Macroblock

Macroblock (China)’s VP, Victor Liao talked about Macroblock’s product development history in his opening remarks. He wanted to help the audience to focus on the display standard, applications, and technology breakthrough, and then catch the up-closing trends for the LED display industry. 
Figure 1. Macroblcok (China)’s VP, Victor Liao

VESA DisplayHDR Group Chair, Roland Wooster clarified the definition of HDR and contrast ratio (CR) at the beginning of his talk. At present, HDR CR is often 20,000:1, and typical SDR CR is 600:1 while the best in class SDR CR is 1800:1. He also had a brief introduction of VESA. VESA, which has been established for 29 years, is a video electronics standards association. There are lots of major standards owned by VESA: DisplayPort, DisplayHDR, Adaptive Sync, DisplayID, Display Stream Compression (DSC), also with work on AR/VR, and Vehicular. VESA has set up DisplayHDR 400/500/600/1000 and TRUEBLACK400/500 standards. The TRUEBLACK standard is used for “direct view” displays. Roland also explained the standard content and test criteria details. It will benefit LED display makers to expand the international market when their products are certified with VESA standards. In addition, he introduced Intel’s vPro at the same time. vPro, which is an integrated platform, can do remote control. Through virtual hardware technology, vPro can provide better management for digital signage applications.
Figure 2. VESA DisplayHDR Group Chair, Roland Wooster

Cinema and entertainment verticals have always been the focus of LED display applications. Product Manager of Christie, Nathan Zhang analyzed the pros and cons of both projection solution and LED display solution. He concluded that stunning and immersive visuals for premium experiences will be the top reason to adopt the LED cinema. Trends are often driven by cinema and movie production, and Christie defines “a fantastic Image” that contains six elements: frame rate, bit depth, resolution, color, brightness, and contrast. While combining color, brightness, and contrast will be the indicator of HDR and wide color gamma. If customers want to build an LED cinema, they need to consider project execution, reliability & serviceability, image quality, content, and environment. The strength of demand will reflect on the cost that customers need to pay. Also, Nathan shared DCI (Digital Cinema Initiatives) requirements for LED cinemas, including color accuracy, contouring, sound considerations, and security architecture.
Presently, Christie promotes its products for entertainment verticals, such as movie premiere and amuse park. Let the LED screens be close to our daily life.
Figure 3. Product Manager of Christie, Nathan Zhang

Is HDR only realized on high-resolution displays? Brompton Asia General Manager, Elijah Ebo had different opinions. First, the higher pixel-pitch display usually means a significantly higher cost. Second, smaller LEDs of reasonable cost are typically less capable when it comes to brightness and color saturation. Therefore, what the industry needs is a better image quality without requiring more pixels to achieve it. Brompton thinks that the HDR can realize image quality from wider brightness range, wider color gamut, and higher bit depth improvement. To have a better HDR performance, it is necessary to keep the “system” concept in mind. The “system” includes a processor, controller, and display, and also needs to properly support PQ and HLG HDR formats as well as wide color gamut and high bit depth. Besides, to achieve uniformity, the conventional LED screen’s calibration compromises both brightness and color saturation. Fortunately, new calibration techniques have been developed that can be used to offer the required performance increase for HDR without sacrificing uniformity.
Figure 4. Brompton Asia General Manager, Elijah Ebo

