The market for driver ICs for large-sized LCD panels is expected to nearly double from 2004 to 2009, thanks to demand from the LCD-TV, desktop-PC monitor and mobile-computer businesses, iSuppli Corp. reported today.
According to the firm, revenues from worldwide shipments of driver ICs for large-sized LCDs will expand to $4.2 billion in 2009, rising at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.6 percent from $2.3 billion in 2004. Unit shipments of such drivers will to grow to 4
.2 billion units in 2009, expanding at a CAGR of 19.8 percent from 1.7 billion units in 2004.The firm’s study specifically targeted display drivers -- ICs that provide voltage and/or current to the rows and columns of flat-panel displays, including LCDs, plasma panels and Organic Light Emitting Diodes, with the core products in the market being row drivers, column drivers and timing controllers.
The firm further pointed out that shipments of LCD-TVs are expected to grow at a rapid pace over the next few years. Combine that with the extensive use of row and column drivers in LCD TVs and shipments of driver ICs for LCD TVs will grow to 57.95 million units in 2009, expanding at a CAGR of 42.6 percent from 9.8 million units in 2004, iSuppli predicted.
Shipments of LCD driver ICs for mobile PCs and notebook computers also will increase robustly over the next few years, although not at the same fast pace as those for LCD TVs, the firm concluded.
European Researchers Bullish on UV Imprint Litho
European researchers said Thursday that their particular brand of imprint lithography is on the brink of commercialization.
Researchers working under the European Commission''s Information Society Technologies (IST) research initiative said they now have a commercially available, first generation tool using soft ultraviolet imprint (SOUVENIR) lithography technology. The tool costs less than (200,000 euros) and will be used to produce experimental nanotech devices at universities and research institutes, according to the IST.
Later generations of the SOUVENIR tool could be used for small manufacturing runs, IST suggested.
"In principle, this new technique has the potential to be used for mass manufacture by the semiconductor industry," Markus Bender, coordinator of the SOUVENIR project at IST, said in a statement. "One approach we use can already form patterns down to the 10nm scale," he said. Bender is also a researcher at German company Applied Micro- and Optoelectronics (AMO).
Proponents of imprint lithography for semiconductor applications maintain the technology is a potential next generation lithography technology. Some suggest that it may prove cost effective for small volume devices or for certain steps, such as contact holes, in devices produced in larger volumes.
Although there are several different techniques being developed concurrently for eventual use in chip applications, in simplest terms, imprint lithography involves physically imprinting a resist on a substrate and subsequently creating features following an etch step.
To date, the IST''s SOUVENIR program has taken three years and some (2.3 million euros), considerably less than what has been spent on extreme ultraviolet lithography, IST notes.
But the process, at least as it exists right now, is too slow – and as yet unproven – to replace today''s exposure tools, the IST acknowledged. Furthermore, the soft polymer mold SOUVENIR uses needs further improvements for high-resolution alignment processes – a key step for chip production, especially with advanced design geometries.
But the process still has potential to make it into production, the IST said. Research completed by the German government''s Federal Ministry of Education and Research shows that the same imprinting technique using a hard mold, based on quartz, demonstrates the required precision for semiconductor manufacturing.
"There a still problems with that particular technique," Bender said. "The quartz approach only works with a substrate of one square inch, but we can use the elastomer mold on a six inch wafer," he added. Furthermore, while quartz could address the precision issues the technique is still too slow, currently, for large-scale semiconductor companies.
But IST believes these issues can be addressed with further research and refinement of the technology.
"I think there''s the same potential with our technique as with the (extreme ultraviolet lithography)," Bender continued. "UV imprinting is still an under-investigated area, and if it wasn''t for the EU this research wouldn''t get funded. Companies are not researching this field.
"We are working in close cooperation with an Austrian company, Electronic Vision Group (EVG) to develop tools for the two approaches. I think next year we''ll have a step and repeat tool for 300mm wafers on the market," Bender said.
