pre-registered and have received your press credentials via the mail, you can pick up your badge holder, SID 2006 Media Kit and 2006 SID Symposium Digest on CD (for registered press members; analysts do no not receive this CD). If you have not registered in advance, you can do so in the Press Room at any time during its hours of operation.

The annual SID Press Breakfast will take place Tuesday, June 6, from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. in Rooms 121-122. Come enjoy a complimentary breakfast while getting an overview of all elements of SID 2006, featuring Dr. Aris Silzars, who is the chair of the SID Publications Committee and also the chair of the SID 2006 Business Conference. Paul Semenza, vice president of display and consumer research for market-research firm iSuppli Corp., will speak on trends and market forces in the flat-panel TV market. You will also have a chance to ask questions of our panel of industry experts, which will include Semenza, keynote speaker Bock Kwon, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing and Sales Officer of LG.Philips LCD, and Gary W. Jones, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of eMagin Corp.

The press breakfast will conclude in time for everyone to proceed to the SID Keynote Session, which will take place starting at 8:20 a.m. in Room 134. The Keynotes are:

--"A Perspective on the TFT (thin-film transistor) LCD Industry," by Bock Kwon, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing and Sales Officer, LG.Philips LCD.

--"Large-Sized FPDs: The Driving Forces for Real Life," by Dr. Takeshi Uenoyama, Director of Advanced Technology Research Laboratories and Image Devices Development Center, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (parent company of Panasonic)

--"A Revolution in Display Technology: Enabling Next-Generation Wireless Communications," by Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm Inc.

MEDIA EVENTS

In addition to the SID Press Breakfast, there are 14 additional media events scheduled throughout the week -- 12 press conferences and 2 sponsored media breakfasts. Here is a day-by-day breakdown of those events, with details as they have been provided to us. All media events will take place in the Press Rooms (Rooms 110/111) unless otherwise noted.

Tuesday, June 6

--GE Plastics Press Conference (10:30 a.m., Room 262)

GE will unveil a revolutionary new addition to its Illuminex family of display films. GE says the new film can help LCD manufacturers improve luminescence as much as 5% higher than best-in-class competitors; hides moire and defects so well that manufacturers may not need to add a top diffuser film to their LCDs, thereby lowering systems costs; offers superior long-term waving resistance and high-temperature performance in high-humidity environments vs. currently available products; and offers superior performance over traditional coated film products for greater reliability.

--TLC International Press Conference (11 a.m.)

TLC International, which makes glass cutters for flat-panel displays, will detail the latest advances in its ongoing research and development of alignment capabilities for highly repeatable close-tolerance singulation of shaped (circular/curvilinear/ irregular) FPD products.

--DisplaySearch Press Conference (11:30 a.m.)

Ross Young, President of DisplaySearch, will conduct a display industry briefing covering recent trends and valuable outlooks for this year and beyond.

--Dr. Schenk GmbH Press Conference (2:20 p.m.)

Dr. Schenk GmbH will introduce its latest flat-panel inspection-systems products, called "Chess," which is a high-resolution modular optical system designed for the inspection of sheet-to-sheet panels including glass substrates, plasma-display panel (PDP) glass, coated glass, color filters, OLEDs, array structures and rear-projection screens. At SID 2006, Dr. Schenk will introduce products that offer in-line inspection of the glass ribbon at the float line; edge inspection and dimensions measurement at the cold end of the float line; and in-line or off-line inspection of low-E coated architectural sheet glass.

--Hong Kong Applied Science & Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) Press Conference (3 p.m.)

ASTRI will detail its latest in advances in LED backlighting for large-sized TVs, including LED Backlighting Units (BLUs) with lower power consumption; LED chips: higher light emission and extraction; and very short color mixing distance using a 3-in-1 RGB packaging technology.

Wednesday, June 7

--Media Breakfast sponsored by Corning Inc. (7:45 a.m.)

While you enjoy a complimentary breakfast courtesy of Corning Inc., the company's display expert, Dr. Peter Bocko, will host an open discussion on the various pieces of the display-industry puzzle and what it will take to meet the challenges and maximize the opportunities facing display technology today and in the future.

--3M Press Conference (9 a.m.)

3M will announce the results of recent research quantifying significant LCD TV energy savings from Vikuiti(TM) Dual Brightness Enhancement Film (DBEF). The film improves overall LCD TV energy efficiency 20%-30%, while reducing the number of bulbs required by four or more. Representing 3M Optical Systems Division will be Andy Wong, Vice President, and Dave Iverson, LCD TV Business Manager.

--Elo Touch Systems Press Conference (9:20 a.m.)

Elo President Mark Mendenhall will be unveiling its brand-new touch-screen technology targeted Point-of-Sale applications in the retail and hospitality markets.

--Novaled AG Press Conference (9:40 a.m.)

German OLED materials developer Novaled will detail the role it expects to play the consolidation is expected in the OLED material and technology fields, as evidenced by its recent partnership with Ciba Specialty Chemicals to mass-produce OLED materials. Novaled will also discuss its record-setting white OLEDs as part of a joint project with a global lighting company.

