FED tech ready for market move

Electronic News, May 19, 1997 by Andrew MacLellan

While companies like France's PixTech are already manufacturing a small number of monochrome FED devices, several others are preparing to ramp up their pilot or development lines in anticipation of a burgeoning demand for the phosphor-based, ultra-thin displays. Much of the anticipated capacity will come from North American companies, but nearly every Japanese and Korean liquid crystal display (LCD) maker has launched an FED program of its own, with Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba, Canon and others delivering papers on the subject during technical sessions here.

Motorola for the first time discussed plans to commence FED production at a new 275,000-square-foot fab in Tempe, Ariz., calling it the largest FED manufacturing plant in the world and the largest display facility in the U.S. The pilot line, which is capable of turning out several hundred thousand displays, represents an initial $100 million investment and is expected to begin producing five- to six-inch FED panels by the end of the year.

"We call it a pilot line, but many people would call it a production line," said Peter Shinyeda, VP/GM of Motorola's Flat Panel Display division. "We picked a facility that was large enough to give us some true high-volume learning."

The line is using 370mm x 470mm second-generation process equipment. Motorola said it will move to a third-generation substrate within two years.

"We picked that (second-generation) size for a lot of reasons," said Thomas L. Credelle, director of product marketing for Motorola's FPD division. "It allows us to make displays of a reasonable size in a reasonable quantity, and the toolset is reasonably mature."

Situated on 20 acres, the Tempe facility boasts 50,000 square feet of clean room space and also houses Motorola's display division headquarters. An additional 20 acres sits adjacent to the site and is available for expansion.

Called 'Thin CRTs'

FEDs have long held promise by combining the most desirable elements of cathode ray and LCD technology. Often called "thin CRTs," the displays employ a vacuum into which are sealed phosphors similar to those that give CRTs their rich color and appearance.

However, instead of adding a large vacuum tube and exciting the phosphors by firing electrons from a comparatively great distance, FEDs use a semiconductor process to strip electrons from the surface of microscopic cold cathode microtip emitters, yielding a panel thickness of about 2mm.

The result, according to proponents of the technology, is a lightweight, thin display with a full viewing angle, rapid response time for full-motion video playback and no motion artifacts or dead pixels. Because of their emissive nature, FED displays require no backlight, generate little heat and are resistant to extreme temperatures.

"We're getting tremendous interest from the automotive industry," noted Tom Holzel, VP of sales and marketing for PixTech. "We don't freeze, we don't boil and we're instant-on at any temperature."

Rousset, France-based PixTech demonstrated a 5.2-inch and a 10-inch color FED here, the former of which is slated for volume production in 3Q97. PixTech, the founder of an FED alliance which includes Motorola, Futaba and Raytheon, is targeting instrumentation applications such as color oscilloscopes.

"We'll take on active matrix in just about any field except for the laptop," said Mr. Holzel. "And the reason for that is the cost of getting into the market is enormous and the margins are slim to none. We're competing on performance, not price."

This skepticism is shared by almost every FED maker with the exception of San Jose, Calif.-based Candescent Technologies, which is planning to equip a 320mm x 340mm development line by year's end with the express intent of taking on the notebook display market (EN, May 5).

PixTech, whose 1996 FED output was described as a "driblet," said 1997 should see a small stream of displays coming from the company's Montpellier, France, fab.

Phosphor Technology

Another FED alliance member, Futaba, showed five-, 5.7- and 7.2-inch monochrome FED displays here at SID using proprietary low-voltage phosphor technology borrowed from the company's vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) business.

Raytheon, which has acquired some phosphor expertise of its own through a CRT program, brought along a four-inch monochrome FED device with an operating brightness of 300 foot-lamberts (fL) which is claimed to deliver a better than 10:1 contrast ratio in a 10,000-foot-candle environment. Raytheon also claims that its full-color six-inch display is capable of a minimum of 4:1 contrast in a like environment.

All told, the FED alliance counts more than 270 patents issued or pending. "In terms of intellectual property, Motorola and the other alliance members probably hold one of the strongest positions in that area, and at the end of the day (our competitors) will have to deal with that issue," said Mr. Shinyeda.

In many respects, these and other companies, such as Micron and FED Corp., are exploring FED in an effort to leapfrog the Japanese and Korean display giants whose TFT-LCD technology has dominated the notebook PC world for the last 10 years and is now vying to displace CRTs on the desktop.