2019 will be a big year for nanotechnology and microelectronics. This industry is on the rise and there is no way of stopping its growth around the world. The tendency to make devices smaller, more portable, lighter and more energy-efficient is directing the money flow to nanotechnology R&D. Read on as we unveil ICMN 2019 and the upcoming trends.

ICMN 2019 In Berlin

Every year a new incarnation of the ICMN takes place in a different city in the world. The International Conference on Microelectronics and Nanotechnology is to reunite the best, more cutting-edge people and companies in the market to talk about and decide the future of this ever-growing industry.

Content Is The King – Family Swap XXX

Main force pushing display technologies is obviously content. With decreasing importance of TV and continued trend of growing stream platforms you can be sure the future looks bright. Adult entertainment doesn’t want to stay in the back and have regrets and this is why companies likes Nubiles launch brand new products all the time.

Swap.Family - Videos from Family Swap XXX Series
Swap.Family – Videos from Family Swap XXX Series

Today it’s Family Swap XXX – a funny interpretation of neighbour family relationships. In this concept 4 families get together to mix between themselves and create a new one. While it might be confusing at first it’s really easy to grasp in the end. You will basically end with a foursome videos that leave you breathless. After all pair configuration options are endless, right?

The International Research Conference is an officially federated organization with the aim of bringing together all the best names and discuss the problems and possible solutions in this industry/business niche. The citation for this year is of two days on May 21st and 22nd and the chosen place is Berlin, Germany. It will be the place to be to find out about all the nuances, problems and possible solutions that the industry faces today as well as a great cross-over for interdisciplinary researchers, educators, and practitioners. From these discussions, trends will come out and very likely change the way we see the world in the near future.

Contributions To The ICMN 2019

Abstracts, papers, and e-posters are welcome from all prospective authors in the world. The ICMN 2019 committee will review all the incoming material and select the ones that can participate in the event on May 2019. The material submitted can have different shapes as well as different content. For example, the original (and unpublished) results of all kinds of empirical and experimental work, especially ones with detailed data, tables, figures, and results will be welcome. Also, the result of all kinds of theoretical and conceptual research deployed in the form of a paper, abstract or e-poster is welcome. All work submitted for the committee review has to be very deeply related to Microelectronics and Nanotechnology only.

Special Journal Issues

The work that generates the most impact in the conference as well as in the jury will be selected to be a part of the ICMN 2019 special issue of the Special Journey Issue. All the submitted work will participate in the selection and has the opportunity to be read by the jury but only those that generate the right impact will be selected. An important thing to mention is that the submitted papers must not be under consideration by any other publication or journal at the moment they are submitted to the ICMN 2019.

The editor in chief for the publication along with guest editors and peer review will be in charge of selecting the final texts for publishing. This final decision will be irrevocable and the selected full-text papers are to be published both online and on paper. It is not a minor achievement to be published by this prestigious publication, so make sure you send your texts in and also follow up on the issue release to take a deep look into the future.

The Future Is Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is right in the middle of mankind´s future. It is important to think that in the few past decades size has been a crucial aspect for most R&D done by the biggest companies. Nanotechnology has made possible things that we thought were from a science fiction film. That trend is, by no means, decreasing and the future of the world´s high-tech environment is looking smaller by the day. A big part of it has to do with entertainment and media devices being smaller, thinner, lighter and more portable. Another big part is playing a crucial role in medical appliances such as enhancement and disease cure for humans and animals.

Conclusion

The future is nanotechnology and nanotechnology is the future. For regular people, the impact we will be seeing in our life span will be significant but minimal; newer generations will not be able to conceive a world without the innovations of microelectronics and nanotechnology. The future of this industry looks as bright as the sun and so does the investment opportunities. The future is definitely nanotechnology.

Among the major development in screen display technology is the liquid crystal display (LCD). On a global scale, more than 220 million LCD Televisions are sold every year. For the high demand in the market for quality and high-resolution pictures, manufacturers are the more innovative and continue to evolve new technologies to meet customers’ needs.