LANG R&D Director, Hubertus Beckmann talked about EU market trend from end-user perspective. He divided his speech into 6 parts and shared his point of view by asking questions. Q1. Challenges and opportunities brought by 5G to impact the LED display industry? According to the Hannover Fair research report，the 5G is the highest technology focus. The opportunity for our LED display industry comes from the possibility to establish a private network. With the private network, there will be more interactions between audience and LED displays in e-sport or live concerts. Q2. HDR requirements for indoor LED display, total system solution? HDR is all about contrast. Nowadays, there are many HDR alliances. He also explained what the difference between SDR and HDR is, HDR video source specifications (HDR10、PQ、HLG), and why the broadcast industry uses HLG. Hubertus also highlighted that when the bit depth of video source input increases from 8-bit to 10-bit, the grayscale output of LED displays should achieve16-bit or above. Q3. What are display trends in cinema/home entertainment/retail/ rental applications? LED cinema trend is led by Samsung, while the B2B market focuses on smart digital signage and finer pixel pitch products. Q4. HFR (high frame rate); what are the benefits? In the broadcast vertical, the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) wants to adopt a 100fps video source. E-sport, professional simulators, and interactive presentations will be the markets that need HFR, too. Q5. Sustainability. Customers are asking more often for economic, ecologic and green products. Q6. UPP 0.x mm LED screen market. Who needs it, and what specs are requested? Consumers look forward to 55” LED TV solutions which are made with Micro LED. They also expect the next-generation LED TV have better specifications, such as interaction, >80% transparence, > 1,000nits brightness and BT. 2020 color space.
Figure 5. LANG AG R&D Director, Mr. Hubertus Beckmann

Along with the market trends of the 5G, high-resolution content, HDR, and AI upscaling, the display resolution needs to be upgraded from 1080P to 4K, even 8K. Macroblock’s Product Manager, Alan Tiao mentioned about meeting the high-resolution demand, the most straightforward solution is to use more ICs but it would take up more space on the PCB and increase the cost. The second solution is to increase driver IC channels, such as 48-channel ICs, MBI5353 has 48 channels. The third solution is to increase the number of scans of driver ICs. This solution will benefit the design from fewer drivers IC used, less PCB space occupied by driver IC, and simplifying PCB layout. However, there are some side effects induced by increasing the driver IC’s number of scans, such as long data transfer duration, incomplete transmit and display of grayscale information, parasitic issue, and EMI problems. To solve the problems above, Marcoblock’s 64 scans products are embedded “Double Edge Triggered DCLK”, “Internal GCLK”, “Novel Digital Algorithm”, and “Advance Low Grayscale Improvement Circuit” functions to eliminate those annoying challenges. In addition, Macroblock launches comprehensive 64-scan product lines, includes MBI5254 (common-anode /16-channel)、MBI5754(common-cathode /16-channel)、MBI5354 (common-anode /48-channel)、MBI5864(common-anode /48-channel /highly-integrated). LED display makers can choose proper solutions by their needs.
Figure 6. Macroblock’s Product Manager, Alan Tiao

Novastar’s General Manager (International Department), Aaron He wrapped up the trends of “5G, AI and IoT,” and proposed a concept that “in the 5G era, displays are everywhere.” He also expected that we will have a world of “mMTC*” and “vicarious visual experience.” “Displays are everywhere” means users have demands on not only more pixels but better pixels, and this demand will force controller providers to provide a better user experience. In 2017, Novostar proposed five key elements to achieve high-quality display performance, and this year it has controller solutions for each element, respectively. 1. High resolution → Higher bandwidth interface (ex. HDMI2.1); 2. High frame rate → develops virtual display technology; 3. Higher bit-depth video source → 5000Mbps bandwidth transmission; one cable can afford 2.3M Pixels@12 bit,4:4:4; 4. HDR →HDR10 Optima can adjust display performance at low brightness; 5. Accurate Color Control, including Chroma calibration, RGB Gamma Adjustment, 18 bit+, and color management. The key to having a world of “mMTC” and “vicarious visual experience.” is the “Open” attitude. Novastar wants to encourage customers to have innovative capability. Aaron used an iceberg picture to depict that Novastar would focus on the innovative platform’s infrastructure which accounts for the 95% of the iceberg volume below the water. Customers can use the solid platform they create to do innovative applications.   
* massive Machine Type Communications
Figure 7. Novastar’s General Manager (International Department), Aaron He

In the closing remarks brought by Kevin Chou, Macroblock (China)’s Sales Director, he summarized what Macroblcok will react to the 5G trend, Micro LED development and 64-scan product strategy. Kevin also reminded the participants that even facing the trade war between China and the U.S., if your products have irreplaceability, there is no barrier anymore. We appreciate all participants joining this whole-day event, and look forward to seeing you all next year.
Figure 8. Kevin Chou, Macroblock (China)’s Sales Director