Society for Information Display Unveils 2020 Display Industry Award Winners

Recipients of 26th Annual Awards recognize year’s most significant technological advances in displays

Campbell, Calif., May 26, 2020 – The Society for Information Display (SID) today announced the winners of its 26th Annual Display Industry Awards. The 2020 Display Industry Award (DIA) recipients reflect the ever-evolving display product landscape and represent a wide range of technological advancements in wearables, immersion, vehicles, augmented reality, personal productivity, and more. The honorees are receiving awards in conjunction with SID’s annual Display Week.

The 2020 Display Industry Award winners embody the profound level of innovation within the industry and exemplify how crucial displays have become to nearly every aspect of daily life.

“Taking advantage of the unique properties of OLED technology, two of this year’s winners, Samsung Foldables and Audi AG’s 7-inch OLED Virtual Mirror System, were able to bring electronic information displays into new applications,” said Wei Chen, chair of the DIA committee. “Additionally, with OLED’s rapid growth, the incumbent LCD technology continues to fight for footing by gaining new capabilities—as demonstrated by BOE’s ultra-high definition (UHD) BD Cell and Apple’s Pro Display XDR. Both have achieved high-dynamic-range (HDR) display performance in LCD, each with their own unique approach; and Toray’s SCO has the potential to enhance future LCD displays’ performance.

“In addition to the exciting new OLED and LCD products,” he added, “we continue to see advances in display components that bolster the user experience or make displays a better fit for special application environments.”

Among the industry’s highest honors, the Display Industry Awards highlight innovations that have advanced the state of the art in display technology, with awards presented in three categories: Display Application of the Year, Display of the Year, and Display Component of the Year. The seven winners, divided into three categories, were chosen by a distinguished panel of experts who evaluated the nominees based on degree of technical innovation and commercial significance, as well as potential for positive social impact.

The award-winning products and innovations are listed below:

Displays of the Year
This award is conferred upon display products with the most significant technological advances and/or outstanding features.

Pro Display XDR from Apple
With its massive 32-inch LCD panel, 6K Retina resolution, and over 20 million pixels, Apple Pro Display XDR sets a new bar for the capabilities of a professional display. Designed for pro users who rely on color accuracy and true-to-life image reproduction, such as photographers, video editors, 3D animators and colorists, Pro Display XDR delivers the most comprehensive set of features ever offered on a display in its price range, paving the way for pros in every role across a workflow to unlock their creativity. Featuring P3 wide color and 10-bit color depth, Pro Display XDR is expertly calibrated at the factory to ensure billions of colors can be reproduced with exceptional accuracy. And features such as built-in reference modes make it easy to match the viewing requirements of content creation workflows. With 1000 nits of full-screen sustained brightness and 1600 nits peak, a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and an Apple-designed backlight system for optimized light shaping, Pro Display XDR sets a new industry standard for incredible reference-quality imaging at a fraction of the size, weight, and cost of traditional reference monitors.

The 65-Inch UHD BD Cell Display from BOE Technology
As a breakthrough in thin-film transistor (TFT)-LCD technology, BOE’s dual-cell panel—referred to as “BD Cell” for short—offers several important technical advancements that conventional LCD screens don’t. The display uses pixel-level ultra-fine backlight control technology and a brand-new integrated circuit (IC) driving technology to make the million-level contrast ratio rate and 12 bits’ color depth come true, accurately displaying more natural and true-to-life colors. The contrast ratio of a conventional LCD screen is 3,000:1 with 0.2 nits as the lowest brightness. The BD Cell’s screen can raise the contrast ratio up to 150,000:1 and decreasing brightness to 0.003 nit. In terms of combining LED local dimming with BD Cell technology, the contrast ratio can be as high as 2,000,000:1. Moreover, while a conventional LCD screen’s color depth is 8 bit, BD Cell is capable of boosting the color depth as high as 12 bit with an enhanced IC driving algorithm. On the other hand, BD Cell incorporates advantages of an LCD screen’s stableness and technological maturity, with no image sticking.

Foldable Display from Samsung Display
Samsung’s first-of-its-kind device bridges a smartphone and tablet with the help of two AMOLED displays: a 4.6-inch external screen and an internal screen that expands to 7.3 inches when unfolded. That interior display’s size gives way to a powerful multitasking feature by operating three applications simultaneously. It also has a picture quality of up to Quad Extended Graphics Array (QXGA+) resolution and a pure color gamut and peak luminance of up to 600 cd/m2, letting users fully immerse themselves in various types of content such as gaming and video streaming. Indeed, according to the company, wide screen but compact size is no longer something users expect to see only in a sci-fi film. The foldable display employs a cover window made of flexible, hardened plastic. Samsung says that it successfully reduced the thickness by more than 50 percent by taking advantage of materials that enable ultra-thin layers. The stress of various layers (including the TFT, light-emitting layers, polarizing plate, and cover window) is appropriately dispersed, allowing the product to pass a strict bending test more than 200,000 cycles.

Display Components of the Year
This award recognizes novel components that have significantly enhanced the performance of a display. A component is sold as a separate part destined to be incorporated into a display. A component may also include display-enhancing materials and/or parts fabricated with new processes.

