Smartkem, positioned to power the next generation of displays using its disruptive organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs), has partnered with AUO, the largest display manufacturer in Taiwan, to jointly develop the world's first advanced rollable, transparent microLED display using Smartkem's technology.

"We believe that collaborating with global display industry leader AUO to develop a novel microLED display puts Smartkem's technology on the frontier of microLED display commercialization. Our unique transistor technology is expected to enable display manufacturers to efficiently produce microLED displays, making mass production commercially viable. Smartkem's technology has the potential to take today's microLED TVs from high end market prices of $100,000 down to mass market prices," stated Ian Jenks, Smartkem Chairman and CEO.

Micron has been on a spending spree in Taiwan, where the company has been looking for new facilities. Micron has agreed to buy no less than three LCD plants from display maker AUO, which are located in the central Taiwanese city of Taichung. Micron is looking at paying NT$ 8.1 billion (~US$253.3 million). Initially, Micron was interested in buying another plant in Tainan from Innolux, but was turned down, so Micron turned to AUO for the purchases. Earlier this year, TSMC spent NT$17 billion (~US$531.6 million) to buy a similar facility from Innolux, but it seems that Innolux wasn't willing to part with any more facilities this year.

The three AUO plants are said to have produced LCD colour filters and the two of the plants had closed for production earlier this month. However, it appears that for some reason, the plant that is still in operation, will be leased by AUO and the company will continue production of colour filters in the factory. The larger plant measures 146,033 square metres, with the smaller measuring 32,500 square metres. As for Micron's plans, not much is known at this point in time, but the company has announced that it's planning on using at least some of the space for front-end wafer testing and that the new plants will support its current and upcoming DRAM production fabs in Taichung and Taoyuan, which the company is currently expanding. Market sources in Taiwan are quoted as saying that the focus will be on HBM memory, due to the high demand from various AI products in the market, least not from NVIDIA. The deal is expected to be finalised by the end of the year.

Today, MSI - the premium laptop brand with luxurious aesthetic, extreme performance, and innovative technology, proudly announces that its brand-new flagship gaming laptop Titan 18 HX will be the world's first laptop featuring 18" 4K/120 Hz Mini LED display, which is also the most premium laptop display right now.

The 4K/120 Hz Mini LED display on Titan 18 is powered by AmLED technology from AUO, which promises super-bright backlighting, decent HDR performance and wide-enough color gamut. The peak brightness of the display is over 1000 nits, which is 2.5 times brighter compared to regular LCD and thanks to its Adaptive Control Technology, sharper image quality with less halo effect could be expected. The stunning peak brightness also brings exceptional HDR performance with 2M:1 contrast ratio. The Titan 18 has been certified as VESA DisplayHDR 1000 and guarantees immersive HDR experience in game or streaming.

Micro LED displays are being touted as something akin to the holy grail of display technology, but it seems like we still have some way to go before the first consumer devices are ready to launch, at least based on what we saw today at Touch Taiwan. AUO actually had multiple Micro LED displays on display at the trade show, but it appears as if there are still some technical hurdles to overcome before we'll see these products in retail. AUO was demoing a laptop prototype with a 17.3-inch Micro LED display, although the display lacked a back cover and depending on the mode used, the entire display ended up being semi transparent. This somewhat depended on the angle you looked at the display, but the idea here was to use for some kind of AR applications, or to take advantage of bright lights behind the display, courtesy of its high transmittance of up to 50 percent.

The fly in the ointment here is that the display, as well as a smaller 14.6-inch sibling—that's foldable—only supports 1280 x 720 resolution. It doesn't matter how good the technology is, if we're going to be limited to a display resolution from the early 2000's, as it simply won't sell in a modern device today. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the only issue with AUO's Micro LED displays, as the display on the demo laptop also had a lot of dead pixels. We're not talking five or six here, but more like 50 or 60 and due to the low resolution of the display, they were very easy to see, as they showed up as dark dots when certain graphics were displayed. It's not all that noticeable in the pictures below, but it was very obvious when looking at the display. We were told that this is something AUO is working on solving, alongside bringing higher resolution displays to market. As such, it seems like we might still be a few years away from getting Micro LED displays in any real products. That said, the company had smaller Micro LED displays for wearables, that seemed to be much closer to hitting the production line.

