We must stick to the path of DLP innovation despite difficulties

    Flat panel splicing such as LCD is difficult to defend the core advantages of DLP

 

 

    At present, plasma splicing products have withdrawn from the market competition. The core reason for its market failure is that plasma display technology shows the collapse of the industry as a whole. Four major bottlenecks, including thin and light design, large size, high resolution and industrial scale, make plasma display technology unable to defend the living space of the color TV market. Without the support of the color TV industry, as an industry with highly intensive investment, technology and production capacity, plasma display is difficult to survive on the only scale of the professional stitching market.

 

    Unlike the plasma encounter, the LCD industry can be said to occupy the absolute advantage of today's overall display industry in four aspects: ultra-thin, large-scale, high-resolution and industrial scale - the LCD industry, the investment amount of a large panel companyIt will exceed the size of the global industry in the projection market. This is the core advantage of LCD. This is also the reason why LCD can become the "most popular" product in the video wall market.

In the mid-to-low-end market, in applications dominated by security and commercial displays, LCD products have achieved extremely high economic efficiency due to the huge scale of the entire industry chain. The unit price of mid-to-low-end LCD splicing screens is only one-tenth to one-fifth of that of DLP splicing units or small-pitch LED screens of the same size. This price advantage is an absolute competitive value for those users who have average requirements for the final "splicing gap".

However, in the high-end market, the final value of the customer is determined by the gaps in the product. At this time, the cost advantages, ultra-thin advantages, and unit resolution advantages of liquid crystal are difficult to play. On the contrary, the gap index of less than 1 mm in DLP splicing products has become the key to success or failure.

In 2015, the LCD splicing unit achieved a minimum splicing gap of 1.8 mm. From an application perspective, this is enough to meet the "metric needs" of the vast majority of customers. However, from a competitive perspective, this indicator is still significantly behind DLP splicing products by an order of magnitude. At the same time, the frame of the 1.8mm gap LCD unit product is not protected by a metal frame. This is for data lines directly under the bezel and precisionIn terms of the LCD of the screen, it is equivalent to "reliability naked running". And the DLP stitching of the border is only the role of the adhesive resin screen - its frame structure does not have complex electronic precision products in it.

 

    On the other hand, ultra-narrow slotted liquid crystal splicing units are already close to DLP products in terms of unit cost. However, DLP products can easily achieve large size units in the 70-90 inch class, while LCD splicing is 55 inches. This difference in unit size actually leads to a huge difference in the complexity, reliability and effective display area of the video wall at the same display area. This difference is an insurmountable obstacle for ultra-small pitch LCD stitching products to overcome DLP stitching.

 

    Now, as flat panel displays enter the OLED era, the value of further in-depth development of LCD splicing products is greatly reduced. This is equivalent to the battle against LCD stitching over DLP stitching in the high-end market, and a "kettle bottom pay draw" has come. In a sense, LCD splicing has reached the "end of life", and the future of flat panel splicing must be shouldered by new display technologies such as OLED.

 

    Small pitch led and DLP stitching misalignment competition

 

    On the gap index, the production that really challenges DLP splicingProducts are mainly plasma products, LCOS splicing, LCD projection splicing and now the most popular small-pitch led products.

 

    Plasma splicing products have become a thing of the past. Although its gap reaches the same order of magnitude as the DLP, it has congenital defects such as difficulty in realizing large-size units and burning screens. The rear projection stitching of the LCOS and LCD projection technologies is basically the same as the DLP stitching. However, due to the extinction of rear TV in the color TV market after 2005, the size of the stitching industry itself is difficult to accommodate so many technical competitions, and both have also chosen to exit the market.

    After the failure of the projection technology splicing market of plasma, LCOS and LCD, DLP splicing became the best choice for high-end splicing walls, and it was not until the rise of small-pitch LEDs in 2014 that this monopoly was broken.

 

 

    LED display is a large-screen technology with a long history. The core defect of this technology is the "dot pitch", or the low level of resolution. Since 2014, domestic led screen companies have broken through the 1.5, 1.2 and 1.0 mm pitch led screen display technology. This makes the led screen display and DLP stitching display basically the same order of magnitude on the "resolution" index.

 

 

    At the same time, from the perspective of the core engineering cost, there is no advantage in small-pitch led and DLP splicing. Especially when the project itself requires high-resolution products, the cost growth and reliability decline of small-pitch LEDs far exceeds that of DLP splicing products.

 

    For example, a small pitch led screen with 1.0 pitch, one square meter of screen is 1 million mechanically welded electronic components, and 3 million independently controlled light-emitting circuit structures. Moreover, the structural fabrication of small-pitch LEDs relies on more traditional mechanical forming techniques. In contrast, DLP splicing core optical valve DMD products, using semiconductor technology, with photolithography and integral molding as the core of the manufacturing system, have obvious advantages in "reliability".

    rapid development of small-pitch led screens has been proven in practice for three years., 1.5 and 1.2 pitch products have become the mainstream of the market and meet most market demands. Manufacturers' enthusiasm for further development of higher-grade products has cooled. In contrast, DLP splicing units have gradually moved from the 1K era to the 2K era, and in the future large-size units will enter the 4K era - this development process will help DLP splicing continue to maintain its existing market advantages.

Laser + 4K, DLP splicing has the foundation for continuous upgrades

In the face of competition from many similar application technologies, DLP splicing products have not slackened off because of their inherent advantages. Continuous technological progress is the password for DLP splicing to always win.

In the past ten years from 2006 to 2015, DLP has spliced ​​the gaps in core indicators and achieved double upgrades. On the one hand, the gap of mainstream DLP splicing products has jumped from 2 mm to 1 mm, and even reached 0.5 mm; on the other hand, unit products that achieve ultra-small gaps have gradually transitioned from 46 inches to 80 inches. This change has reduced the proportion of the gap to the display area on the most high-end products by 87.5%.

At the same time, DLP splicing units have also achieved another huge revolution in the past decade.New: DLP splicing is the only product line that achieves more than 90% of "solid-state light sources" in the current projection application form. The emergence and mature application of LED light sources have greatly improved the cost and maintenance reliability of DLP spliced bulb consumables. In recent years, laser light sources have also entered the DLP splicing market. As a high-brightness solid-state light source solution, lasers are easier to achieve "brightness enhancement" than LEDs. This will enable a new breakthrough in the large-size splicing unit market - the 80-inch large-size DLP splicing unit mercury lamp product has not completely disappeared due to the brightness bottleneck of the LED light source. As the final "barrier" to consumable bottlenecks, the large-size DLP unit market of 80 inches is being overcome by laser technology.

 

    If the change of gaps and light sources is the most core progress of DLP stitching in the past decade, then the change of resolution level is the key to continue to support the "upgrade" of DLP stitching units in the future.

    Why is DLP stitching more and more popular for large size units? The reason is that large size units can significantly reduce the complexity of oversized screen engineering, and improve reliability and reduce maintenance costs. So what technology is needed to achieve a large-size DLP splicing unit? In addition to brightness (brightness problems have long been solved, such as dual mercury lamp solutions, and more advanced laser solutions), resolution is another core technology.