--Lumus Ltd. Press Conference (10 a.m.)

No information currently available.

--Portrait Displays Press Conference (10:20 a.m.)

Scott Anderson, Vice President of Product Management at Portrait Displays, will provide an informative update on recent advances in LCD display-management software and identify the growing number of LCD manufacturers providing these solutions. These LCD manufacturers recognize that there are tremendous opportunities to maximize the capabilities of their LCD panels through easy-to-use Windows-based setup and adjustment controls without incremental hardware costs. By utilizing the bi-directional DDC/CI communications channel, LCD manufacturers are able to shift the burden away from cumbersome hardware buttons and native On-Screen Display (OSD) controls to highly customizable display management software. This software can also include powerful enhancements including color management, asset management, theft deterrence, auto rotation, zoning, and Picture-in-Picture (PIP).

Thursday, June 8

--Media Breakfast sponsored by Nemoptic (7:45 a.m.)

While you enjoy a complimentary breakfast courtesy of Nemoptic, J. Noels, the company's CEO, will demonstrate Nemoptic's Binem(R) technology and discuss why it is a superior choice for small-screen displays, particularly those for mobile and wireless consumer-electronics products. He will discuss what Binem(R) technology brings to the industry, its prospects for mass production, its costs vs. existing and proven solutions, and what market segment will initially be able to provide the necessary volume launching pad for the new technology.

--Touch International Press Conference (9 a.m.)

No information currently available.

OTHER EVENTS OF NOTE

The SID Business Conference continues to grow in importance and scope, and this year, in addition to an outstanding lineup of speakers, there will be two special presentations that should not be missed. The Business Conference will take place June 5-6 in Room 134 of the Moscone Center.

--On Monday, June 5, at 12 p.m., Mary Lou Jepsen, Chief Technology Officer, One Laptop per Child Non-Profit Association, will deliver her luncheon address entitled, "The $100 Laptop, the $35 Display, and the other $4 Billion." Studies and experience have shown repeatedly that kids take to computers easily -- not just in the comfort of warm and well-lit rich-country school, dens, and living rooms, but also in the slums and remote rural areas of the developing world. The $100 laptop offers a cheaper alternative to current textbook expenditures in much of the developing world, while also giving the child not only an infinite number of textbooks, but numerous entries to interactive, unbounded, and peer-to-peer learning.

--On Tuesday, June 6, at 11:30, a panel discussion will attempt to settle once and for all the argument as to which technology will reign supreme in the battle for flat-panel TV market share. Moderated by Dr. Aris Silzars, the debate will feature Larry Weber, president of SID and former president of Plasmaco, going head-to-head with Samsung's Vice President of LCD Business, Brian Berkeley.

On Wednesday, June 7, at 12 p.m., the annual SID Luncheon will feature what is sure to be an out-of-this-world discussion by Dr. Greg Olsen, who in October 2005 became just the third civilian to orbit the earth about the International Space Station. Olsen, who is an entrepreneur and former researcher at RCA labs, will detail his unforgettable journey with stories and photos from his time in space. In addition, the luncheon will feature the announcement and awarding of the 11th Annual SID/Information Display Display of the Year Awards. This year's winners were culled from a pool of more than 100 nominees, and represent an incredible cross-section of display technologies. Note: The cost of the Luncheon, which will take place at Yerba Buena Room in the San Francisco Marriott, is not included with your Press Registration. You can purchase tickets at the main registration desk.

SHOW FLOOR

SID 2006 will feature a record 300 exhibitors occupying 576 booths.

The Exhibition Hours are as follows:

Tuesday, June 6     10:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Wednesday, June 7    9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Thursday, June 8     9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Here are just a few exhibitors worth noting:

LG.Philips LCD (Booth 932) will feature the exhibition debut of the world's largest 100-inch LCD panel, which is approximately 1.5 times larger than the largest currently available LCD panel, and is similar in size to the largest plasma display panel (PDP) currently available. Developed at LG.Philips LCD's seventh-generation manufacturing facility in Paju, South Korea, the 100-inch panel is a wide screen (16:9) LCD TV panel with a screen response speed below 5ms, 6.22 million-pixels, full HD grade picture quality and can reproduce 1.07 billion colors. This LCD also boasts a maximum contrast ratio of 3000:1, color reproduction of 92 percent, and an omni-directional, 180-degree viewing angle based on Super IPS and super-large compensation film technologies.

