TechTalk – Reported by Cliff Keys, Editor-in-Chief

Dialog Semiconductor
PMOLEDs Save Power and Cost

I talked with Dialog’s CEO Jalal Bagherli. Dialog Semiconductor creates energy-efficient, highly integrated, mixed-signal ICs optimized for personal mobile and automotive applications. With its unique focus and expertise in system power management, Dialog brings decades of experience to the rapid development of integrated circuits for power and motor control, audio and display processing. Jalal told me passive matrix OLEDs will feature heavily in the next generation mobile phones.


Caption: Jalal Bagherli, CEO Dialog Semiconductor

Dialog won the 2008 National Microelectronics Institute (NMI) award for Innovation.
The company matched its own innovation to the needs of another idea focused on exploiting the critical market requirements in mobile displays for low power and low cost.  OLED technology has for some time been viewed as the successor to LCD, bringing advantages in low power and better picture and video quality.  Introducing a new innovation in Passive Matrix technology, Dialog is pushing forward with a semiconductor product innovation to enable the benefits of OLED to meet the aggressive cost requirements of the mobile phone market - an innovation that will have significant impact in one of the largest global markets.

The company announced earlier that its first ground breaking SmartXtend™ technology based driver ICs would be used by TDK of Japan as part of its PMOLED video display demonstration using a 3inch W-QVGA panel. The displays are targeted as a next generation solution for main displays in mobile phone and portable media consumer devices, overcoming the performance limitations of LCD and more expensive active matrix OLED displays.
Dialog is forming partnerships with PMOLED module makers such as TDK to enable a complete display solution (ie PLMOLED panel with Dialog’s Display driver chip as a complete module) to be offered to end OEM customers in mobile phone, media player and infotainment markets. The majority of PMOLED makers are based in Korea and Greater China.

The reason for securing multiple module partners is to ensure that sufficient capacity will be available when the giant Tier1 phone makers decide to use such a panel in their mainstream phones. Jalal added that the expectation is that a modest volume of around 0.5m units will start production in 2009 and that the volume would start to grow significantly into multi-million units in 2010 with continuing growth thereafter, dependent on Dialog and its panel partners delivering a complete product to market by 2H 2009.

SmartXtend™ technology allows the main displays of mobile devices – particularly those offering W-QVGA and QVGA resolution – to utilize passive matrix OLED displays rather than LCD or active matrix OLEDs.  Passive matrix OLEDs are inherently a lower cost display to manufacture than other display technologies while providing superior advantages in terms of video quality, viewing angle and performance.

SmartXtend™ technology, which utilizes a number of innovative design techniques including a unique multi-line addressing scheme, accurate dynamic current matching and state-of-the-art power management, forms the basis of a new family of display drivers being developed by Dialog Semiconductor for passive matrix OLEDs.  SmartXtend™ is designed to significantly extend the lifetime of passive matrix OLED displays; it reduces the peak current greater than 30% and power consumption by as much as 50% compared to the conventional passive matrix driving schemes.
Dialog’s current development of a family of driver ICs with its partners is scheduled for volume production in 2H 2009.

The company’s processor companion chips are essential for enhancing both the performance of hand-held products and the consumer’s multimedia experience. Automotive applications include intelligent motor control for comfort and safety systems.

With world-class manufacturing partners, Dialog operates a fabless business model with over one billion parts shipped to date.
Dialog Semiconductor plc is headquartered near Stuttgart, Germany with operations in Austria, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, UK, and the USA. The company has 250 employees worldwide, and is listed on the Frankfurt (FWB: DLG) stock exchange.

www.dialog-semiconductor.com