It wasn't just desktop displays that AUO was having on display at Touch Taiwan, as the company was also showing off a pair of brand new AmLED gaming notebook displays at the show. AmLED is AUO's version of mini LED and the first of the two displays is a 16-inch unit with 2560 x 1600 resolution, a 240 Hz refresh rate and a brightness of up to 1000 cd/m². Unfortunately it was impossible to get a good photo of it, as no matter what we tried, we ended up getting flicker on the final photos.

The second AmLED gaming display on show, was a larger 18-inch model, with the same 2560 x 1600 resolution, but an unspecified refresh rate, albeit with the same 1000 cd/m² brightness. Here AUO also claims a million to one contrast ratio and a 100 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, the latter something the 16-inch model also sports. As per the pictures below, the 18-inch model was only running at 60 FPS at the show, but it's unclear if this is the maximum refresh rate of this panel or not.

As expected, based on yesterday's press release from AUO, its new 540 Hz gaming panel is based on E-TN technology. The E simply stands for Esports and AUO has never really mentioned what the difference is between its E-TN and its regular TN panels. In this case, we already know who AUO is working with, as the monitor on display at Touch Taiwan was the ASUS ROG Swift Pro PG248QP, which was announced at CES earlier this year.

As ASUS has as yet to release the ROG Swift Pro PG248QP, we do at least have some very minor, additional specs of the display panel now. As expected, this is a 1080p panel and AUO claims a sub 1 ms response time, which is hardly unexpected considering the refresh rate. It also has a brightness of 400 cd/m², which is about 50-100 cd/m² better than the best TN panels on the market and it's said to deliver up to 99 percent of the sRGB colour gamut. No other details were provided, so we're just going to have to wait for ASUS to launch the PG248QP before we get the full specs.

TPU doesn't normally cover TVs, but at Touch Taiwan had a new gaming focused TV panel that might very well end up in some very high-end gaming "monitors" as well. The panel is a 65-inch model that supports 7680 x 4320 resolution at up to 120 Hz. However, the high-end specs don't stop there, as the panel has a 4,608 zone full array local dimming backlight, which gives it a typical brightness of 400 cd/m², but it can go up to 1,800 cd/m² at 10 percent areas in HDR mode.

As with the 4K display panel we wrote about earlier, this TB panel also features AUO's A.R.T. "reflectionless" feature, which should prevent it from being overly reflective in brightly lit areas. The demo panel was powered by MediaTek's Pentonic 2000 SoC, which is currently one of the highest-end 8K TV processors and potentially the only one with support for H.266 video decoding. Sadly we don't have any indication on which TV manufacturers will use the new display, but regardless of the brand, we expect the retail products to be very expensive.

AUO has been busy developing what the company calls Advanced Reflectionless Technology or A.R.T. which the company was showing off at the Touch Taiwan trade show. The panel in question was a 32-inch, 4K AHVA panel, which is AUO's own variant of IPS. Although the panel was set up so there were fewer reflections in the area where it was being displayed, the panel did seem to be less reflective compared to other displays sitting next to it. However, it's always hard to judge these things on a show floor, so we'll have to wait for some reviews before passing final judgement on A.R.T. but it looks like a promising technology when it comes to reducing unwanted reflections.

The panel is also one of the first 4K panels capable of delivering a 240 Hz refresh rate, although it's going to be hard finding a graphics card capable of driving all games at that kind of refresh rate at 4K resolution. Sadly the brightness is only 400 cd/m², although AUO claims 1 ms grey to grey response time with overdrive enabled and a 95 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, which is better than most 4K gaming panels on the market today. Sadly, AHVA panels suffer from IPS glow, just as normal IPS panels, which can clearly be seen in the second image below.

