Display Standard - Veritas et Visus

Veritas et Visus Display Standard February 2009
Interconnect Variations and Display Interfaces
Fariborz Pourbigharaz, AMD, Camberley, England
The presentation covered interconnect variations; standard display interfaces; bridges and hubs (bridging to/from
DSI, heterogeneous hubs, multimedia accelerators); and potential trends for future display interfaces. Pourbigharaz
gave a flip phone example of
interconnect variations where there are
too many signals over flex – ~70 or
more, involving cost and EMI/ESD
considerations (see illustration on the
left). He outlined the standard high-speed
serial interfaces: DSI (MIPI) and MDDI
(VESA) for handhelds; HDMI for
consumer electronics; DisplayPort
(VESA) for personal computers. He
discussed market segments and overlaps,
e.g. HDMI move from CE to handhelds.
He then went into detail on MIPI display
standards and bridging systems for
instance enabling MDDI based platforms for DSI. There is multi-media acceleration with MIPI interfaces but there
are fewer signals over flex (see illustration on right) for instance by offloading BB from MM tasks –
imaging/video, graphics/display, and audio.
Display Driver Opportunities
Jussi Ropo, Nokia, Helsinki, Finland
Ropo first outlined what had happened in Nokia in the last two years. OLED main (320x240) displays have been
brought to mass market: Nokia 7900, Nokia 6600 Fold, Nokia 8800, and more will follow. Content adaptive
brightness control has been brought to market. High speed serial interfaces have been adopted in >320x240
resolution displays. So far only Nokia proprietary Compact Display Port (CDP) interface has been used.
Color depth mainstream in Nokia displays is now 24bit (16.7M colors). Some cost sensitive modules are still with
16/18-bit colors. Composite video TV-out is widely available (N95, N96, E90, Nokia 6220, Nokia 7310). There is
852x480 resolution continuation in Nokia Internet Tablets: N770, N800, N810 (see photos).
Basic business challenges remain. The mobile phone market is growing. Nokia’s volumes grew 21% Y/Y in
Q2/2008, and the overall market grew 14.5%. Due to volumes, multi-sourcing has become more and more
important. Nokia estimates total 2008 handset market will be >1.2B units. Nokia alone shipped 122 million
handsets during Q2 2008. The need to co-operate with bigger companies is important in order to secure investment
capability and delivery capacity. Standardization is more important than ever in order to guarantee component
interoperability and availability – MIPI for display drivers. Some of the previously exclusive features have become
commodity (e.g. ambient light sensors) and there are lots of opportunities for new features. It’s sometimes hard to
utilize proprietary IP if developing companies are not willing to offer technology to others with reasonable terms,
the presenter said.
Co-operation between chipset and driver suppliers is to be encouraged. MIPI standard interfaces make this easier
with better sample quality. The Nokia plan is to give more business opportunity to companies that are able to
answer the call. For the best driver suppliers, there is more volume available. Due to increased value of the
business, more investment is possible in new projects.
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