Display Manufacturing and Materials – QD Vision was at Display Week to promote its quantum dot technology, Color IQ, but the more important announcements were made at Computex where new design wins with BOE and TPV were revealed (see video).
QD Vision synthesizes their quantum dots as a solid that they package in an “optic” This is essentially a very long and skinny glass rod with the quantum dot material inside. This is placed inside a “microcup” which is a plastic holder that contains a long row of blue LEDs and the optic spaced the correct distance for the LEDs. Since quantum dots emit light spherically, the microcup helps to collect light going in the non-desired direction and redirect it forward into the light guide. The only change from a standard LCD BLU is this microcup, which replaces the array of white LEDs.
At Computex, QD Vision announced a partnership with a company called ShineOn to produce this microcup component and to work with their customers to create design wins for it (see press release). The first win for the team is with BOE (largest display maker in China) involving the production of Color IQ enabled monitors in 23.6″ and 27″ sizes (see full press release). TPV (Top Victory Corp) announced a deal to use the optic in 27″ monitors, but apparently not using the ShineOn microcup (see press release).
QD Vision hinted that design wins in TVs could be coming later this year as well. The company noted that these wins confirm the advantages of their approach for larger sized TV as these customers evaluated alternatives before choosing QD Vision. These alternatives include a quantum dot film marketed by 3M and now LMS (see press release) . This film must cover the full surface of the LCD display panel. Another approach, pioneer by LG, is to use a white LED with a red phosphor. This boosts the red component in order to achieve a wide color gamut, but the LEDs are more expensive. – Chris Chinnock
