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30 Pages·2015·2.45 MB·English

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Disappointing Q4 Puts
C o n t e n t s Brakes on IDC’s Tablet
Forecast
Detailed Contents 2
IDC has cut back its five-year forecast for so far, Windows is expected to gain signifi-
Company News 3
worldwide tablet shipments, following a YoY cant share over the coming years - growing
decline in Q4’14. The firm expects 234.5 from 5.1% in 2015 to 14.1% in 2019.
Market News 4
million units to be shipped this year, repre- Jean Philippe Bouchard, IDC’s research di-
In Brief 23 senting a moderate increase of 2.1%. Al- rector for tablets, said, “Microsoft is doing a
though predictions have been cut, IDC still lot of good things right now and we believe
Product News 28 expects positive - if low - growth from the the launch of Windows 10 later this year will
tablet market in the coming years; primarily not only have a significant impact on
Rear Panel 30 due to increasing demand in the commer- Microsoft’s share of the market, but on the
cial sector, as Microsoft rises. industry as a whole...There is an appetite for
Android will remain the market leader in a platform that can provide a productivity
operating system terms, with almost 66% experience that remains consistent across
of the market to 2019. iOS is ‘likely the weak- multiple form factors and device types, and
est link’; IDC predicts that the OS’s volume we believe Microsoft is well positioned to
share will fall this year, to levels below those capture some of that demand”.
seen since 2012. Despite modest adoption
Worldwide Tablet and Convertible Shipments' Market Share and YoY Growth by Operating
System, 2014 – 2019 (Shipments in Millions)
Operating 2015 Units 2019 Units 2014 Market 2015 Market 2019 Market
2014 Units
System (F) (F) Share (%) Share (%) (F) Share (%) (F)
Android 154.7 158.1 169.5 67.3 67.4 62.9
ISSN 2057-5971 iOS 63.4 60.1 61.9 27.6 25.6 23
is published 48 times a year and copyright
Windows 11.6 16.3 38 5.1 7 14.1
Meko Ltd. Total 229.7 234.5 269.4 100 100 100
134 Upper Chobham Road Source: IDC
Camberley
Surrey Worldwide Tablet and Convertible
GU15 1EJ
UK 300 Shipment Forecast 60
Tel: [phone]
Source: IDC
250 50
Follow us @Display_Daily
Send any news to:
[email protected] s) 200 40
Managing Editor Million YoY G
BBusoibn Resasik eEsdiitor News Editor ents ( 150 30rowth
Helen Vince Tom Allen pm (%
Contributing Editors hi 100 20)
Arthur Berman Steve Sechrist S
Matthew Brennesholtz Len Scrogan
Vanessa Browning Ken Werner
50 10
Chris Chinnock David Barnes
Norbert Hildebrand Phil Wright
0 0
Subscription rates available on request. 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
www.meko.co.uk
Contents
Contents
Editor’s comment
Disappointing Q4 Puts Brakes on IDC’s Tablet
Forecast.....................................................1
Company News, Finance Results 3 Steve mentions in his report in this issue that the interest at
DSE from Google might be related to the idea that Digital
Sony Starts Job Cuts in Sweden.................................... 3
Signage might just become part of the “Internet of Things”
Panasonic to Establish Procurement Unit....................... 3
(IOT). I can see what he means and we have been reporting on developments that
Microsoft Files Lawsuit Against Kyocera........................ 3
might suggest this.
Intel Cuts Revenue Forecast ......................................... 3
It seems to me that one of the key concepts that is central to this is the idea of
TCL to Build Plants in India, Brazil................................... 3 “Display as a Service”. I was reminded of this technology earlier this week as I was
Sharp Rebuts Latest Rumours....................................... 3 at CeBIT and spoke to the University of Saarland, which has been working with
Intel on this concept. DaaS was launched at the Hannover show in 2013, al-
Market News 4
though there was no news on the idea at this year’s CeBIT. In fact, the last entry
SID Display Week iZone Extends Deadline.................... 4 to the DaaS blog was from CeBIT 2013.
