小市场，大机会，大尺寸LCD面板需求快速增长
The market for driverICsfor large-sized LCD panels is expected to nearly double from2004 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-TVsare 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 (200,000euros) 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.