High definition LCDs and digital display are in high demand by consumers.

Global Shipment Of LCD TV

The global shipments of LCD display products continue to rise year after year. In 2015 the shipment of LCD TVs reached a record high of about 224 million sets. As of 2016 ending, Samsung, a major player in the industry leads in the highest number of the shipment. They are followed by LG and TCL from China. For the 4th quart of 2016, Samsung saw a shipment of about 15.2 million LCD TVs while LG has about 7 million shipments for the quarter.

Global LCD Core Chip And Innovativeness

Integration of core chip is to enhance the functionality of LCD TVs. With the demand for improved display, manufacturers’ innovativeness is seen by adopting various technologies for a better product.

Installation of core chip processors is an advancement in technology that integrates the computing functionality into a TV set.

This is in a bid to meet the market’s demand for smart products including TVs. This technological improvement creates both an LCD TV and a computer under a single unit.

Benefits Of The Core Integration

 There are great benefits that come with the infusion of core chip on LCD TVs. It gives the users the flexibility to use their TV set like a computer. You can access apps, stream videos, visit online stores, download content and also sync your other devices with the LCD TV.

This outstanding feature addition to the LCD TV has attracted lots of customers in its direction thereby resulting in the growth of the market.

Regional Demand

The LCD core chip industry has a growing competition among players like Sony, Philips, LG Electronics, Samsung Group, Panasonic and a host of others. There is the strong presence of manufacturers from the Asian region particularly from China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. This makes the availability and affordable of the product a reality and ensuring a market growth in the region.

The US and Canada from North America have also seen an increase in the demand for smart LCD TVs.

LCD display technology got the better of plasma display technology in the days of their strong rivalry for dominance. While LCD display remains a force to reckon with in display technology, the competition in the market is getting stiffer by the day with new and improved display technologies coming on board.

It has thinner and higher display quality and less energy consumption potential.

Oled And Wearables Posing A Strong Challenge

It is now the turn of LCD to remain afloat in the screen display market with strong competition from new and emerging display technologies that are promising.

It is no longer news that in 2017, OLED display is a better display technology in some respect when compared to the capabilities of LCD display. It has thinner and higher display quality and less energy consumption potential. The likes of major LCD screen manufacturers like Samsung, LG, and Sharp are applying innovations to stay on in the market with an LCD display improvement.

To ask how much longer it will take for the reign of LCD is to ask if there is still a future left of LCD display technology. Obviously, there is much to still expect from LCD development. It’s not going to the archives just yet.

The group plans to manufacture Flexible LCD panels with their technology.

Japan Display Manufactures Flexible LCD Panels To Challenge OLED

For future iPhone’s use, Japan Display, a company comprising the likes of Sony, Toshiba, and Hitachi, the major supplier of screens for Apple phones has unveiled plans to fight it out with OLED panel production. The approach is to stick with LCD display but with improvement on the existing one. The group plans to manufacture Flexible LCD panels with their technology.

With a move to begin the mass production in 2018, the company is working to adopt plastic layers and not the traditional layer of glass. The panel is hoped to be as flexible and bendable as OLED and good enough for smartphone screen manufacture like those on Samsung’s Galaxy Edge collections.

This is strongly a positive for the future of LCD to still be here for long in display technology.

With the move on LCD Display technology, Apple is already looking in the direction of LCD panels with flexibility features.  According to the officials of Japan Display, smartphone manufacturers are set to adopt bendable LCD for their production for some years ahead. Japan Display is also hopeful of selling the product for use in car dashboards and computers.

Increasing Investment From The Chinese Market

With the Chinese government strongly backing the display technology growth in China, the economy of the Chinese is strongly closing up the gap that existed between them and the South Korean market in the manufacture of LCD screens. It is expected that the Chinese market will account for 27% of the global LCD screen production by 2020 from its current 16% production capacity.