SuperMHL Silicon Announced...................................... 5 The idea of DaaS is that applications can send pixels to displays without worrying
Slight Increase in Long-Term PC Forecast, Says IDC........ 6 if there is a directly connected display and without worrying about the detailed
HSA Finalises 1.0 Specification for Power-Efficient Computing specification of the final display device. The display image is created on the source
................................................................................ 7 device, then compressed and transmitted over a network to the final display,
Editorial (Continued) ..................................................... 7 where it may be combined with other images and where the limits and features of
Pascal is Nvidia’s Newest, Fastest GPU Architecture....... 8 the final display device are taken into account (borders, bezels, aspect ratios,
whether it’s a video wall etc) and the final image rendered. Equally, the display
Silver Nanowires Approach $500 Million Value............... 8
device can look around for content from “pixel providers” and blend those into an
Gartner Predicts Strong Growth for Head Mounted Displays
image for display. You can easily see how those approaches might be attractive to
................................................................................ 9
makers of “headless” IoT devices which could look around for a display to show
Competition Shifts Tablet Share Away From Dominant Brands
their data.
................................................................................ 9
The End of an Era (Final Chapter)...................... 19
Atheer Labs has Unique IP to help Augmented Reality
Adoption........................................................ 20
Smartwatches - The Future of Wearables? ........... 21
One Connector to Rule Them All... ....................... 22
Event Report - CeBIT 2015 10
In Brief 23
Product News 28
This kind of “display virtualisation” is a very powerful concept. It’s basically the
Impression Pi Boasts Control Through Computer Vision 28 same kind of approach that has seen the development of the idea of the “Virtual
Toshiba Produces Tiny Convertible PC..........................28 STB” by Active Video Networks that we have been writing about since 2010 and
Sharp’s POS System Uses Dual Flush Displays..............28 which is gradually getting into the TV market. It’s also behind the remote provision
Asus’ UltraHD Notebook Runs for Six Hours.................29 of workstation performance by RealVNC and AMD that we report on from CeBIT.
Product Roundup........................................................29 Nvidia has also shown impressive game play over the internet to us in the past, and
I have raved over several years about the “Project Fresco” research project that
REAR PANEL 30
NDS started developing before it was acquired by Cisco and which won prizes for
Cisco in 2013.
Matt wrote about technology from Userful that uses some of the same concepts
in the same space in his Display Daily article in December.
So, we have Intel, Cisco and Google working away on this, among many others
including high tech start-ups in software and networking - there’s a lot of activity.
Continued on page 9
20 March 2015 Mobile Display Monitor
2
Company News, Finance Results
able on fair, reasonable and non-discrimina-
Sony Starts Job Cuts in Sharp Rebuts Latest
tory terms” and has agreed patent licensing
deals with a number of Android handset
Sweden Rumours
manufacturers, including Samsung, LG and
HTC.
Sony is reported to have started making Sharp has issued a further denial to reports
Reuters quoted a Microsoft spokesman
the first round of job cuts in its mobile busi- in Nikkei this week that it is planning job cuts,
as saying, “We respect Kyocera but we be-
ness, with news that 1,000 jobs are to go in capital enforcement and a revised earnings
lieve they need to license the patented tech-
Sweden. forecast.
nology they are using. We’re hopeful this
The company is understood to have told Nikkei had claimed that Sharp was seek-
case can be resolved amicably”.
staff in Lund that it will almost halve the ing a ¥200 billion ($1.6 billion) capital injec-
workforce there from 1st April when Sony tion from its main banks, Mizuho Bank and
begins making structural changes to its busi- Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, which was
Intel Cuts Revenue Forecast
ness. ¥50 billion ($410 million) more than its initial
Last month Sony narrowed its annual net request. The report also said that Sharp was
Intel has cut its first quarter turnover fore-
loss forecast to ¥170 billion ($1.4 billion), planning to cut more than 10% of its Japa-
cast by almost a billion dollars, saying it now
having previously said it expected to record nese workforce, equating to around 3,000
expects turnover to be around $12.8 billion
a net loss of ¥230 billion ($1.9 billion) (Sony jobs, through voluntary early retirement.
having previously forecast $13.7 billion.
Cuts Loss Forecast but Also Cuts More Jobs). Sharp said: “Under the current severe busi-
The change in outlook is a result of weaker
At the same time Sony announced a further ness environment, Sharp is considering vari-
than expected demand for business desk-
round of job cuts in its mobile business. The ous options to reduce overall fixed costs, but
top PCs and lower than expected inventory
business has now seen its workforce re- no specific decisions are made apart from
levels across the PC supply chain. Intel said it
duced by one third. the voluntary salary cut of directors and ex-
believes the changes to demand and inven-
ecutive officers which was announced ear-
tory patterns are caused by lower than ex-
lier”, and reiterated that an announcement
Panasonic to Establish pected Windows XP refresh in small and
would be made in May 2015.
medium business and increasingly challeng-
Procurement Unit ing macroeconomic and currency conditions,
particularly in Europe.
