SID Announces Winners of 2007 Display of the Year Awards.

Six Winners Demonstrate Diversity, Humanity of Display Industry

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The winners of the 2007 Society for Information Display (SID)/ Information Display Magazine Display of the Year Awards were announced today. This year's winners showcase the diversity of the display industry. While some of the products are clearly designed to improve consumer lifestyles, others represent giant steps forward in areas as far-ranging as cancer treatment, third-world development, environmental care and energy usage.

A distinguished panel of display experts selected these six products from the more than 60 nominations that were submitted, based on their technical innovation and commercial significance, in addition to their likely social impact. In order to qualify for consideration for a 2007 Display of the Year Award, a product had to be introduced into the marketplace -- available for purchase -- during the 2006 calendar year.

Now in their 12th year, the Display of the Year Awards are the most prestigious honor in the display industry, and will be presented to the winners on Wednesday, May 23, as part of Display Week 2007: The SID International Symposium, Seminar & Exhibition, which will take place May 20-25, 2007 at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, California.

Below are the list and brief descriptions of the award winners. For a more comprehensive description of the award winners, pick up a copy of the Display Week 2007 Show Issue of Information Display magazine.

Display Component of the Year

Gold Award: Corning Inc. Eagle XG[TM] Glass Substrate

Launched in 2006, EAGLE XG[TM] Glass Substrate is the industry's first LCD glass substrate that contains no added heavy metals and halides -- traditionally, glass production has required the use of arsenic, antimony and/or halides to prevent bubbles in the glass. EAGLE XG is currently the most environmentally friendly substrate available. Its revolutionary new glass composition provides added value while retaining all of the enabling attributes of the previous industry standard, Corning EAGLE2000[TM] substrates, including density, durability, thermal properties and a pristine surface optimized for the manufacture of large, high-resolution displays. At the end-of-life for an LCD with EAGLE XG, the absence of hazardous materials increases the options for recycling and makes disposal less of an issue.

Silver Award: Luminus Devices PhlatLight LEDs

PhlatLight([TM])LEDs (light-emitting diodes) are an advanced solid-state light source based on Luminus Devices' patented photonic lattice technology. PhlatLight LEDs have an embedded, sub-wavelength microstructure that radically influences the way light is emitted out of the LEDs. Luminus has leveraged its expertise in photonic lattice technology to develop the proprietary PhlatLight product family for use in a variety of applications, including projection TVs and other advanced, high-definition displays. PhlatLight technology optimizes light extraction by suppressing the lateral propagation of photons inside the chip of LEDs. The photonic lattices direct the photons to the front surface of the LED, emitting substantially more light and in a narrower, collimated beam that is more readily collected and delivered to its target than with traditional LEDs. The photonic-lattice technology in PhlatLight products is what sets them apart as an entirely new category of LEDs.

Display of the Year

Gold Award: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.: High Contrast, Wide Color Gamut, LED-Backlit LCD TV (LE40M91B)

The Samsung LE40M91B 40-inch LED backlit TV led the pack of LED-backlit TVs that entered the marketplace in force for the first time in 2006. This thin-film transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT-LCD) TV combines superior brightness and maximum image fidelity to deliver a high-quality high-definition (HD) viewing experience. Featuring a dynamic contrast ratio of 10,000:1 -- the highest available today -- the sleek, new LE40M91B allows for exceptionally dark blacks against the brightest whites. By re-mapping the complete range of primary colors through a mercury-free LED backlight, Samsung has extended the wide color gamut to an industry-leading 145% of the EBU standard. Its high-definition 1366x768 pixel resolution accentuates the panel's subtly understated black sheen appearance with richly textured wide-screen panoramas in a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Other significant visual achievements include the incorporation of 10-bit gray-level fidelity, elimination of motion judder, and prevention of smearing along the edges of the picture that can occur on flat screens during fast-moving scenes. With a response time of less than 8 milliseconds, the LE40M91B is virtually free of motion-picture blur with no false contouring. The display's refresh rate of 100Hz (EU), 120Hz (NTSC) produces an extremely clear picture with virtually no ghosting. In normal TVs, a new visual frame appears every 1/50th of a second (EU) or 1/60th of a second (US). Hold-type driving used in flat displays at this rate can result in the appearance of blurred images. By interpolating a new frame to be inserted between each set of incoming frames, the tendency toward motion-blur artifacts appears to have been virtually eliminated based on early reviews.