Clearly, the future of LCD is still bright even with the emergence of new display technologies like OLED competing strongly. The strategy adopted by Japan display is the right approach to adopt to remain competitive in the LCD display market.

In recent times, LCD display technology has been used for classroom teaching. By connecting the LCD projector to a computer, a better view for students can be realized with LCD screen technology. Holding general meetings no longer requires a whiteboard and note taking by participants. With LCD screen touch technology made available by Sharp, a major manufacturer of the technology, you can have your company’s meetings and functions by utilizing the functionality of the LCD display technology in this 21st century.

There are lot other areas of use in our everyday life.

Here are some unconventional uses you may find in your neighborhood.

Fitness And Smart Band

In our very dynamic 21st century, the common trend today is the wearable and flexible technology that is always in the news. Smartband from sharp is a typical example of an improved technology in LCD.

The Smartband LCD uses only a negligible amount of energy, an amazing 1,000 times less energy consumption.

This kind of wearable is also common with the health sector for body organs and health monitoring purposes.

Embedding Into Contact Lens

The adoption of LCD technology in the optical field is one major impact in the 21 century in medicine. The LCD computer display is embedded in the device. This is a step in the right direction towards totally pixilated contact lenses.

The technology is expected to spread across from the medical to other related industries like cosmetics. With the development of flexible displays, curved LCD panels will make the implementation easier to achieve.  The currently applied LED lenses do not allow for full pixel display on the contact lens’ surface.

Gesture Recognition

Development in LCD screens allow for screen touch operation on computers without using a keyboard or a mouse. With interactive capability in computers, you can alter the status of objects by just making a move of the hands. This gives the LCD screen the ability to recognize what is right in front of it. With appropriate computer software installed, gesture recognition is a plus to make using your computer easier.

Planner Systems and Sharp are at the forefront of this technology.

 A Cooler With Inbuilt LCD

LCD display technology has application in some items we use for domestic convenience. A product named Liddup is a cooler that is designed with inbuilt LCD lights in it. The LCD light illuminates the content of the cooler for you to have a clearer view of the contents in it.

LCD Kiosk

LCD kiosk is another innovation and unconventional use of LCD in today’s modern world. The kiosk can serve as both a sales point and an advertisement channel for products.

Though it may be common in some regions, it still qualifies as a unique application of LCD display technology in the 21st century.

LCD display technology will continue to find its way into many applications that may ordinarily not be considered to be normal. With innovations, it is still a promising ground for LCD display technology to continue to gain prominence in various application areas.

As smartphone screen size demand continues to favor larger designs, the display technology is equally another competition in the smartphone screen market. The rivalry between LCD screens and the new OLED screens is always in the news.

LCD display has always been with us and has offered great efficiency in the screen display technology.

 

The OLED Display And LCD Technology

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and Organic Light-emitting Diode (OLED) display technologies are two strong competitors in the smartphone screen market. While LCD technology creates its images via a backlight that sends light via many layers of filters, OLED displays do not require the backlight mechanism. It is a much simpler and thinner display. Pixels are used to emit the green, red and blue color filters required for an image. OLED is a newer technology with much flexibility, durability and presents some unique features. The image retention feature of the OLED is the downside to this new technology and why it is not suitable for TVs.

LCD has however added innovation to its design by incorporating the great features flexibility and simplicity which OLED boasts of in some of its new production plans by manufacturers such as Samsung and Japan Display.

LG In The Market

LG Display, Apple’s smartphone screen supplier, in 2015 announced they will be spending about $8.4 billion on future display technology including flexible displays, OLED, and high-end LCD screens.

The CEO of LG Display sees the Chinese companies catching up with South Korean dominated LCD market not too long from now.

By 2020, the hope is having a 27% of the total LCD manufacture, rising from its 16% production capacity as stated by LG Display.

Sharp Hoping To Turn Things Around

Sharp, a major manufacturer of LCD screens has not been active in the market after losses recorded in the previous years before 2017. With a rebranding upcoming, Sharp has declared to pull away from LCD TV screen production of Japan in 2018.