Panasonic is to set up a dedicated unit for
procuring common parts and materials, in a
TCL to Build Plants in India,
bid to improve competitiveness and lower
costs.
Brazil Computacenter plc has released its 2014
The company’s annual procurement bill is
results, reporting a net profit of £55.1 million
around $32.6 billion, covering all of
TCL Corp. says it is planning to start build- ($81.3 million) for the year on turnover of
Panasonic’s business segments and reports
ing factories in India and Brazil next year to £3.1 billion ($4.5 billion), which compares
suggest that the new unit would be respon-
manufacture smartphones and wearable with a net profit a year earlier of £33.1 million
sible for around half of that amount.
devices. According to reports, the company ($48.8 million) on turnover of £3 billion ($4.4
wants to establish manufacturing bases in billion). Total turnover in Germany declined
Microsoft Files Lawsuit these two countries to meet the needs of 8.2% to £1.1 billion ($1.6 billion), while the
their rapidly expanding consumer electron- UK reported strong revenue growth of
Against Kyocera ics markets. By setting up plants close to the 10.2% to £1.4 billion ($2 billion).
end market, TCL is aiming to overcome high Emagin Corporation has released its
Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against Kyocera import tariffs. fourth quarter and full year results, posting a
alleging that three of the Japanese compa- Last week, TCL reported a 60% jump in net loss of $1.5 million on turnover of $6.7
ny’s phones infringed seven Microsoft pat- net profit for the year to $518 million and an million in Q4, which compares with a net
ents. According to a Reuters report, Microsoft 18.4% increase in turnover to $14.4 billion, loss of $8.7 million on turnover of $6.1 mil-
has asked a federal judge in Seattle to im- largely driven by a 60.3% growth in sales at lion in the final quarter of last year. For the
Display Monitor
pose a US sales injunction against Kyocera’s its handset unit, TCL Communication Tech- year, Emagin’s net profit narrowed to $5.2
alleged infringing products. nology. This year, TCL Communications is million from $14 million in the previous year,
Microsoft had previously said that it will targeting 30% revenue growth as part of the while turnover fell to $25.7 million from $28
adhere to the wishes of standards organisa- group’s wider push to transform itself into a million.
tions and make its standard patents “avail- manufacturer of connected technologies.
Mobile Display Monitor 3 20 March 2015
Finance Results, People News
Sony Corporation recorded a net profit million) on turnover of ¥5.4 trillion ($44.7 bil-
of ¥90 billion ($746.3 million) in the third quar- lion), which compares with a net profit for Midwich Expands Technical
ter of the year on turnover of ¥2.5 trillion ($20.7 the corresponding period of last year of ¥9.8
billion), which compares with a net profit in billion ($81.3 billion) on turnover of ¥5 trillion Sales Team
Q3 of the previous year of ¥26.4 billion ($41.4 billion).
($218.9 million) on turnover of ¥2.4 trillion Hannstar Display has released its fourth Midwich has appointed Steve Goodwin to
($19.9 billion). The 6.5% increase in turnover quarter and full year results, posting a net its technical sales team. Goodwin has worked
in Q3 was primarily driven by an increase in loss of NT$659 million ($20.9 million) in Q4, in the past on many higher education pro-
unit sales of smartphones and a significant which compares with a net profit in the final curement frameworks with system integra-
increase in Sony’s devices segment sales. quarter of the previous year of NT$148 mil- tors, such as Impact Marcom.
This was partially offset, however, by de- lion ($4.7 million), on turnover which was flat
creases in Sony’s other business units, at NT$6.3 billion ($200.3 million). Hannstar’s
mostly related to the company’s exit from net profit for the year was NT$541 million
the PC business. Mobile communications ($17.2 million) on turnover of NT$23.7 billion
sales increased 28.7% year on year to ¥429 ($753.7 million).
billion ($3.5 billion), while sales in the home Hannstar’s small and medium sized panel
entertainment and sound business dipped shipments in Q4 reached 110 million units,
2.3% to ¥413.3 billion ($3.4 billion). while shipments of large panels and HannsG
For the first nine months of the year, Sony products reached 300,000 units.
recorded a net loss of ¥19.2 billion ($159.2
Market News
SID Display Week iZone The deadline for applications to Display ent research labs, that often lack the funds to
Week’s innovation Zone (iZone) was ex- show off new prototypes. iZone will also fea-
Extends Deadline
tended to March 27th. As committee chair ture next generation device development
Helgi Seetzen explained, the show’s pro- from established companies looking for feed-
ducer, Society for Information Display (SID) is back on non commercial shipping devices.
looking to expand the prototype display tech- The iZone was established in 2013 and its
nology space to some 35 booths. The group corporate sponsor E-Ink Holdings LLC has
is accepting applications on its website and kept up the funding since its charter man-
evaluating candidates for suitable prototypes date. Companies wanting to apply for a space
that can be demonstrated during the show in the iZone can find all documentation on
on a no fee basis. the SID iZone website.
