2008-05-13 01:45:01 -

- MCA Marie Labrie, 650-968-8900, ext. 119 mlabrie@mcapr.com or SID Tom Miller, 480-502-9334 tmiller@sid.org The Society for Information Display (SID), the leading global organization dedicated to the advancement of electronic-display technology, today announced the winners of its 13th annual Display of the Year Awards. This year's honorees represent exciting advances in providing consumers with a superior

viewing experience, whether handheld, in the home, or on the big screen.

Commenting on this year's winners, Dick McCartney, Chair of SID's Display of the Year Awards Committee, noted, "Collectively, the 2008 award recipients have excelled at transitioning innovative products and technologies from 'hot' buzzword to 'cool' reality. The significant number of nominations we received around the world speaks to the mounting prestige associated with these accolades across the global display community. On behalf of SID, I would like to truly commend this year's award recipients' ongoing commitment to innovation and to shaping the future of today's display arena."

To qualify for consideration for a 2008 Display of the Year Award, a product had to be available for purchase during the 2007 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. As the display industry's most prestigious honor, the Display of the Year Awards will be presented to the winners during a special luncheon on Wednesday, May 21, 2008, as part of Display Week 2008: The SID International Symposium, Seminar & Exhibition, which will take place May 18-23, at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, Calif. 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 2008 Show Issue of Information Display magazine.

Display Component of the Year

Gold Award: Luminus Devices PhlatLight LED Backlight Unit

Last year's Silver Award winner in this category for its PhlatLight(R) light-emitting diode (LED) technology, Luminus Devices this year topped the balloting with the PhlatLight backlight unit (BLU) for liquid-crystal display (LCD) TVs. Developed with Global Lighting Technology, the PhlatLight BLU integrates Luminus' PhlatLight LEDs with Microlens(TM) light guides from Global Lighting Technology, thus requiring only eight RGB chipsets to illuminate a large-screen LCD display. Other LED backlight units require hundreds, or even thousands of conventional LEDs to achieve adequate brightness and uniformity. By requiring fewer LEDs, the PhlatLight BLU dramatically reduces the cost and complexity of LED backlighting for large-screen TVs, enabling enhanced brightness and color uniformity over the life of the TV. Moreover, because it is edge-illuminated, the PhlatLight BLU also enables thinner LCD-TV designs.

Silver Award: FUJIFILM Corp. WV-EA Film

Twisted-nematic (TN) mode thin-film transistor (TFT)-LCDs are popular and widely applied in PC monitors because of its high-light transmittance, relatively fast response time, ease of manufacture and cost effectiveness. However, TN-mode LCDs did not have enough viewing-angle performance compared to other LCD modes. The most successful method to solve TN-mode's weak point was the use of Wide View (WV) film by FUJIFILM Corporation. The WV film is an optical compensation film that enhances the viewing-angle performance of TN-mode LCDs, allowing users to see clear images at oblique angles. The newly developed WV-EA film in 2007 has succeeded in remarkable film thickness uniformity, in addition to improved viewing-angle performance (the viewing angles at a contrast ratio of 10:1 are 160 degrees in both horizontal and vertical directions). To improve the uniformity, two new technologies have been introduced in WV-EA film. One is a new airflow control technology with the precise control of airflow directions and speed in the drying chamber. The other is a new additive that makes film thickness uniformity compatible with wide viewing-angle performance. These improvements have allowed WV-EA film to expand in TV applications, which have never been possible for conventional WV films.

Display Device of the Year

Gold Award: Sony Corp. XEL-1 OLED TV

The XEL-1 from Sony Corp. is the world's first organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV. The 11-inch (diagonal) XEL-1 is just 3mm at its thinnest point and offers superior picture quality via Sony's independently developed Organic Panel, which delivers a host of advantages, including high contrast, peak brightness and color reproduction, as well as rapid response time. The OLED display panel's light-emitting structure eliminates both the mercury associated with traditional backlighting and the need for a separate light source, enabling extremely low power consumption. Sony's innovative Super Top Emission technology features a wide aperture ratio, which produces the high brightness and efficiency that allow the TV to deliver an accurate picture. The device's proprietary color filter and micro cavity structure allow it to reproduce natural colors, while featuring rapid response times for smooth, natural reproduction of fast-moving content, e.g., sporting events and action scenes in films. The XEL-1 includes two High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) inputs and a Memory Stick(R) slot for viewing high-resolution photos. The inaugural model is also Digital Media Extender (DMeX) compatible, allowing consumers to add BRAVIA(R) Internet Video Link service and other future modules.