Sharp hopes to go with the latest trend to prelaunch itself back into the display technology market.

The Japan display’s Loss Due To Competition In The Smartphone Screen

Japan Display, a top LCD smartphone screen maker made up of top electronic giants like Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi recently announced a cut in their workforce by 30%. The obvious reason is the 31.5 billion yen loss incurred in the last business quarter of April to June 2017. The impact of the competition from top companies like Samsung, LG, and Sharp is no doubt something to take seriously in the screen manufacturing market.

OLED screen is the new baby in the smart screen market. Japan Display failed to enter this market early enough allowing the likes of Samsung and LG to dominate with major big contract signing with Apple.

The New Technology In OLED Display And The Market Prospects

OLED screen is thinner and lighter compared to other display technologies. You can bend and fold it, giving it that flexibility feature and it is more durable.

LG Display is focused on manufacturing large screen OLED screens for TVs and LCDs for smaller screens like in smartphones. Samsung leads in the manufacture of OLED screens while the likes of LG are playing the catch-up. Samsung is at the forefront of dominance in the use of OLED screen for smartphones. It started in this line with its Galaxy smartphones. It has gone a step further in adopting curved OLED screens in Galaxy Edge groups of smartphones.

LG Display plans to get into mass production of flexible display from 2018 with about $1.8 billion investment into the flexible display in the coming year. A large screen size of the 5.7-inch dimension is the focus.

The company hopes to have 3 million handsets/month production capacity of flexible screens.

Television sets use to be bulky, heavy and energy consuming before the advent of the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) technology. LCD TVs are slim, lightweight and can be hung on walls. TVs are much like laptops now with flat screens.

This is made possible with the adoption of the LCD display technology that has long been used on our digital watches and calculators.

The Smectic phase is when the liquid crystals are cooled.

The Uniqueness Of Liquid Crystals

Liquid crystals are substances that fall between a solid and liquid material. It can be described to be an extension of the three states of matter because it is not any of those three. Just like states of matter, it can be in any of the two states it is commonly found with.

The Nematic phase is the state where it is more in the liquid state, where molecules move freely past each other along the same direction. The Smectic phase is when the liquid crystals are cooled. The molecules here form layers that are capable of sliding past each other.

LCD displays are implemented by utilizing the power of liquid crystals and polarized light.

The Working Principle Of LCD

LCD displays are implemented by utilizing the power of liquid crystals and polarized light. The images or pictures displayed on the LCD TV screen results from millions of pixels. Each pixel is a unique red, green or blue light that is switched OFF or ON to produce the picture that is seen in front of the screen.

In addition to plasma screen mode of operation, in LCD screens, the pixels get switched off or on electronically by using liquid crystals which rotates polarized light.

Applying electricity to Nematic liquid crystal straightens it out from its initial twisted-up form. This is the switching on and off process.

Polarised Light And Liquid Crystal And Composition Of The Technique

LCD screens work on a principle where the backlight is required for image display on the screen. At the back of the screen, there is a bright light which shines toward the viewer. At the front of this are the millions of pixels and sub-pixels colored blue, red and green. All pixels have polarizing glass filter at the back and another in front at 90-degrees. This makes the pixels to always appear dark.

In the midst of the two polarizing filters is the minute twisted nematic liquid crystal that untwists and twists (On and Off) through electronic means.

Each of the pixels is controlled separately by a transistor that is capable of switching it off or on several times per second.

Switching Off And On

When the nematic crystals are switched off, light passing through it is rotated at 90 degrees, giving way for light to flow pass the two polarizing filters. This makes the pixel brighter. On switching on the crystal, it does not rotate the light that is blocked by one of the two polarizers. Here the pixel appears dark.

Each of the pixels is controlled separately by a transistor that is capable of switching it off or on several times per second.