The I-Zone offers researchers space to dem- At Display Week 2015, the I-Zone Com-
onstrate their prototypes or other hardware mittee will select a winner of the “Best I-
demo units for two days free of charge at the Zone Prototype at Display Week 2015”
premier display exhibition in North America, award, to be announced on the show floor
and gives attendees a chance to view best- during Display Week and in the post Display
in-class emerging information display tech- Week issue of Information Display magazine.
nologies in a dedicated area on the show Dates were pushed back so filing deadline
floor. The committee is actively encouraging is now March 27 and candidates will have
participation by small companies, startups, until April 10 to confirm participation. To ap-
Our own Matt Brennesholtz seen trying
universities, government labs, and independ- ply go to the iZone Application website.
a Fraunhofer IPMS bidirectional HMD
The I-Zone is one that always gets a lot of attention from press and analysts, so the offer of a free table is a really
good one. How often is such an opportunity given for free in the heart of Silicon Valley? (BR)
20 March 2015 Mobile Display Monitor
4
Market News
At CES, the MHL Consortium announced tice for the SiI9779. He said that by 2018
SuperMHL Silicon
the superMHL specification. This specifica- DisplaySearch predicts that virtually 100%
Announced
tion, when implemented by CE manufactur- of TVs 55" and larger will be 4k and manufac-
ers, will allow 8K 120Hz video to connect turers are looking to the success of 4k as
from the source to the display with a single justification to move beyond it to 8k. He said
cable. the 8k demonstration at CES on a 110” dis-
On March 16th, the other shoe dropped. play had been very well received, both by
Lattice Semiconductor, which recently ac- the consumer electronics people who saw
quired Silicon Image, the driving force be- it and by the production and post-production
hind the original MHL specification, an- people.
nounced on March 16th the first superMHL HDMI, the original basis for MHL connec-
port processor, the SiI9779. This chip is in- tivity, was originally intended as a consumer
tended to be used either in an 8k TV or a interface, just like superMHL. However, HDMI
dedicated 8k set top box. When used at the has been widely adopted by professional
receiving end of a video stream in a TV, the applications as a single cable, uncompressed
SiI9779 can handle one superMHL connec- solution to display connectivity for both 2k/
tor and three HDMI 2.0 connectors. When HDTV and 4k/UHD applications. (I’m writing
used as a transmitter in an STB, it can trans- this article on a laptop connected to a moni-
mit only the superMHL signal, not HDMI sig- tor via HDMI.) Since superMHL is the only
nals. While the superMHL specification al- single-cable solution to 8k video currently
lows 8K 120Hz video, the SiI9779 chip can available, even as a specification, Goldberg
only handle a maximum of 8k at 60Hz. sees it moving into the professional market
as well as the consumer market.
According to Goldberg, the superMHL
standard is uncompressed at “lower” data
rates such as UHD 60Hz. At the extreme
data rates superMHL is capable of, such as
8K120 with HDR, visually lossless compres-
sion is applied, with compression ratios in
the 2x – 3x range (using the VESA
DisplayStream standard - Man. Ed.). When
used with HDR signals such as Dolby Vision,
superMHL transmits metadata to the TV or
other display that tells the display exactly what
the HDR is, whether it is Dolby Vision or some
other HDR technique. It’s then up to the TV
electronics to display the video correctly.
The superMHL connector is reversible in
two senses. First, it is (or at least can be) the
same on both ends, unlike, for example, ear-
lier versions of USB. Second, each connec-
tor is reversible top-to-bottom, so if you are
fumbling around behind a display in the dark,
you don’t have to worry about reversing the
The SiI9779 supports key features such as: connector to plug it in.
• 8k60 resolution Goldberg said Lattice Semiconductor will
• BT.2020 expanded colour gamut be sampling the SiI9779 in Q2 to TV, display
• High Dynamic Range, such as Dolby Vi- and set top box manufacturers.
sion 8k content? Goldberg said the first planned
• Reversible connector (top-to-bottom, end- 8k availability will be in 2020 when NHK plans
to-end) to broadcast the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
• Latest audio features including object au- Manufacturers have plenty of time to ramp
dio, high resolution and high bit-rate au- up 8k STBs and TVs before then. He added
dio such as Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, 3D au- that there are likely to be professional and
dio PC graphics applications for 8k before then.
