Future Displays: Exploring The Display Technology Landscape Of Today And Tomorrow

January 15, 2025 by Dave Haynes

Who knows what displays will look like well into the future, but what we all see today is pretty much what we’re all going to see in five to 10 years – though their form and underlying technologies are most certainly evolving. And will continue to do so.

This Future Displays report started out as a 12-15 story project and has grown, like expanding spray foam, into something much larger. There are 70+ stories here on everything from mind-wobbling methods for making displays, like printing them and pouring on LEDs, to the state of emerging display technologies like e-paper and microLED.

I said I was going to release it in mid-January, and last fall, I was wondering how the <insert potty-mouthed word> was I going to pull that off. But I did. It is January 15th and the report is good to go.

The report is a free download, and is a bit of a beast because of all the stories and images. It can be downloaded as a PDF file and I also did up one of those page flipping things so it can be read on a desktop monitor or tablet/laptop display.

Here is the link to the short form needed to get at the report …

There are two version – a straight ahead, doom-scrolling 240+ page PDF, and one of those magazine-like flip-page thingies.

I am working on a third version that would be a lively musical done in the style of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.

OK, maybe not. I’d have to sing and that would have mental health implications for anyone within earshot.

The report is broken up into sections and includes a look at under-appreciated areas like infrastructure and interactive, and sustainability, which is a huge topic in Europe and starting to become one in North America – though it may be as much in the US about reducing power bills than it is about carbon emissions.

All but a couple of the stories were written by me, the output of a lot of  reading, interviewing and airplane travel. I went to several locations in North American and also spent a week in Taiwan, where much of the innovation on microLED and almost all of it on e-paper is happening. Among my hosts was a report sponsor – AUO.

I thought about China. And about Korea and Japan. But time and budgets were finite.

In the appendices section, there is a piece that tries to summarize some of what came out of CES which is not reflected in some of the related stories. The report was written and laid out before CES went off. So if what you read doesn’t reflect the very latest news and developments, that’s why.

MicroLED’s fuzzy future

MicroLED may not ever be a widely-deployed, super-premium video wall product because existing, already mass-manufactured direct view display technologies are already more than good enough for most end-user needs – and at far less cost. The numbers of B2B end-users who will pay for extra but unnecessary pixels are likely finite.

But microLED definitely has a future for more specialized applications like transparent displays and displays that can be integrated with surfaces – everything from automotive dashboards and windows to flexible, stretchable textiles that turn clothing into displays. MicroLED gets the industry and world closer to those famed Corning Day Made of Glass futuristic videos from 2012, where everyday surfaces were dynamic and interactive.

This buzziest of display technologies has generated a lot of attention for the size of the individual light emitters – so small in some cases the individual lights can only be picked out when they’re magnified. While there have been a lot of manufacturing advances, there are still challenges in boosting both the speed and accuracy of making microLED displays, and reducing the raw costs of the tiny LED lights, or die.

Though microLED is a term commonly used by DV LED manufacturers to describe and market their premium products, the vast majority of those touted as microLED are actually just miniLED – with marketers using VERY loose interpretations of the terminology and specs for true or genuine microLED. Pixel pitch, despite what you may hear or read, is NOT a measure of microLED.

The small handful of “true” microLED larger format display products currently on the market have eye-wateringly high price points, and AUO – the biggest company focused on microLED –  expects it will be five years before the per square meter costs of microLED displays are at parity with premium OLED displays.

But there are some speciality applications – like military or medical imaging on large format displays – that might actually need all the image granularity microLED might provide.

E Paper Maturing

E paper has come a long way over the past 20-25 years, and there are now color e-paper products that are viable printed paper replacements. E Ink has a pair of product lines that support color, with one of them getting reasonably close to the color saturation and granularity of print.

But E Ink’s displays are relatively small in an industry that has made 65-inch pro monitors the norm. They also cost a lot – many multiples in cost of LCD displays of the same size, and those LCDs support full color gamuts and can run full frame rate video. Taiwan’s E Ink, though it has R&D product that does video, is very much a static image product – sold on the proposition that it uses a fraction of the power needed by more conventional display tech.

A few things need to happen, and E Ink concedes this: finished goods costs need to come well down in price, to maybe 1.5 to 2X of flat panels. And sizes need to grow, if media companies and brand marketers are to adopt these products as paper poster replacements.

One interesting thing to watch for at ISE in Barcelona is a prototype of a large format color e-paper display. The Taiwan company Agile Display Solutions had a unit at NRF in New York this week and it will be at ISE, as will a much larger Taiwan company, DynaScan, with its take on it.

Diverse Stories

This report also explores a bunch of interesting areas and stories:

I am seriously biased, but I think this report offers a lot to readers – no matter their understanding or familiarity with display tech.

70-plus stories is a LOT to read, so save it and read at your own pace. Undoubtedly, there will be what about questions and you forgot comments. I could have written more, but at some point you just have to blow the whistle and call time.

The report represents about five months of work and a bunch of travel. There were some fantastic experiences. Some odd – like a super typhoon in Taiwan. And then  there was driving a rental car very slowly and forever on LA freeways … never again! Hugs for fire-affected residents and giant high fives to the first responders. My  very slow drives/crawl in LA traffic took me right by some of the now-scorched areas. So sad. Despite the traffic, awesome place!

The report happened because of the support of sponsors, who stepped up with backing and enabled to me take the time and cover off flights, hotels and other costs. You will see profiles for each of them in the report, but to their credit, all of the sponsors let me write their profiles the way I wanted. In my very distant past as an ink-stained wretch, I wrote a lot of feature stories and profiles and it was fun to do that sort of writing once again.

Enjoy, and hopefully learn!

  1. Jorge Perez says:

    Great Report.

  2. GARY FEATHER says:

    Great you are staying on top of this industry. Thanks Dave!

Leave a comment