The purpose of this paper is to review the important properties of electronic displays and to examine how these properties should be characterized. The adequacy of specifications used by vendors to describe the properties of flat panel displays is assessed, both from the perspective of manufacturers wishing to differentiate their products and of users trying to match their acquisitions to the demands of a particular application.
A summary is provided of a comprehensive industry status report and roadmap available from www.usdc.org. Continued improvements in LCD technology are being driven by home entertainment applications, leading to better color and video response. Competing technologies, such as PDP and OLED and electronic paper must either exploit inherent advantages for such applications or focus on other market niches that are not being addressed well by mainline LCD technology. Flexible displays provide an opportunity for innovative technologies and manufacturing methods, but appear to bring no killer applications.
Pioneering efforts within the global flat panel display industry to develop high-resolution displays are contrasted against mainstream strategies to maximize volume through a few standard products. Progress in the transition from analog to digital modes of data transmission is assessed. Development of web processing techniques, seamless tiling of displays and improved bandwidth management are recommended as ways of stretching basic display technologies to provide large screens with more information content.
The evolution of the commercial flat panel display industry is reviewed from four perspectives. The major markets for displays are identified and the supply/demand balance is discussed. The status of six display technologies is summarized and some of the manufacturing constraints are described. Finally, the impact of the different national programs is assessed.
Congress requested the Department of Defense (DoD) to study the acquisition of flat panel displays (FPDs) for military applications with specific attention to tradeoffs made in acquiring 'consumer-grade displays' rather than 'FPD systems that are custom designed to meet military requirements.' The study addresses: life cycle cost and performance tradeoffs, environmental and performance requirements and test data on performance of both custom and consumer-grade FPDs, life cycle cost and support issues such as commonality, supportability, and availability, potential benefits of FPD system interface standards and open systems approaches. The study found that appropriately ruggedized consumer-grade FPDs can meet the environmental and performance requirements for a broad range of military applications, including shipboard, command and control, army ground vehicles, military transport aviation, and soldier-portable computer systems. Currently, ruggedized consumer-grade FPDs cannot meet the specifications for some highly stressful applications, particularly tactical cockpit avionics. Due to lack of comparable and available data, programs have reached different judgments about the environmental tolerance and optical performance of ruggedized consumer-grade FPDs. There appear to be few systematic assessments of display performance impact on mission effectiveness. FPD availability concerns pivot on (1) the potentially rapid obsolescence of commercial FPDs and (2) the economic viability of domestic custom FPD suppliers. Display integrators using commercial FPDs are working to establish long-term supply arrangements with foreign producers of displays, but it is unclear how responsive these relationships will be in the future. Some DoD display integrators using custom FPDs believe that until the FPD market matures and stabilizes, it would be imprudent for DoD to become dependent on foreign, commercial FPD producers. However, many of these integrators are also concerned about the financial health of domestically based custom FPD producers.
The success of the US display industry, both in providing high-performance displays for the US Department of Defense at reasonable cost and in capturing a significant share of the global civilian market, depends on maintaining technological leadership and on building efficient manufacturing capabilities. The US Display Consortium (USDC) was set up in 1993 by the US Government and private industry to guide the development of the infrastructure needed to support the manufacturing of flat panel displays. This mainly involves the supply of equipment and materials, but also includes the formation of partnerships and the training of a skilled labor force. Examples are given of successful development projects, some involving USDC participation, others through independent efforts of its member companies. These examples show that US-based companies can achieve leadership positions in this young and rapidly growing global market.
The advent of compact high peak power short pulse lasers has made tabletop recombination x-ray lasers pumped by
these systems a real possibility. In this paper we discuss some of the relevant issues for these lasers and highlight a
number of issues that require consideration. Results of simulations designed to estimate potential gains in the quasisteady-
state region are also described.
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