Silver Award: Samsung SDI 2.2-inch QVGA AMOLED Display

Operating on the principle that a display can never be too (feature) rich or too thin, Samsung SDI Co., Ltd. introduced the world's thinnest 2.2-inch active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display. Just 0.52mm thick, no more than a business card, the QVGA (320 by 240 resolution) AMOLED has 100-percent color gamut, can realize high-speed, full-color (262K) video images, and can project images on brightness ratio ranging from 10,000 to 1. Based on a conventional glass substrate, the display employs low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) technology to approach the dimensions of a 1.7mm TFT-LCD, considered to be the slimmest among the existing LCD modules available for mass production. A 1.2-mm spare in thickness for a cell phone means that there are infinite ways to use the electric device by adding built-in functions such as Digital Multimedia Broadcast (DMB) and increase the battery capacity. AMOLED is regarded as a promising display technology given its advantages over existing TFT-LCDs, including a 1,000x faster response time and a 40-percent improvement in weight and thickness.

Display Application of the Year

Gold Award: Apple Inc., iPhone

iPhone combines three products--a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and an Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, searching and maps--into a single small, lightweight handheld device. The iPhone's user interface is based on a large Multi-Touch display and revolutionary software that completely redefines what users can do on their mobile phones.

iPhone employs advanced built-in sensors--an accelerometer, a proximity sensor and an ambient light sensor--that automatically enhance the user experience and extend battery life. The accelerometer detects when the user has rotated the device from portrait to landscape, then automatically changes the contents of the display accordingly, with users immediately seeing the entire width of a web page, or a photo in its proper landscape aspect ratio. The proximity sensor detects when you lift the unit to your ear and immediately turns off the display to save power and prevent inadvertent touches until it is moved away. And the ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the display's brightness to the appropriate level for the current ambient light, thereby enhancing the user experience and saving power at the same time. The iPhone is available with an 8GB or 16GB memory.

Silver Award: RealD Stereoscopic 3D Cinema Technology

Recently named one of the world's most innovative companies by Fast Company magazine, RealD is revolutionizing the cinema industry with its stereoscopic 3D technology, which turns movie-going into a uniquely near-tactile experience--far different from the gimmick-filled films of old that come to mind when one thinks of 3D. The RealD system uses a single projector but places an active filter, which can switch between two different types of polarization, in front of the projection lens. This allows the viewer to wear much simpler and more lightweight passive glasses. Moreover, synchronization, which was a real problem for two-projector 35mm systems, is less of an issue with digital cinema. One advantage of the RealD system is that it allows theater owners to upgrade for stereo presentation without buying another projector. The impact of RealD's next-generation technology, deployed across the world's largest 3D platform in 24 countries, has been compared to the advent of color film when once there was only black and white.

ABOUT DISPLAY WEEK 2008

The 46th SID International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, dubbed Display Week 2008, will take place Sunday, May 18, through Friday, May 23, 2008, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Display Week is the premier international gathering of scientists, engineers, manufacturers and users in the field of electronic information displays. For more information, visit www.sid2008.org.

ABOUT SID

The Society for Information Display (SID) is the leading 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, Calif. Visit SID online at www.sid.org.

Note to editors: A quote sheet of relevant comments from several of this year's winners follows. Photos available upon request. -0- SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION DISPLAY (SID) DISPLAY OF THE YEAR AWARD WINNERS' QUOTE SHEET

LUMINUS DEVICES

"We are proud to win the 2008 Gold Award, and to have our product honored alongside such prestigious products," said John Langevin, VP sales and marketing, referring to the Apple iPhone(R) and the Sony OLED TV, who are the other two recipients of the SID gold awards this year. "We believe the PhlatLight BLU earned this distinction because it provides a low cost and reliable solution that can finally enable RGB LED backlighting in mainstream, large screen LCD TVs."

- John Langevin, Vice President, Sales and Marketing

REALD

"We're honored to have the RealD 3D cinema system recognized by SID. We worked hard to create a simple and elegant 3D solution; the Silver Display Application of the Year Award is a great validation of our ongoing efforts to make the best 3D possible."

- Joshua Greer, President and Co-Founder

SONY CORPORATION

"We are enormously pleased to receive DYA on our 'XEL-1,' the world's very first OLED television. Launching the world's first OLED television was a clear corporate mission of Sony. However, solely being the first was not our ultimate goal. Having successfully introduced 'XEL-1' which boasts astonishing thinness unparalleled image quality, now Sony is dedicating to make it even better from every technological perspective, for instance image quality, display size, durability and so on. Taking SID and the other opportunities, we will share the latest development results hoping the collective advancement of OLED technologies."

- Tetsuo Urabe, Display Device's Development Group Head

Products Turn Up the "Cool Factor" for a Wide Range of Consumer
Viewing Experiences