It's no wonder AUO didn't reveal the actual resolution of its new 49-inch 5K panel in its press release yesterday, as this is a typical 5120 x 1440 panel when it comes to the resolution. Yes, it's capable of 360 Hz, which is higher than the competition which is currently at 240 Hz. AUO has also managed to crank up the backlight to 600 nits in HDR mode, although this is still a typical backlight and not some kind of FALD implementation.

The panel itself is based on AUO's PSA, which is a VA type of panel. It has a contrast ratio of 5000:1 and covers 95 percent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. AUO claims that the panel has a 1 ms grey to grey response time with overdrive enabled. As per yesterday's press release, the panel has a 1000R curvature, which means it's very curved, as you can see in the pictures below. We don't know who AUO's customers for the panel are, but we'll hopefully see some indications at Computex next month.

Tomorrow, the Touch Taiwan trade show kicks off in Taipei and AUO will be showing off a range of new products at the show, which TPU will be attending, so we'll have some hands/eyes on coverage this week. As far as gaming monitors are concerned, the big announcement from AUO is a 49-inch ultrawide, curved 5K display panel that supports refresh rates of up to 360 Hz. The company didn't reveal the actual resolution in its press release, but we'll find out at the trade show what 5K resolution means in this case, as it's most likely 5120 x 1440, since this is what most 32:9 5K displays offer today.

AUO will also be showing off a 24-inch, 540 Hz, 1080p display panel that the company claims will "eliminate screen tearing, stuttering, and ghosting issues. There's no mention of the display panel used, but it's most likely a TN panel. Somewhat less gaming related, AUO will also have a 17.3-inch, transparent Micro LED notebook panel on display, which the company says will enhance the display quality under glare, something they'll hopefully be demoing at the trade show.

Acer announced two powerful Predator Helios gaming laptops and a pair of Predator gaming monitors. The laptops feature an all-new design with 16-inch and 18-inch display sizes, the latest 13th Gen Intel Core mobile processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs, making them Acer's most powerful gaming laptops to date. The Predator X45 showcases a massive 800R curved monitor and has earned a CES Innovation Award in the "Computer Peripherals & Accessories" category. Along with the Predator X27U, both monitors include OLED technology with fast 240 Hz refresh rates.

Predator Helios 16, Predator Helios 18 Laptops
The all-new Predator Helios 16 (PH16-71) and Predator Helios 18 (PH18-71) bring the latest and greatest tech to Acer's most powerful gaming laptop series. Sporting a completely new design and upgraded thermals, they both offer models that include 13th Gen Intel Core i9 or i7 HX processors paired with up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU (MGP up to 165 W) and a plethora of must-have top-of-the-line gaming features.

Today, MSI - the innovative computing manufacturer in gaming laptops - proudly announces that its flagship gaming laptop Titan GT77 will be the world's first laptop featuring 4K/144 Hz Mini LED display, which is also the most premium laptop display right now.

The 4K/144 Hz display on Titan GT77 is powered by AUO's AmLED Mini LED technology, which promises super-bright backlighting, decent HDR performance and wide-enough color gamut. The peak brightness of the display is over 1000 nits, which is 2.5 times brighter compared to regular LCD and thanks to its 1008 dimming zones, sharper image quality with less halo effect could be expected. The super-high peak brightness along with exclusive AmLED's Adaptive Control Technology that precisely and dynamically adjust images in real time also brings decent HDR performance.

AUO Display Plus (ADP), a wholly-owned industrial and commercial display subsidiary of Taiwan's AUO Corporation (TWSE: 2409), has acquired the long-running cloud-based digital signage software company Rise Vision, strengthening ADP's growing portfolio of partners and enabling them to help organizations communicate better using digital signage solutions.

As a leading provider of industrial and commercial displays, ADP expects to bolster its range of smart display solutions with value-added software capabilities and provide customers with more choices and flexibility while extending Rise Vision's SaaS (Software as Service) business reach to more applications and areas like retail, enterprise and hospitality.

