Here's to 50 Years of Display Technology – and 50 More
Stephen P. Atwood · Information Display · 2013
Here's to 50 Years of Display Technology -and 50 More by Stephen AtwoodHappy New Year and welcome to the year 2013.I write these January notes each year during our Christmas holiday in the U.S., and it's always a time for reflection as well as renewed optimism.By any measure, 2012 turned out to be a difficult year for many people either financially, politically, personally, or professionally.While the Mayans appear to have been slightly misunderstood, and the solar system was not consumed by an apocalypse of some kind, there were plenty of more earthly challenges to deal with, ranging from the economy, to politics, to severe weather, to delays in the commercial availability of OLED TVs.Through it all, we had a great gathering of the industry in Boston for Display Week and a SID 50th Anniversary celebration in Los Angeles.All year long, Information Display was here for you, focusing on the latest display technologies and industry happenings, both in print and on-line.This year is my eighth as the magazine's Executive Editor, and I'm very proud to be part of this prestigious publication that continues to cover nearly every conceivable aspect of the display industry with stories you won't find from any other source.This year you will see some changes that I sincerely believe will make ID even better.The first is our new website, which at press time was on schedule to be launched by the time you read this.The site has been redesigned with a new look and feel and better navigation to provide easier access to information.It also requires much less overhead for our editorial staff to maintain -which translates to more timely updates of industry news and up-to-date information about everything going on in the display industry.We've also updated our on-line archives with a more powerful search engine and easier page viewing to make it convenient for you to find and review great articles from previous issues.The other change for ID in 2013 is our new publishing calendar, which now follows a bi-monthly format.We'll be producing six issues in 2013, delivered in roughly twomonth intervals, covering multiple technology topics and industry activities in each one.We'll average four Frontline Technology features in each issue along with our regular offerings of Applications, Display Marketplace, and Enabling Technology articles.We'll actually be producing more editorial content in 2013 than in 2012, while spacing out our printing schedule a little differently.We begin 2013 with this issue on two diverse but highly interrelated topics: Display Materials and Display Metrology.The field of materials (as we call it) covers a vast landscape of films, coatings, chemistries, raw materials, and fabrication processes, with each area offering innovations to improve display performance.Once again, we welcome our Guest Editor Ion Bita from Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, who helped us create a great lineup of innovative achievements in this realm.His guest editorial in this issue provides some valuable background on these articles as well as his own views on the work they present.We begin with our first Frontline Technology article, featuring different types of new semiconductor materials including oxides like Indium-Gallium Zinc Oxide (IGZO), which began to see adoption in 2012 for LCD and OLED TFTs.In their very detailed and extremely interesting article titled "Transparent Oxide Semiconductors for Advanced Display Applications," authors Arokia Nathan, Sungsik Lee, Sanghun Jeon, Ihun Song, and U-In Chung discuss the properties and underlying science behind 2