What They Say
Touch Taiwan kicked off this week with a physical as well as a virtual expo. We had been hoping to visit, but Covid put paid to that. Instead we had a look at the virtual expo. It will take a few days to cover what we want to, but we’ll start with AUO.
The company has been transitioning its business in recent years to focus on premium products and vertical markets and that trend continues. The main areas were
- LED – small pitch and microLED as well as miniLED backlights. It calls its LED technology ALED
- Free-form and round microLED displays
- High refresh & curved panels for gaming monitors with curves down to 800R
- 8K TVs (highlighting the firm’s ‘bezel-less’ technology)
- Automotive displays
- Digital Signage & Commercial LFDs
- A range of bar (stretch) and circular panels for retail. It also has a dedicated shelf label system, with a CMS for retail.
- In-cell touch with ‘advanced reflectionless technology’ (A.R.T.)
- Switchable privacy displays
- A wide range of sensors for fingerprints, X-rays
- Panels for medical diagnostic and surgical monitors
In LED, AUO showed a large curved LED wall (P1.25) for gaming in LBE as well as a seamless tiled display with LEDs that go right to the external corners.
MicroLED is a hot topic, of course, and AUO has previously shown microLED samples at SID and elsewhere. In Taipei it was showing its latest solution for automotive use, a 12.1″ cluster display with 1920 x720 (169ppi) and using <30?m blue LEDs with colour conversion for red and green (no details). The display is built on an LTPS backplane.
A 1.38″ circular microLED has 472 x 472 resolution (338ppi) and can produce up to 2000 cd/m² of output and based on RGB flip-chip LEDs, again on top of LTPS.
A second RGB flip chip display has a 9.4″ flexible format with 1920 x 960 resolution (228ppi) using a flexible LTPS backplane that can be bent to an S shape (Concave R140 / Convex R200). Integrated electronics are used to provide GOA and de-mux circuitry on the panel.
The 1.38″ and 9.4″ displays are reported to have been developed with PlayNitride of Taiwan.
AUO is a leader in panels for gaming monitors and showed a new 32″ UltraHD miniLED display with 144Hz refresh and more than 1,000 zones. It can meet the DisplayHDR 1400 VESA certification and uses QD film for WCG.
Exploiting its work in developing a sensor business, the firm demonstrated an ‘under AMOLED’ fingerprint sensor that has 800 x 600 resolution and can be used anywhere in a third of the screen. It has multi-finger sensing and 100K lux ambient light resistance along with 2.5D ‘anti-spoofing’. It is <0.2mm thick.
What We Think
As usual, AUO had plenty to show! The move into sensors is an understandable diversification. It previously tried to get into solar cells, but that was something of a bloodbath. LG is also working on X-Ray sensors and the fingerprint sensors have clear synergy with the display business. (BR)