AU Optronics has recently announced a new 4K 85-inch TV panel with a refresh rate of 240 Hz and support for Variable Refresh Rate technology according to a recent report from DigiTimes. The panel is reported to support HDR however no exact specification was specified and will cover 96% of the DCI-P3 color space. The display also features proprietary technology including an anti-reflective coating and unique surface structure design to reduce glare. We are unsure what type of Variable Refresh Rate technology the panel will support or how much and when it may be available. The panel is not currently listed on the AU Optronics website but has reportedly won the 2021 Ministry of Science and Technology Central Science Park Fine Manufacturer Innovation Product Award.

Following the secret message in MSI's latest launch event- MSIology: Tech Meets Aesthetic, the premium laptop brand dropped a bombshell to the community by announcing its collaboration with Hiroshi Fujiwara, the world famous streetwear brand directed by the godfather of street fashion. Redefining the definition of aesthetics, MSI launched the Creator Z16 Hiroshi Fujiwara Limited Edition, which is at the same time the world's first and only laptop that the highly praised Hiroshi Fujiwara has ever worked with, symbolizing a major breakthrough and bringing the premium user experience to the next level.

Hiroshi Fujiwara, the icon of street fashion. Concentrating on collaborating merely with leading brands in diverse fields, including Maserati, LOUIS VUITTON, NIKE, TAG Heuer, Jordan, CYBERPUNK «2077», KAWS, Playboys, BVLGARI, Beats and many more. Hiroshi Fujiwara views co-branding as the core of its communicative approach to the audience and injects elements of street culture and subculture successfully in different types of products, making it the icon of trending fashion. As the world's only laptop recognized by Hiroshi Fujiwara, the MSI Creator Z16 Hiroshi Fujiwara limited edition presents the beauty of perfect melding, through the "Black on Black" concept that blends the sharp black double lightning logo and the Stellar Black aluminium body of the laptop.

MSI, a leading manufacturer of business, design and gaming technology, is proud to announce its new lineup of laptops powered by the latest 11th Gen Intel Core H series processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU. Having expanded to creators' terrain in recent years, MSI has perked up to materialize the concept where design is the bond between dreaming it and doing it through their upcoming virtual event "Tech Meets Aesthetic". The new laptops continue MSI's trend of producing top-tier, powerful machines with aesthetic touches that enhance user experience and unleash the inner gamer and creator spirits.

With a 30% performance upgrade over previous models, the high-speed combo of PCIe Gen4, Thunderbolt 4, and Wi-Fi 6E heighten increased enhancements. For the gaming lineup, MSI-exclusive features like "Discrete Graphics Mode" improve graphics performance, while MSI Center allows users to overclock the GPU with ease.

According to the latest investigations from the WitsView research division of TrendForce, issues with the NB (notebook computer) panel supply chain, such as material shortage, labor shortage, and logistic disruptions, were gradually resolved starting in April. The resolution of these issues, combined with rising WFH and distance education demand brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulted in a strong wave of panel demand in 2Q20. TrendForce projects 2Q20 NB panel shipment to reach 53.3 million units, a 17.7% increase YoY and 33.6% increase QoQ.

Acer today introduced their new XV272XU monitor. A wildly popular, sweet-spot-like 27" 1440p panel is used with what Acer says is an "IPS-like" panel from AUO Optronics' of the AHVA type. The 165 Hz refresh rate and 1 ms (GtG) response time alongside VRR support from both AMD (FreeSync) and NVIDIA (G-Sync) up the ante in terms of gaming fluency. The 178º/178º viewing angles and 8-bit panel ensure proper accuracy for its 99% coverage of the Adobe RGB color gamut, while the 1000:1 contrast ratio and VESA HDR400 certification round out the specifications.

