The Battle between the Display Makers and the Touch-Module Makers Intensifies

Bob Mackey, Principal Scientist at Synaptics, highlighted the Huawei Ascend P2 smartphone as one of the newest examples of in-cell touch during his Monday Seminar M8 (“Touch + Display, Any Way You Want It”). The Ascend P2 uses a 4.7-inch, 1280 x 720 (HD) LCD with 315 pixels per inch. “In-cell” was used by Bob as a generic term to describe touch integrated into a display and supplied by the display maker rather than a touch-module maker. As Bob explained, the actual construction of the touch screen in this case should more accurately be described as “hybrid in-cell/on-cell”, where the touchscreen’s drive electrodes are integrated into the IPS display’s TFT array and the touchscreen’s sense electrodes are placed on top of the color filter glass – i.e., outside of the LCD cell.

Photo source: www.digitaltrends.com

The thickness of the Ascend P2 smartphone is 8.4 mm (0.33 inches); this is slightly thicker than the Samsung Galaxy S4 at 7.9 mm (0.31 inches) and the Apple iPhone 5 at 7.6 mm (0.30 inches). Note that in consumer terms rather than display-engineer terms, we’re talking about differences of hundredths of an inch here – not a heck of a lot. The iPhone 5 uses “true” in-cell (both touchscreen electrodes are in the TFT array; the Galaxy S4 uses on-cell (both touchscreen electrodes are on top of the OLED encapsulation glass). The difference in thickness between any of these touch configurations supplied by a display maker versus the latest touch configuration supplied by a touch-module maker (touch on the underside of the cover-glass, known as OGS or “one glass solution”) is only around 100 microns (0.1 mm). Bob said during his seminar that “Some [smartphone] OEMs would sell their mother for 100 microns [reduction in product thickness].” In reality, 0.1 mm is a small portion of the difference in thickness between the Ascend P2 and the iPhone-5. The real battle isn’t about the thickness of the touch-display; it’s about who supplies the touch functionality.

According to DisplaySearch, the total revenue produced by touch-module makers in 2007 was $1.3 billion while in 2013 it will be $21.4 billion. The size of the touch market has become significant relative to the ~$100B display market, so the display-makers want a piece of the action. That’s the real driving force in in-cell, not technology or thickness. There’s beginning to be a strong possibility that over the next five years, the display industry will become the preferred touch-supplier for most high-volume consumer-electronics devices. Again using DisplaySearch numbers, revenue for mobile phones and tablets alone will account for 74% of the total touch market in 2018. If the display industry were to take all of that revenue, the touch-module industry would shrink to less than 40% of its current size. The battle is just beginning. –Geoff Walker