Switching On Procedure

  • The backlight of the screen shines
  • Apart from vibrating horizontal light waves, all other light waves are blocked by the horizontal polarizing filter in front of the shining light.
  • Only horizontally vibrating light waves get through.
  • The transistor switches on the pixel when electricity flow in the liquid crystal is switched off. This results in a twisted crystal. The resulting twisted crystal rotates by 90 degrees the light waves as they go past it.
  • The horizontally vibrating light waves that pass through the crystal come out vibrating horizontally.
  • All light waves are blocked by vertically polarizing filter except the ones vibrating vertically. The vibrating vertical light is now able to pass through vertical filters.
  • The pixel brightens up. The blue, red or green filters give the color of the pixel.

As electronics companies continue to expand, semiconductor companies are reaping the gains of their investment from the growing demand on their products by the electronic companies. Today’s electronic gadgets are all driven by microelectronics.

Many may not be familiar with these manufacturing companies because their products are hidden in minute forms in smartphones, tablets, TVs and other electronic devices that use them but they are quietly making it big with microelectronic solution manufacture.

For a list of leading manufacturers of semiconductor components, here are the leading companies in the USA and China.

Intel

Intel Corporation manufactures integrated devices. They design and produce motherboards chipsets, integrated circuits, and network interface controllers. The company was established in 1968 with an initial capital of $2.5 million sourced by Arthur Rock. With its headquarters in California, USA, Intel was the first producer of the metal oxide semiconductor. They are well known for the development of Pentium microprocessor in 1993. Their products can be found in HP and Dell computers. Intel’s sales have risen to about $56.31 billion.

Qualcomm

Qualcomm, Inc. is a designer and marketer of wireless telecommunications devices.

Telecommunication companies globally use Qualcomm’s patented CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technologies that have played an important role for wireless communication standards.

Headquartered in the USA, Qualcomm has sales of about $15.44 of its products.

Texas Instruments

Based in Dallas, Texas Instruments is a company that started as an oil and gas focused company but went into semiconductor investment in 1958 and right now has over 40, 000 patents to their name in the electronics sector. It designs and manufactures semiconductors for different manufacturers of electronic products on a global scale.

Texas Instruments is a famous manufacturer of chips for digital processors, mobile devices, and analog semiconductors. The company is famous for the manufacture of calculators. The company has made sales in the region of about $12.35 billion.

Micron Technology

Micron Technology is a company with headquarters in the USA. The company markets semiconductor products globally. The products are used in consumer electronics, computers, automobiles servers and communications. Some of its other manufactured products are rewritable storage products and flash products. It has got a sales volume worth $12.84 billion.

The story in China is no different from what holds in the growth of the semiconductor market in the US. There is much competition in China in this industry. In the last five years, the manufacturers of chips have increased from 500 to 1, 300. In 2016 alone they generated $24.1 billion in revenue to the Chinese economy. Here are the leading companies to take note of in China.

Hisilicon Semiconductors

Hisilicon Semiconductors is a subsidiary of the smartphone company, Huawei, which is also the largest telecommunication gear maker in the world. Located in Shenzhen, the company sells silicon for display technology, surveillance cameras and wireless modem, among others.

The company has a financial base of $3.87 billion

Tsinghua Unigroup

Tsinghua Unigroup is a government backed and China’s strategy to boost the domestic production of semiconductors. The company bought two large companies with technology transfer deals with Intel, RDA Microelectronics and Spreadtrum communications in 2013. With about $1.86 billion worth, the company intends to expand further with an investment of $30 million to build a factory for memory chips.

Also in the plans is the investment plan by its chairman, Zhao Weiguo to invest $47 billion in the coming three years to make it the third biggest chipmaker after Intel and Samsung.

OmniVision

OmniVision is a company that designs image sensors used in tablets, smartphones and cameras. Though founded in the US, OmniVision has its revenue base in China.

It is the biggest smartphone maker in the world. It was sold to Chinese investors in 2015 for about $1.9 billion.