• Audio-only mode - Matthew Brennesholtz
I had a chance to talk to Marshall Goldberg
of Lattice Semiconductors, formerly of Silicon
Image. He is the Sr. Product Manager at Lat-
Mobile Display Monitor 5 20 March 2015
Market News
Slight Increase in Long- PC shipments worldwide will fall by 4.9% areas, but IDC believes that the more posi-
YoY in 2015, says IDC, which has revised its tive Q4’14 result was the result of inventory
Term PC Forecast, Says
previous forecast down from a 3.3% fall. At build-up. It is thought that retailers were
IDC
the same time, growth predictions for 2016 stocking up on ‘Windows 8.1 Plus Bing’ sys-
and 2017 were raised slightly. tems ahead of Microsoft lowering subsidies
In Q4’14, PC results were 1.7% ahead of in 2015.
IDC’s forecast. Total 2015 volume is ex- A short-term impact of the above is ex-
pected to reach 293.1 million units, falling to pected to affect consumer channels, as they
291.4 million by 2019. In value terms, the seek to clear stock. Average prices are likely
market was worth $201 billion in 2014 (a to rise in the near future, due to subsidy scale
0.8% fall), and is expected to decline 6.9% backs, the strong US dollar (making systems
this year. Small declines in the following years more expensive overseas) and the contin-
will bring market value to $175 billion by 2019. ued shift to slim, convertible and touch-based
There were real demand improvements PCs. In addition, IDC believes that OEM prod-
in the second half of 2014 in some market uct updates and consumer demand will be
delayed until the end of 2015, due to the
release of Intel’s Skylake platform and
PC Shipments by Region and Product Category (Shipments in
Microsoft’s Windows 10.
Millions)
Emerging markets are especially strug-
Product gling, ending last year with shipments down
Region 2014 (A) 2015 (F) 2016 (F)
Category 9.5%. 2015 growth projections are for a 4.7%
Emerging Markets Desktop PC 80.4 76.8 75.2 fall. Spending in these regions has been lim-
ited by political instability, commodity pric-
Portable PC 83.2 79.1 83.7
ing pressures and currency devaluations.
Total PC 163.7 156.0 159.0
Additionally there has been competition from
Mature Markets Desktop PC 53.4 48.7 45.8
other devices, such as mobiles and
Portable PC 91.1 88.4 86.7 wearables. Although emerging regions are
Total PC 144.5 137.1 132.5 expected to see positive growth in 2017,
Worldwide Desktop PC 133.8 125.5 121.0 shipment estimates will remain below 160
Portable PC 174.3 167.5 170.4 million units through 2019 - down from 163.7
million last year.
Total PC 308.1 293.1 291.4
Mature regions are expected to fare bet-
Source: IDC
ter, having ended 2014 at 8.4% growth - the
first positive result since 2010. XP system
replacements; slowing tablet demand; and
Worldwide PC Forecast by Product Category, aggressive PC pricing supported the result.
2013 -2016 Despite this, IDC expects shipments to fall
5.1% YoY in 2015, followed by incremental
Source: IDC
350
-9.8% declines in coming years. IDC has revised its
-2.2%
300 -4.9% -0.7% previous forecast up slightly, and now ex-
pects 134 million units to be shipped to
ns) 250 mature regions in 2019, up from 130 million.
o
Milli 200 Windows 10, to be introduced later this
s ( year, is expected to be well-received and
nt
me 150 support the Windows ecosystems. It will also
hip provide a better mouse-and-keyboard expe-
S 100
rience, relieving some pressure to move to-
wards touch, and support non-PC devices
50
like convertibles - likely without significantly
0 boosting total PC shipments.