Samsung (Booth 1002) will unveil the industry's first amorphous silicon (a-Si) 7-inch, single-chip TFT-LCD panel that reproduces colors in high resolution (WVGA-level, 800x480 pixels). The 7-inch LCDs normally require 4 to 7 drive ICs (integrated circuit) and T-con (time controller that drives the screen), power platform and other components that are typically attached to a circuit board on the exterior of the LCD, a major obstacle to slimming the package profile of mobile LCD devices. Samsung's new single-chip design, with a contrast ratio of 400:1 and a brightness level of 450 nits, uses Samsung's unique ASG (amorphous silicon gate) technology, which incorporates the Gate-driver IC function directly on the surface of the glass panel, while simultaneously integrating the T-con function within the Drive-IC. In the single-chip design, the surface area of the drive circuit and the number of components that it contains are each one-third less than that used in existing WVGA panel designs. This will support the trend toward thinner and simpler mobile devices, while decreasing the overall circuit development and production burden for set builders by combining the functionality of multiple digital components.

Liquavista (Booth 926), a Philips spinoff launched in April, will be unveiling products using its electrowetting technology for portable displays. First shown at SID 2004 by Philips, electrowetting technology offers great potential for mobile displays such as cell phones, MP3 players and cameras, because the displays are extremely bright and energy-efficient. Essentially, electrowetting creates such bright displays by manipulating colored oil and water in a tiny cell with electric currents.

eMagin Corp. (Booth 744) will showcase its latest OLED breakthrough, which it claims is the world's highest luminance and longest lifetime OLED microdisplay. In April, eMagin announced the first four products in its OLED-XL(TM) microdisplay portfolio, which it claims offers up to 410,000 hours luminance life, the widest temperature range, and the lowest power requirement of any commercially available SVGA resolution microdisplay system. The new OLED-XL devices typically have 6-10 times longer luminance half-life and exhibit 3-5 times the efficiency compared to previous eMagin OLEDs, depending on the specific OLED-XL product and operating parameters. This large efficiency increase permits OLED-XL displays to be capable of much higher luminance without any added power consumption.

Corning (Booth 330) will unveil its new environmentally friendly EAGLE XG(TM) substrate that will assist panel makers in meeting increasingly stringent environmental regulations. Corning claims this is the first LCD substrate to be completely free of heavy metals. Corning will also show its Generation 8 substrates, the newest large size glass for the LCD industry, which will be commercially available by the third quarter. Corning Tropel, a subsidiary of Corning, will introduce its FlatMaster(R) 1400 LCD Image Mask Flatness Metrology System, which provides full-surface flatness measurements for LCD image masks with superior speed, repeatability and accuracy to meet next-generation flatness requirements. The demand for higher resolution and larger physical sizes of today's electronics, such as flat-panel televisions and computer displays, requires larger and flatter image masks. An LCD image mask is a substrate that contains a pattern that is projected onto flat glass panels, which become the circuitry for the display. When printing or exposing small images, the depth of focus is narrow. In order to produce sharp, in-focus images in a narrow depth of focus, the image mask must be extremely flat. Hence, the value of this new product.

Fraunhofer IPMS (Booth No. 437), which is part of the German Pavilion, will demonstrate transparent OLED displays that allow for information to be viewed on both sides of the display, which could have a big impact in the digital signage world. It will also show what it claims to be the world's highest efficiency OLEDs on a low-cost material, called ZAO (Aluminium doped ZnO), which it claims can be used instead of ITO (Indium Tin Oxide).

Immersion Corp. (Booth 237) is showing its new TouchSense(R) technology that makes touching a graphical object on a touch-screen feel like pressing a real button. Despite the many benefits of touch screens, they lack the confirming response that people like about mechanical controls. But with the new TouchSense system, touchscreens can provide unmistakable tactile confirmation to aid in fast and accurate data entry. Synchronizing audio, video, and tactile cues can dramatically elevate the touch screen user experience, supplying a more intuitive, natural, and engaging experience. To implement the technology, which consists of actuators, a control board, and a software developer kit (SDK), Immersion offers a convenient TouchSense Integration Kit for OEMs and system integrators.

Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. (Booth 1441) will demonstrate how the transistors fabricated with Mitsubishi's newly developed organic semiconductor material drive an OLED. The organic transistors processed by wet coating show the highest mobility of 1.4 cm2/Vs. The newly developed organic semiconductor material is a solution-processable small-molecular material having the high mobility of 1.4cm-squared/Vs because of its high-crystalline characteristics. This mobility is one of the world's best - equal to amorphous-silicon, the most popular inorganic transistor material. Also, this unique material has potential to be patterned by a laser, different from the traditional photolithographic method, which enables high-resolution patterning. MCRC successfully drove an organic light-emitting device (OLED) with the transistors fabricated with its newly developed material. This demonstrates the possibility that the newly developed material opens up application to large, flat-panel displays.

The Annual SID International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition will take place Sunday, June 4 through Friday, June 9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. It is the premier international gathering of scientists, engineers, manufacturers, and users in the field of electronic-information displays. For press registration, contact Jessica Quandt, 212-460-8090 ext. 213, e-mail: [e-mail]. Visit www.sid2006.org for more information.

ABOUT SID

The Society for Information Display (SID) is the premier international professional society exclusively devoted to the advancement of electronic-display technology, manufacturing, and applications. Its international headquarters are located at 610 South Second Street, San Jose, CA 95112, U.S.A. Visit SID online at www.sid.org.