In response to a question, Merck’s Maisch said that it has panels of interested parties to look at developments five to ten years out. The company also tracks social media to see what the hot topics are. 3M also talked about the “Display Quality Score” that the firm has developed to help makers work out the optimum balance between different aspects of display including brightness, resolution and colour.
There was a good question about collaboration between different companies in the supply chain to drive particular technology solutions. These are said to be common in the semiconductor industry. Panellists said that such collaborations happen in the display business, but they are typically secret or not overt.
There was a question from Paul Gray of IHS, who asked if the panel industry was going to be able to improve efficiency to avoid increasing the overall power consumption of the installed base of TVs, to avoid drawing the attention of regulators. Boosting dynamic range, colour, size and resolution can all impact power consumption. Generally, the feeling was that this was not going to be a problem.
