SID Announces Winners Of The 2013 Display Industry Awards

CAMPBELL, Calif., May 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Society for Information Display (SID), the leading global organization dedicated to the advancement of electronic display technology, today announced the winners of its 18^th annual Display Industry Awards.  The honorees will be recognized during a special luncheon on Wednesday, May 22, as part of Display Week 2013—SID's annual International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, taking place May 19-24 at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, Canada.

"Choosing the Display Industry Award winners is always an exciting, yet tough, challenge given the impressive number of candidates for which we receive nominations," said SID's Display Industry Awards Chair, Robert Melcher.  "This year's winners symbolize the best of the best – they are impressive not only because of the advancements they enable, but also because of the degree of innovation that they represent.  We congratulate each of the winning companies, and we look forward to seeing these new technologies spark the next wave of groundbreaking developments in consumer electronics and other applications."

To qualify for consideration for a 2013 Display Industry Award, a product had to be available for purchase during the 2012 calendar year.  The six winners, two in each of three main categories, were chosen by a distinguished panel of experts who evaluated the nominees for their degree of technical innovation and commercial significance, in addition to their potential for positive social impact.  The winning products and a brief description of each are listed below.  A more comprehensive description of the award winners is included in the Display Week 2013 Show Issue of Information Display magazine.

Display of the Year:  Granted to a display with novel and outstanding features such as new physical or chemical effects, or a new addressing method.

Gold Award: Sharp and Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) for Sharp's IGZO LCD (as used in the AQUOS Phone Zeta SH-02E)
Sharp and SEL jointly developed a new indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) technology that uses crystallinity in oxide semiconductors to create a smartphone with exceptional battery life, high resolution and touch capability.  Sharp and SEL were able to successfully align the crystallizing IGZO layer in the c-axial direction, which results in higher device reliability, in addition to enabling higher definition, lower power consumption (1/5 to 1/10 the previous level), and high performance of the thin-film transistor.  This is the first time that IGZO has been incorporated in a smartphone—the AQUOS Phone Zeta SH-02E from Sharp.  Thanks to IGZO, this particular phone can be used for two days without charging due to its low power consumption, and can also be used 4.8 times longer than conventional units when displaying a static image.  IGZO can also be used for larger displays such as monitors, TVs, as well as applied to other displays beyond LCDs, such as organic electroluminescent displays.

Silver Award: Shenzhen China Star's 110-inch 4K x 2K 3D TFT-LCD TV
Shenzhen China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. (CSOT)'s 110-inch 3D LCD TV is the largest of its kind, developed to provide top visual quality for such entertainment applications as gaming, movies and multi-user communications.  The attractive unit features 4K by 2K resolution (3840 x 2160); a reported dynamic ratio of 50,000:1; ultra-high brightness of 1000 nits (while consuming less than 1100W); and highly saturated color reproduction, with a color gamut of about 92 percent of NTSC.  In addition, through effective use of shutter glasses technology in 3D mode, left- to right-eye crosstalk is less than 2.5 percent. CSOT reports that its 110-in. TFT-LCD can also be used for advertisement, educational and office-based displays.

Display Application of the Year:  Granted for a novel and outstanding application of a display, where the display itself is not necessarily a new device.

Gold Award: Apple's iPad with Retina Display
Leveraging organic passivation technology for the first time in a 9.7-inch display with an amorphous-silicon TFT, this third-generation iPad features four times the number of pixels in the same 9.7 in. (diagonal) screen than found on earlier models.  The result for the iPad Retina display is a pixel density of 264 ppi, which makes text and graphics look smooth and continuous at any size.  Furthermore, the 2048 x 1536 pixel display sets a new standard for mobile display resolution for a panel of this size.  The iPad with Retina display also features mobile in-plane switching (IPS) to achieve a flexible viewing angle – users can hold the iPad in almost any position they want and still see a high-fidelity image, another tablet industry benchmark.

Silver Award: Nokia Lumia 920
Heralded for its innovative imaging, wireless charging and advanced touch technology, the Nokia Lumia 920 smartphone features a PureMotion HD+ 4.5 in., 332-ppi screen.  This enables crisper graphics and less blurring for scrolling, navigating and playing games.  The Nokia Lumia 920 also features a super-sensitive touch display that can work using fingernails or even gloves—signaling a big leap forward for capacitive touch screens since multi-touch gestures were introduced.  Moreover, the PureMotion display featured in the Nokia Lumia 920 introduces a new level of outdoor viewing experience in mobile displays.  With a very low reflectance that largely improves dark tone renderings in ambient light, PureMotion adds a high-luminance mode for backlight LED-driving and image contrast enhancement-improving overall contrast, and therefore, sunlight readability.

Display Component of the Year: Granted for a novel component (sold as a separate part and incorporated into a display) that has significantly enhanced a display's performance. A component may also include display-enhancing materials and/or parts fabricated with new processes.

Gold Award: QD Vision's Color IQ™ Optical Component
Color IQ™ optical components are advanced light-emitting semiconductor nanocrystal products that utilize quantum dots for commercial displays.  This technological breakthrough component enables LCDs, such as TVs and monitors, to achieve a significantly wider color gamut with a more natural and vivid viewing experience than conventional white LED systems.  Designed for high-volume LCD applications, Color IQ optics deliver color performance meeting or exceeding that of OLED and direct-lit RGB LED systems, while maintaining the cost structure of side-illumination systems for mainstream LCD TVs.  Sony is the first major TV manufacturer to incorporate Color IQ optics in several of its new 2013 Bravia^R series of LCD televisions.

Silver Award: Sharp's Moth-Eye Technology
Sharp's Moth-Eye technology incorporates a nanoscale design inspired by the eyes of a common night-flying moth.  The Moth-Eye panels help to emphasize Sharp's "four primary colors technology," which enhances the quality of color displays and helps make imagery visible even in a bright room.  The biggest benefit of Moth-Eye technology is that it provides users with clear, high-quality images in bright places, whether indoors or outdoors.  In terms of power consumption, Moth-Eye technology can conserve electricity with no loss of image quality since it's not necessary to increase the brightness.  In the future, applications will extend beyond electronic displays, including picture-frame glass or showcases.

Note to Editors:  Photos available upon request.

About Display Week
The 50^th SID International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, or Display Week 2013, will take place May 19-24, 2013, at the Vancouver Convention Center in Vancouver, Canada.  Display Week is the premier international gathering of scientists, engineers, manufacturers and users in the field of electronic information displays.  For more information on Display Week 2013, visit www.displayweek.org or follow us on Twitter at @DisplayWeek.  Display Week-related tweets can be created, viewed, and shared using the hashtag #SID2013.

About SID
The Society for Information Display (SID) is the only professional organization focused on information displays.  By exclusively focusing on the advancement of electronic display technology, SID provides a unique platform for industry collaboration, communication and training in all related technologies while showcasing the industry's best new products.  With more than 6,000 members worldwide, the organization's members are professionals in the technical and business disciplines that relate to display research, design, and manufacturing, applications, marketing and sales.  To promote industry and academic technology development, while also educating consumers on the importance of displays, SID hosts more than 10 conferences a year, including Display Week, which brings industry and academia all under one roof to showcase technology that will shape the future.  SID's global headquarters are located at 1475 S. Bascom Ave., Ste. 114, Campbell, CA 95008.  For more information, visit www.sid.org.

SOURCE Society for Information Display (SID)