2013 (A) 2014 (F) 2015 (F) 2016 (F) Loren Loverde, VP of worldwide PC track-
Portable PC Desktop PC ers at IDC, said, “The gains in mature regions
20 March 2015 Mobile Display Monitor
6
Market News
Slight Increase in Long- for 2014 helped stabilise the market, but any through 2019 from -1.1% to 0.5%. Vendors
opportunity for long-term growth depends can focus on growth segments of the PC
Term PC Forecast, Says
on reviving growth in emerging regions, and market such as AIO, slim and convertible PCs,
IDC
that seems unlikely with the shift toward or consolidate share, but pressure on pricing
mobile devices... Even including 2-in-1 sys- and from competing devices will continue
Continued from previous page
tems would only boost the compound an- to make it a challenging market”.
nual growth rate for total PC shipments
Bob O’Donnell once of IDC but now of TECHnalysis Research is more positive than this and expects just 1% or
so drop this year. Other commentators have pointed out that there are two schools of thought on PC forecasts
- there are those that see the more negative results as “normal”, while better quarters are the exception, and
others who see the positive quarters as “normal”, with the negative ones the real variations! (BR)
HSA Finalises 1.0 The Heterogeneous System Architecture fines how applications interact with HSA plat-
(HSA) Foundation has released the HSA 1.0 forms. HSA 1.0 includes several features for
Specification for Power-
specification, bringing the technology indus- the efficient implementation of languages
Efficient Computing
try one step closer to true heterogeneous such as C++, Java and Python on heteroge-
computing on platforms spanning mobile neous hardware. These enhancements are
devices, desktops, high-performance com- intended to make heterogeneous comput-
puting (HPC) systems and servers’. ing available to mainstream and mobile ap-
HSA is an architecture that integrates the plications.
CPU and GPU on the same bus. Both are Mediatek was one of the first companies
used for compute tasks, in parallel. The to produce mainstream heterogeneous ap-
newly-approved specification includes ele- plications, with SoCs such as the MT6589
ments designed to improve the program- and MT6785. Giri Amarakone of the com-
mability of heterogeneous processors, the pany said, “HSA allows us to move to the
portability of programming code and next step of heterogeneous computing with
interoperability across different vendor de- the ease of conventional programming and
vices. They include: superior power efficiency”.
The HSA System Architecture Specifica- Tim Leland, VP of product management at
tion, which defines how the hardware oper- Qualcomm, noted that the company is de-
ates; The HSA Programmers Reference veloping new, low-power, heterogeneous
Manual (PRM), which targets the software computing technologies for Qualcomm
ecosystem, tool and compiler developers; Hexagon DSP, Adreno GPU and custom CPU
The HSA Runtime Specification, which de- micro architectures.
Editorial (Continued) Now, the challenge of display interfaces is always off going from MPEG2 to MPEG4/H.264 to H.265/
the sheer number of bits that needed to be transmit- HEVC. Adding the decompression hardware tends to
ted. We see this challenge in our story in this issue on increase the cost of your display “end points”. How-
the new HP wireless display dock - the bandwidth ever, in IOT and digital signage applications, unlike
needed and that consequent high frequencies of the desktop applications, latency is not a big issue.
radio means that ranges are very limited. Given a flat level of display quality delivery, you could
To get the bandwidth requirement down needs com- see how quickly improvements in networks, the codecs
pression and then you run into two problems. Com- and the chips that run them could be successful. How-
press too much and you start to lose data - and the ever, the demands of users of displays go up and up in
human visual system is very sensitive to the visual terms of resolutions, colours, refresh rates and dy-
artefacts from lossy compression on graphics content namic range, offsetting the gains made elsewhere.
(if not so much on video). On that basis, it looks as though it will be a while
Compression and de-compression also takes time, before direct display interfaces are just a part of dis-
which introduces latency, and the more sophisticated play history!
the codec, the more silicon you need. That’s the trade Bob
Mobile Display Monitor 7 20 March 2015
Market News
Pascal is Nvidia’s Nvidia’s GPU technology Conference took which data can be delivered to the GPU. 3D
place in the USA recently, with a new flag- memory will increase bandwidth by three
Newest, Fastest GPU
ship GPU (see Product News) announced as times, with almost three times the frame
Architecture
well as a brand new architecture. buffer capacity of Maxwell-based GPUs. Pas-
Maxwell is Nvidia’s 10th-generation GPU cal-based GPUs will have their memory chips
architecture, and will be succeeded by ‘Pas- staked on top of each other and placed adja-
cal’ in 2016. According to Nvidia, Pascal is as cent to the GPU, rather than further down
much as 10 times faster than Maxwell. the processor boards. Bits will thus need to
Pascal’s design was developed thanks to travel a small distance between the two com-
Nvidia’s work on deep (aka machine) learn- ponents, accelerating communication and
ing. GPUs based on the architecture will have raising power efficiency.
three key features: mixed-precision comput- Finally, Nvidia’s NVLink interconnect ena-
ing; 3D memory; and NVLink. bles faster data movement: between 5 and
12 times faster, the company says, than PCIe.