Silver Award: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co: World's First 103-Inch Diagonal 1080p Plasma Display

When it comes to displays, bigger is often better, and the sheer size of Panasonic's 103-inch diagonal 1080p Plasma TV is certainly an attention-grabber -- it is the largest plasma display in the world. However, the performance of the TH-103PF series of plasma TVs was the reason for its selection as the 2007 Display of the Year Silver Award winner, not just its size. With industry leading 16-bit color reproduction, the TH-103PF series provides a wide-screen progressive display featuring full high-definition (HD) pixel resolution of 1,920 horizontal x 1,080 vertical, a contrast ratio of 5,000:1, and 4,096 equivalent steps of color gradation, delivering clear, crisp and dramatic fast-action video images. This 1080p display's screen resolution, which amounts to about 2 million pixels, equals twice the resolution of high-definition televisions that are commonly available today. It boasts an effective display area of approximately 89 inches wide by 50 inches high, which is equivalent in size to four 50-inch Panasonic plasma displays. A contrast-management system optimizes the contrast for each individual portion of the image displayed, while a high-precision Motion Pattern Noise Reduction circuit adjusts the image to enhance picture quality by detecting motion patterns that generate noise. Panasonic overcome numerous technical hurdles by developing a new rib structure and phosphor for these super large panels. The 103-inch 1080p plasma panel features consistent and uniform discharge, delivering the same accurate images from the center to every corner of the screen and brightness as the current 50-inch HD model.

Display Application of the Year

Gold Award: Actuality Systems Inc.: PerspectaRAD

PerspectaRAD is a significant step forward in the display field because it is the first time a high-resolution volumetric 3-D display is in pre-clinical studies for cancer treatment. It is the first display technology to deliver high-resolution, real-time animated medical imagery to clinicians in true autostereoscopic 3-D (3-D without "goggles"). PerspectaRAD is a combination of cancer-treatment software, a volumetric 3-D display, and a 3-D haptic interface -- it connects to existing Philips Medical radiation therapy work stations to give radiation oncologists improved tumor coverage with high accuracy.

The traditional method of radiation oncology is problematic because doctors are performing a complex 3-D procedure on 2-D displays. PerspectaRAD solves these problems, allowing physicians to view the CT scan in a true volumetric 3-D display: the Perspecta Spatial 3-D Display. It creates a floating, hologram-like 3-D image that can be seen from any angle. It instantly lets the doctors see the location of the tumor and organs in relation to each other. The Perspecta Display includes software and hardware that take 3-D data, such as a CAT scan, and "slices" it into 198 pieces around a central axis, like slicing an apple. The sequence of slices are relayed by several-fold mirrors and focused by spinning projection optics onto a diffuse screen that rotates at 900 rpm. The imagery and the screen are synchronized, and in aggregate create a walk-around 3-D image 10 inches in diameter composed of 100 million voxels (volume pixels). It is the highest-resolution volumetric display ever built, and is run off a single Windows XP PC.

Silver Award: Motorola MOTOFONE F3

Motorola's Motofone F3 handset employs a revolutionary ClearVision display that addresses the concerns that have made cell phone adoption in many emerging nations an issue, specifically cost and power usage. This the first time that a bistable display technology has been used in a high-volume product. The Motofone F3's ClearVision display leverages low-cost, low-power electrophoretic-display (EPD) technology from E Ink Corp. to provide users with a 2-inches-diagonal, highly readable screen viewable even in bright sunlight. The Motofone F3 is one of the few entry-level mobile phones that incorporates significant technology innovations including the EPD, dual antenna, single transducer and other SW improvements into a highly affordable device.

Digital images of each of the winning products are available upon request.

About Display Week

Display Week 2007: The SID International Symposium, Seminar & Exhibition will take place Sunday, May 20, through Friday, May 25, at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, California, USA. It is the foremost international gathering of scientists, engineers, manufacturers, marketers and users in the field of electronic-information displays. For more information, visit www.sid2007.org.

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.