What They Say
I heard this week via a friend the sad news that Larry Tannas, a renowned display technologist, has recently died from the Covid virus. Larry was a pioneer (and patent holder) in the process of re-sizing LCDs.
He was an important LCD pioneer who came from the aerospace industry, where he worked on guidance and navigation. At Honeywell, he invented the backup re-entry guidance display for the Apollo Reentry Vehicle. While at Martin Marietta he developed a cockpit for the Martin SV5 Manned Space Vehicle, the Air Force’s predecessor to the NASA Space Shuttle. At Rockwell International he developed the engineering prototype liquid-crystal display for the world’s first successful LCD production. And at Aerojet ElectroSystems he perfected a manufacturing process for electroluminescent displays.
From 1980 to 2000, he was active as a class developer, coordinator and lecturer for advanced30-hour classes at UCLA Engineering Extension as well as at other institutions.
He was a Fellow and past-president of the SID. His honours included SID’s Lewis and Beatrice Winner Award, the Slotto-Owaki Prize for outstanding teaching performance, and the 2012 UCLA Engineering Alumni Professional Achievement Award. He was a Life Member of IEEE and AIAA.
Pete Baron, another SID luminary, said
“As I think about him, I can say with confidence that there is probably no one whose name was more closely associated with the DISPLAYS than Larry. The infinite variety of ways in which he made a contributions to the cause of displays and the display community is truly astounding…….
….He was a dynamic leader, a compelling speaker, and always ready to bail out our chapter for monthly meetings with talks on various topics, the yearly CES report being the most prominent. He developed a strong core of dedicated LA chapter executive committee members, all close friends over the years, to keep the chapter going way beyond what might be expected from a group of our age (and really the only of its kind in the US!). His annual Christmas dinners were on of the many things to keep those relationships going.
It is hard to believe that with all this activity he could raise a wonderful family – but he did. He was devoted to his wife Carol, and I always looked forward to the Tannas Christmas card to see how his children and grandchildren grew in size and number.”
What We Think
I first reported in 2001 on the Tannas technology, which allowed mainstream commercial LCDs to be cut down to meet special size and shape requirements (e.g. in the aerospace/military industries, where volumes were not big enough for displays to be made in custom shapes). At the time, he mentioned that besides his patent in the US, BAE in the UK had a European patent on the idea. There were some years of dispute, but in 2008 he reached a deal with BAE that allowed him to use the firms patents and sub-licence them. In 2012, I reported a deal with AEG MIS in Ulm, Germany for that firm to distribute the technology. He also licensed his technology to Tovis in Korea, which has been very active in this area. In 2013, Tannas reported having 8 sub-licencees globally including in Korea.
In 2013, he gave a talk that explained how to cut down LCDs.
He sold his company in 2015 and it became Pixel Scientific Inc. He was interviewed in 2018 at SID Display Week and describes the process.
I always enjoyed my talks with him and he will be missed.
BR)