It also means that the number of GPUs in a
system working together in deep learning
computations can be doubled. Nvidia has a
video about NVLink that can be viewed at
http://tinyurl.com/q48pn9n.
Deep learning is a key part of the automo-
tive market. We talked to Nvidia about its
move into this space at CES, where it was
showing the new Drive PX platform (Nvidia’s
Teraflop Chip Enables Self-Aware Cars). Drive
PX, which now has a price ($1,000), monitors
a car’s surroundings to enable self-driving
vehicles. It uses two Tegra X1 processors
and can combine data streams from up to 12
cameras.
Automotive is the fastest-growing seg-
ment of Nvidia’s Tegra business, with higher
gross margins than the devices segment.
Revenues almost doubled YoY in Q4’14, and
Mixed-precision computing enables Pas- more than 7.5 million cars now use Nvidia’s
cal-based GPUs to compute at 16-bit floating technology - well up from 4.7 million a year
point accuracy; this is of particular benefit to ago.
classification and convolution, which are key At the GTC, Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicted
to deep learning. that self-driving cars would become the rule,
Memory bandwidth limits the speed at rather than the exception, within 20 years.
Interestingly, Anandtech reports that Nvidia has significant advantages over AMD in the GPU market. The site’s
most demanding benchmarks (Crysis 3 at UltraHD in high quality, with FXAA) saw the Titan X beat the R9
290X’s performance by 54%; AMD’s high-end GPUs had their last significant refresh in 2013. For many years,
the two company’s have been almost even in performance. (TA)
Silver Nanowires A report by Nanomarkets (http://tinyurl.com/ expected to be worth about $41 million this
lsj7kf8) predicts that the market for silver year and $158 million in 2018.
Approach $500 Million
nanowire-based transparent conductor ma- Other end markets, notably solar photo-
Value
terials will be worth $485 million by 2022. voltaic and OLED displays, will provide more
These materials are currently seeing increas- revenue opportunities throughout the fore-
ing adoption in touch sensors. The market is cast period.
20 March 2015 Mobile Display Monitor
8
Market News
Gartner Predicts Strong At a press event in Taipei, Gartner research According to this math, a total of 10 million
director Brian Blau stated that the total unit head mounted displays have been sold so
Growth for Head
sales for virtual reality, augmented reality and far and are in the hands of users. This in-
Mounted Displays
other smart glass apps will grow to 2 million cludes all Google Glass devices as well as
units by 2016 and 5 million in 2017 followed the many other devices from Epson, Vuzix
by 8 million in 2018. This includes all head and others. Gartner saw an increase in HMD
mounted displays. They conclude that by sales in 2014 and believes that this repre-
2018 more than 25 million head mounted sents the strongest sales in this technology
displays will have been sold. so far. The analyst sees this development as
a move from the fringe of the markets to an
entry into the mainstream consumer mar-
Head-Mounted Display Growth, 2016 -2018
ket.
9 Source: Gartner 160 The company continued that, before 2014,
8 140 the main application for head mounted dis-
plays were specialty applications such as in-
7
120
s) dustrial design, military training and simula-
on 6
Milli 100 G tion. Of course, this changed to a certain de-
Sales ( 45 80 rowth (% gkeret ea nwdh peuns Gheodo gfoler Gmlaassss emnaterkreetd atdhoep mtioanr-.
60 )
3 So far this initiative has failed as Google Glass
40 has been discontinued for adoption in the
2
general public space.
1 20
Gartner believes that this will change as
0 0 soon as HMD’s are offered as stylish, con-
2016 2017 2018
sumer grade video eyeglasses. In addition,
companies such as Sony, Samsung and HTC
I have seen and tried many head mounted displays and personally found most of them more of a scientific
(there are more offering such devices) need
project than a consumer device. First of all the image quality often left much to be desired and secondly the use
to provide quality devices together with com-
cases were often weak and were met with resistance because of social awkwardness. This is by no means a
pelling applications to enhance the user ex-
good start for the use of this technology in consumer markets.
perience.
Gartner sees the style of the device and video use as the keys to consumer adoption. Interestingly it did not
mention gaming as a potential driver. Looking at the interest of the media in virtual reality and Oculus Rift in
particular, it seems that other players like Facebook and Microsoft have other ideas for this technology. Gaming,
video conferencing, social media and other applications seem to be more attractive for these companies.
