Displays, in general terms, is an output device to present visual information. The prominent fields of use of displays are; TV sets, monitors and mobile phones. Vast amount of penetration of displays into our life started with the development of liquid crystal display (LCD) technology, lit up by light emitting diodes (LED).
CoENCo Display consists of a color-enriching component for LCDs. The function of this product is to replace the existingly used color converting phosphorus layers used in conventional LCD backlighting. “Backlight” refers to the use of an illumination system in a display device. Backlights, consisting of LEDs are installed behind or at the edge of the display panel, allowing it to illuminate the display. Without a backlight — or any other form of illumination — LCD displays would remain dim and cannot generate any image. Therefore, color or image quality of an LCD display is directly related with the quality of backlight.
We conducted a detailed market research focused on the global markets and ran demos with potential customers with very promising results. These 2 activities combined, allowed us to gather extremely valuable knowledge and update our business model and go-to-market strategy, while strengthening our relationships with all the entities involved in the pilot. The pilot demos showed a highly promising interest in the product translated into agreement on custom prototyping studies between Nanome and its partners. Our business model was also updated together with the corresponding financial projections and potential impact until 2025. The meetings with customers and display industry experts proved that our technology based on color enriching nanoparticles, i.e. quantum dots that offer unprecedented performance in terms of energy efficiency, brightness and color quality in displays, is technologically valid and promising for small-sized LCD screens. However, our target market in small sized displays is saturated with a competitive technology of organic light emitting diodes (OLED). Despite distinct advantages of the LCD platform in which our product could be applied, present conditions in smartphones and other mobile devices pose a barrier for market entrance.
Customer demands, interviews with market experts and extensive market research we carried out during this feasibility study revealed that we should focus on low-cost and durable solutions to implement this revolutionizing technology into displays. In order to meet the demand from industry, we decided to focus on a newly emerging material type: nanoplatelets (NPL). NPLs solve stability issues faced in long term operation and lowers the cost of a project by reducing the material use on account of having higher performance. Moreover, in addition to hybridization of them to LED lighting units in LCDs, this material offers superior integration potential into microLED technology which has opened new avenues in the display industry in the last few years. The exponential rise in the number of patents filed in 2019 is a proof of this growing market potential. MicroLED displays are estimated to be considerably more expensive than current displays due to inherently complex structure. We propose utilizing NPLs to create low-cost hybridized microLED for display applications.