AutoGrade™ Glass by ColdForm™ Technology from Corning
After years of using handheld devices, consumers have come to develop certain expectations of displays. They expect them to be durable with a smooth-touch feel, yet sensitive for accurate finger swiping, touching, and tapping. AutoGrade™ Gorilla Glass can help enable a variety of in-vehicle display designs while eliminating the need for plastic anti-splinter films. Moreover, it’s designed to help display modules pass industry reliability tests. And with automotive designers extending displays across dashboards in new sizes and curved configurations, Corning is able to transfer the benefits from AutoGrade glass to curved display areas using its proprietary Corning ColdForm™ Technology. Corning's ColdForm Technology enables the glass to be bent at room temperature as a final step. This means the glass travels through the manufacturing process—chemical strengthening, coating application, and printing—in a flat state before being curved at the end. Completing these process steps on a flat piece of glass cuts down on processing time and costs, as machines can accommodate more parts and coatings are applied more uniformly.

TanvasTouch Surface Haptics from Tanvas
A Chicago-based company founded in 2011 by two Northwestern University professors, Tanvas has been developing the next generation of multitouch and haptic technology. TanvasTouch surface haptics are programmable textures and tactile effects that can be felt with the swipe of a finger across a physically smooth touchscreen, trackpad, or any touch-enabled surface. TanvasTouch uses an electric field to modulate friction where the finger moves across a surface. (It can be deployed on surfaces of any shape, with suitable substrates including glass, plastic, metal, ceramics, and natural surfaces.) Those changes in friction are perceived as fine textures, edges, and bumps that can be felt without looking. The company also offers TanvasTouch for Automotive, the first automotive solution to produce programmable textures and effects with a solid-state actuator. Traditional vibration-based haptics are unsuitable for large or curved automotive displays because they require the display to move. TanvasTouch is a solid-state haptic solution that eliminates the need for costly dampening structures to be built into the display assembly while helping drivers keep their eyes on the road through the use of search haptics that allow the driver to find and adjust controls without looking.

Spectrum Conversion by Organic Phosphor Sheet (SCO) from Toray Industries
Although quantum dot (QD) technology realizes a high color gamut for LCD, most QD materials are cadmium (Cd)-based, raising concerns about their potential toxicity. Because one of Toray’s core offerings is organic emitting materials with high color purity for organic EL devices, it began developing the SCO sheet. The high color purity of Toray’s organic emitting material is based on a full width at half maximum (FWHM) parameter that is much narrower than any other organic emitting materials so far developed. By using the SCO sheet, a high color gamut LCD can be realized. In particular, the sheet can cover both Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI)-P3 and Adobe specifications. Because Toray’s SCO sheet is free of toxic elements, it’s not restricted by various environmental regulations, including the European Unions’ Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive. With the sheet, more than 99 percent of DCI and more than 99 percent of Adobe coverage can be achieved in one LCD panel. Although OLED is a well-known way to apply organic electronics materials to the display industry, this is the first instance of applying organic emitting materials to the LCD industry, an achievement that expands the possibilities of organic electronics materials.

Display Application of the Year
This award acknowledges novel and outstanding applications of a display, where the display itself is not necessarily a new device.

7-in. OLED Virtual Mirror System from Audi AG
Last year, Audi’s plans to shift to the production of fully electric cars came into clearer focus. With this pivot from gas-powered cars, the need for a virtual side mirror —consisting of small exterior side cameras and a door-mounted interior display—became even more pronounced. The company debuted the mirror as an option in the all-electric Audi e-tron, and it’s currently available in Europe. With its aerodynamic design, the virtual side mirror reduces wind noise. That’s a plus for electric cars, which are already noticeably quieter than combustion cars because they don’t have engines. What’s more, the mirror reduces drag, giving the vehicle a few miles more range. With their sophisticated image processing, the displays provide a much better image than a conventional mirror can in certain situations, such as driving in direct sunlight. The mirrors also adjust automatically to three driving situations: highway, turning, and parking. On the highway, the field of vision is reduced so that the driver can better estimate speeds when driving fast, and if the driver signals an intention to turn or change lanes by indicating, the indicator view extends the relevant side’s image detail to reduce the blind spot. The field of vision is extended downward when maneuvering and parking, and the display visualizes the turn signal as a green contour on its outer frame and displays notifications from the Audi side-assist lane-change assistant and exit warning. A 7-inch OLED was selected for the virtual exterior mirror. The camera is integrated into the hexagonal end of the virtual mirror’s flat supports and its images are digitally processed and displayed on high-contrast, 1,280 x 800-pixel OLED displays in the transition between the instrument panel and door.

A more comprehensive description of the award winners is included in the Display Week 2020 Show Issue of Information Display magazine or at www.informationdisplay.org. To be considered for a 2020 Display Industry Award, a product had to be available for purchase during the 2019 calendar year.

High resolution images are available upon request.

For more information about Display Week 2020, please visit www.displayweek.org

About Display Week 2020

The 57th Display Week, presented by the Society for Information Display (SID), will take place August 3-7, 2020 as a virtual event. Display Week is the world's leading event focused on emerging electronic display and visual information technologies from concept to market. Display Week attracts attendees from the entire ecosystem of R&D, engineering, design, manufacturing, supply chain, marketing, sales and financial, as well as commercial and consumer end-user markets. It delivers unparalleled learning opportunities, market-moving trends, sourcing, roadmaps-to-market, and connections for career and business growth. For more information on Display Week 2020, visit www.displayweek.org or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @DisplayWeek (hashtag #DisplayWeek2020), or the Display Week YouTube Channel.

About SID

The Society for Information Display (SID) is the only professional organization focused on the electronic display and visual information technology industries. In fact, by exclusively focusing on the advancement of electronic display and visual information technologies, SID provides a unique platform for industry collaboration, communication and training in all related technologies while showcasing the industry's best new products. The organization's members are professionals in the technical and business disciplines that relate to display research, design, 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.

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