The current market trend seems to favor industrial and military applications. While it is possible that these
applications will generate these kind of sales numbers, this still does not mean that the technology is ready for
the mass market. Oculus Rift may be released later this year and change all that. So far the only application I
have seen working very well was for drawing attention to a booth at MWC. People lined up to watch some
content. The interest of people is there (or at least curiosity - Man. Ed.), but there is a long way to go to mass
market adoption. - NH
Competition Shifts Apple and Samsung, the tablet market’s The new report from Juniper (http://
leading vendors, will see their market share tinyurl.com/kgq6eoc) predicts that tablets’
Tablet Share Away From
fall in the coming years, says Juniper Re- variety and capabilities will expand. Sales will
Dominant Brands
search. New players introducing low-cost be affected by phablets, and manufacturers
models and new form factors will be respon- will need to develop devices suited to differ-
sible for the companies’ combined 38% ent segments, rather than products that
market by 2019, says the firm. aimed at a very broad audience.
Lenovo is chief among the competing Android will remain dominant, although
brands. Juniper has forecast that the Chinese Windows devices will represent just under
company will ship 30 million tablets, on top 10% of the market by 2019.
of what it is already selling, by 2019.
Mobile Display Monitor 9 20 March 2015
Event Report - CeBIT 2015
Many of the halls were very quiet, although and Jack Ma of AliBaba. Ma said that he was
the main software halls with Microsoft, SAP at CeBIT for the third time as he had found it
and Software Ag were busy and I make no very hard on previous occasions to make an
change in my analysis that from an interna- impact in Europe. Looking to the future, he
tional hardware show, it has become a Ger- said that the next wave of business is about
man software event. Except for the Chinese. building sustainable internet companies. At
There was a huge area in Halle 6 that was the moment, internet companies such as
taken by the Chinese trade authorities and Google and AliBaba could not, typically, last
with attendance from several big vendors more than a few years - they have to be-
including BOE, CEC and TCL. However, there come like Mercedes or Siemens. (I wonder
were very few visitors on the booths when about this - the point about software is that it
we visited, in the middle of the afternoon. is very asset light and becoming more so as
We were told by staff from the companies the cloud becomes more important - and
that we spoke to that they were there partly that means faster speed and mobility. There’s
because China was the special partner com- a symmetry, companies can become global
CeBIT is Very Quiet - but
pany this year. There were also hundreds of leaders very quickly, but can die just as fast. -
small component and accessory companies Man. Ed.)
Merkel Promises 50 Mb/s
from China, but few talking to anybody when Ma said that B2C has to become C2B, with
We have been documenting the decline of we went past. It’s hard to imagine how they businesses doing more to offer customised
CeBIT for quite a few years, now (I’ve seen can recover the costs of participation. products. The last industrial revolution was
the arc over 30 or more years - Man. Ed.). It The biggest part of our time was in the about replacing muscle power, the next one
grew out of the Hannover Fair, which covers Reseller Hall where API ComputerHandel will be based on replacing and enhancing
many industries, in the 1980s and was a had a big booth that was being supported by human brains. In the future, he said that
huge success in the ’90s. However, many of a number of vendors of displays and graph- “clicks & mortar” is essential. It’s not tech-
the top PC hardware brands dropped to low ics products. nology that changes the world, it’s the
level of attendance a few years ago and it We managed to get around to see every- dreams that matter. Ma said that his latest
entered a period of decline. The show got one that we thought was relevant in a single dream for the future at CeBIT was to help
something of a revival when, for a few years, day, including a brief wander around the tech- small companies from Europe to enter the
mobile technology really grew, but the mo- nology hall that is always one of the most Chinese market.
bile business then established MWC in Bar- interesting parts of the show, if you are a Ma also demonstrated how an app he has
celona and abandoned CeBIT as an interna- geek! developed can enable purchase of products
tional event (although it’s still important as a On the day before the show started, there from the internet, using face recognition to
local mobile event). was a big press event with Chancellor Merkel verify the buyer’s identity.
Since then, the show has seen a steady
decline, although organisers said that there
were around 3,300 exhibiting companies
from 70 countries and they claimed that the
space taken has risen for the first time since
2001 with a number of companies increas-
ing their booth size. The expectation was of
200,000 visitors, a far cry from the 600,000+
in years gone by. It no longer runs over the
weekend, so the crowd is more business-
oriented.
We attended on the first day, so it may be
that by the end of the week attendance num-
bers will be up, but the first impression was
of real quiet. Some of the press facilities were
not even opened this time and just before
9:00 am on the first morning, there was only
a short queue waiting for entry. I managed to
get a seat on the fast train from Hamburg,
even though I had no seat reservation. I even
got a press locker!
20 March 2015 Mobile Display Monitor
10