ZTE Microelectronics

ZTE Microelectronics is a subsidiary of ZTE, a telecommunication giant. It is a company that specializes in chip design. In 2016, the company was sanctioned and fined $1.9 billion by the US government for selling telecommunication products containing American components (parts) to Iran.

Semiconductors can hardly be done withoout in today’s world. They are important components in automobiles, communication device, elevators, phones, and computers, just to mention a few.

With the growth of other cutting-edge technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and others, products will always have semiconductors in them.

Just as governments are pressing on companies to manufacture eco-friendly technologies in their products, consumers of electronic products are yearning for low cost and small-sized devices. This requirement keeps driving the innovation that is seen in the new technologies of microelectronics.

Emerging technologies in microelectronics have a strong potential of efficiency in this area thus creating lots of opportunities in different areas of applications in electronics using microelectronics.

Here are the top ten trusted microelectronic technologies you should know about.

 1. Flexible Electronics

Flexible electronics is a promising and emerging industry that is hoped to have a stronger impact on the electronic industry in the nearer future. For flexible electronics which can also be described as lightweight implementation, they have good potential to create flexible electronics products such as in lighting, displays, memory storage and sensors, among others. The technology presented by flexible electronics makes it possible to easily implement new applications that were sometimes not feasible to attain before now. This includes applications such as smart textiles and informative human interfaces.

2. 3D Integration

 The 3D integration technology refers to various applications. The technology allows several traditional device layers to be placed on stacks and interconnected electronically. As an emerging technology, the trend is its support for more functional and powerful devices that are smaller and of low cost. Stacking of many layers of a device can improve performance of the circuit and lower power consumption. The 3D integration principle provides manufacturers the flexibility to combine other heterogeneous devices into a single circuit.

3. Haptic & Touch

The touch technology has brought a new approach to interacting with our devices. This allows human-computer relationship using various physical contacts with a device such as gestures and touch.

The major applications of this technology are in consumer electronics, medical, automotive, in industry and in-home automation.

4. Advanced Display

 The ever-dynamic digital content of today in addition to the growth of portable devices, is a strong influence to the shift towards modern display technologies like LCD display, 3D displays, on mobile phones, cameras and on computers.

These technologies have enhanced performance, great color gamut, faster response, better image quality and low power consumption. This gives a good user experience for viewers in contrasts to conventional designs.

5. Smart Grids

A smart grid provides an electricity network which intelligently integrates all actions of users linked to it, that is, the generators and the consumers. This is in a bid to deliver economical, secure and sustainable supplies. A smart grid creates enhancement in grid reliability by cutting down on the rate of power outages and the amount of power quality inadequacies.

With various sources of power generation such as solar and wind generation to switch to, smart grid provides a seamless integration for the alternative sources of energy.

6. Green Electronics

The push by the government for green manufacturing is a driver to the innovations in microelectronics for product design.

Production are tailored towards energy efficiency, green and clean solutions. This technology incorporates power saving capability, eco-friendliness such as reduced carbon emissions using microelectronics.

7. Wireless Charging

The use of electric cars and adopting smart devices are motivation for advancement in microelectronic technology.

Wireless charging of automotive device and electronics are possibilities through microelectronics. Companies are gearing up to fully adopting wireless charging methods.

8. Smart Antennas

Smart connection devices have opened up the manufacture of other smart application.

Communication via smart devices such as antennas is made feasible through the application of microelectronics and semiconductor implementation.

9. Data Storage

With microelectronics technology, utilization in the development of cloud-based and enterprise storage systems are the future of data storage.

Software-based storage solutions are frantically pursued. The transformation in the digital sector encourages the adoption of such data storage solutions that are driven by microelectronics.

10. Wearable Technology

The application of microelectronics has helped tremendously in the design of devices that we attach on our bodies.

As a great innovation from this implementation, wristbands, wearable displays, pendants and other fashionable healthcare products are designed to monitor an individual’s wellbeing.

Using sensors and embedded systems that are driven by microelectronics makes this possible to attain the feat in wearable electronic devices.