There are swivel (+- 20º), pivot (+- 90º) and tilt (-5º to 25º) functions to increase adaptability to any workplace scenario, alongside height adjustment (in a 120 mm range). A VESA 100 x 100 mm mount is present, as are 2x 2 W speakers. I/= is taken care of by 4x USB 3.0 Type A, 1x USB Type-C, 2x HDMI 2.0, 1x DisplayPort 1.2, and 1x 3.5 mm audio jack. The Acer XV272XU is expected to be released between Q3-Q4 2020 for a price of 5,499 CNY ($770 / €707 / £632).

Top-of-the-line gaming brand AORUS, reveals itself at the 2019 GAMESCOM trade show in Germany Cologne, in which the spotlight shines at the all-new 17 inch flagship gaming laptop, the AORUS 17. AORUS takes the lead yet again through the co-op with world renowned switch manufacture OMRON to innovate and develop a set of unique mechanical switches that is tailored for the AORUS 17, not only does the keys offer exceptional durability, it also offers one of the best feeling keys that gamers can find on a laptop. The AORUS greatness continues through the combination of the brand new Intel 8-core CPU, NVIDIA RTX graphics chip with Ray Tracing technology and an exclusive WINDFORCE INFINITY cooling system, the AORUS 17 steadily sits on the high-end gaming thrown with these specs.

AORUS leads the industry again by working with world renowned mechanical switch manufacture, OMRON in order to create a unique set of mechanical keys for the AORUS laptop, with gamer oriented design details, including an optimal 2.5 mm key travel and an actuation point of 1.6 mm, giving gamers both the sensational touch and sound of a crisp blue switch, which gamers can now enjoy the qualities of a full mechanical keyboard right on their AORUS laptop. AORUS pursues further by redesigning the key caps to produce stunning backlit keys with unique "concentric" keycaps, letting the LED underneath the keycap shine though evenly, increasing the overall lighting intensity by 27%, in addition to the AORUS exclusive FUSION 2.0 keyboard customization software, gamers can truly create a unique personal style.

According to a report by DigiTimes, panel-maker AU Optronics is looking to ship gaming panels with built-in mini-LED technology going into the 4Q 2018. This isn't a new display tech, and shouldn't be confused with Micro LED tech, which is hailed as the great coming of an OLED killer. Despite that, mini-LED remains a very interesting, likely crucial piece of technology in enabling much increased color accuracy and contrast ratios of current panel technology - thus also bettering HDR implementations.

Usually, a given monitor or TV features Edge-lit LED technology to achieve the backlighting necessary for image display (or in the case of OLED, there's no need for any of that, since it's a self-emissive technology). In recent times, contrast ratios have been increased by the introduction of local dimming (essentially, there are multiple LED lighting units across the entirety of the monitor or TV, which can be singularly controlled to achieve desired lighting ratios). Mini-LED technology brings this a leap further, allowing for an enormous increase in lighting zones - up to the tens of thousands, compared, for example, to the 384 local dimming units present on the recently released 4K, 144 Hz G-Sync monitors - of which AUO did sample specification-like panels but with this added mini-LED tech. Of course, these "tens of thousands" still pale in comparison to an OLED panel's pixel-count-like dimmable LEDs. As a bonus, panel thickness can also be reduced with mini-LED tech.

It's true, it seems: as time passes, technology becomes cheaper, the entry point becomes lower, more people can acquire more products, demand balloons, and supply tries to keep up. The fundamentals sine right through AU Optronics' choice to increase output on panels that are apparently flying from their inventory: high-end LTPS notebook panels, for one, are selling like hot cakes. The reason is simple: LTPS (low-temperature polycrystalline silicon) can better sustain higher resolution panels with higher vibrancy and accurate color reproduction, but deteriorates faster than IPS LCD panels. So, it serves two purposes (though they'll never tell you about the second): better specs and increased, built-in obsolescence: a traditional feature in the world of capitalism.

Besides LTPS, 4K panels have increased their momentum (planned adoption rates for 2018 are being set at 40%, 10% over 2017's 30% attachment rate), 75-85" panel sales have more than tripled since the beginning of 2018, and 8K panels will start being shipped (in relatively small volumes) in the first quarter of this year. AU Optronics has also increased fabrication of 240 Hz screens for manufacturers that then use their panels on premium products, such as Acer, Asustek Computer, BenQ, ViewSonic, AOC and Philips.

Even as most users are still transitioning from their Full HD panels to 4K ones (less than 40% of users have a 4K-capable panel), the 8K panel onslaught should begin as early as the first half the current year. AU Optronics, one of the world's foremost panel makers, is expected to start shipping 8K-enabled panels between the 65-85 inch range in the first half of this year, thus moving the goalpost once again on what the top of the line in the display market is.

Liao Wei-lun, president of AUO's video products business group, said that global sales of 65- and 70-inch TVs and display products are expected to grow 40% and 50% on year, respectively, in 2018. As yields have improved, so has pricing come down, which means users will be looking to upgrade their panels to higher diagonal sizes. But the bigger the size, the higher the resolution of the panel has to be, and that's where AUO wants to do business. AUO expects the penetration rate of 65-inch and above sizes of 8K TVs will start gaining momentum in 2018 and reach 10% in 2020. Naturally, AUO plans to start 8K panel production on the higher margin products - high diagonal TVs - and will scale down from there, eventually hitting PC monitor's screens. Maybe by that time we'll have graphics card options that can actually push that gargantuan number of pixels.

It's confirmed: no 144 Hz 4K gaming with HDR in 2017 for NVIDIA gamers who want to make use of G-Sync t avoid screen tearing in their games. Acer last week announced that its 4K HDR Predator X27 gaming display would be delayed to Q1 2018 (meaning, no such thing below your Christmas tree or on your fireplace sock, sadly.) But it isn't Acer's fault, apparently: ASUS's ROG Swift PG27UQ, which features virtually the same specifications, has also been delayed to 2018. Both these monitors are based of an NVIDIA reference design showcased at Computex 2017 (you may remember a slight foul play there as well.)

The Acer Predator X27 and the ASUS ROG Swift PG27UQ are based on AU Optronics' M270QAN02.2 AHVA panel, which offers a 3840×2160 resolution and can reach a 144 Hz refresh rate. Something that really should make these monitors shine is the usage of a direct LED backlighting system with 384 zones, which can be individually dimmed or brightened as needed, which allows the panel to deliver much higher levels of contrast, needed for true HDR display. At least until OLED panels make their way to high-performance gaming monitors, these are expected to be the best of the crop.

NVIDIA today announced the G-SYNC HDR technology. An evolution of the company's proprietary adaptive display sync technology, which keeps the display's refresh-rates dynamically in-sync with the graphics card's frame-rates, G-SYNC HDR, as its name suggests, adds support for HDR (high dynamic range) displays. NVIDIA's partner display manufacturers such as Acer, and ASUS have each announced displays with this technology, which will will be available later this year.

NVIDIA worked with display panel maker AUOptronics to develop G-SYNC HDR. It leverages full 384-zone LED backlights, and a quantum-dot technology. The monitors rely on wide color gamuts, with 10-bit (1.07 billion color palettes) to bring HDR to life. G-SYNC HDR monitors come with support for the HDR10 standard. The year's most anticipated game, "Mass Effect: Andromeda," will come with support for G-SYNC HDR.

Display panel maker AU Optronics, which supplies LCD panels to major monitor and TV manufacturers, is reportedly working on bringing Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) panels into the mainstream, and promises "affordable" 27-inch and 32-inch monitors beaming those many pixels by Q1 or Q2, 2014. AU Optronics, or AUO as it's known in the industry, supplies LCD panels to a variety of monitor manufacturers, including ASUS, BenQ, Philips, and even Samsung (which also makes its own high-end panels). Among the two panels AUO is working on, one offers sRGB gamut with Adobe RGB gamut coverage; both will be able to reproduce 10-bit with dithering. Given that these panels will be intended for monitors, there will be two major requirements - at least 60 Hz of refresh rate, and as low response time as possible.