Standard Panels

Working Group

SPWG Endorsements

Endorsement of the SPWG efforts is a simple show of support for the standardization efforts related to the displays used in notebook PCs.  There are no fees or membership requirements associated with such endorsement.  There are also no obligations associated with endorsing the SPWG, although it is expected that endorsing companies will be sincere in their efforts to help further the industry-wide efforts to improve LCD supply chain efficiencies and the price/performance benefits that result from standardization.  Note that endorsement of the SPWG does not imply any specific support to the efforts identified within this website, but rather is a general statement of support for the standardization of the displays used in notebook PCs.

Endorsing companies get the opportunity to participate in the standardization process.  Providing timely inputs and reviewing draft documents, when requested, is critical to the successful implementation of the SPWG standards efforts.

Companies that choose not to endorse the SPWG standards are free to utilize the standards, but by not participating in the standards creation process, non-endorsing companies may find themselves in a reactionary mode, rather than proactively helping to improve industry-wide operations.

Any company that newly wishes to endorse the SPWG is encouraged to do so by contacting Mark Fihn, Paul Salisbury, or Larry Mabe.

Display Manufacturers

The Industry Standard Panels proposed by SPWG is a giant step forward to the standardization of LCD panels. We believe that this will significantly improve product development and panel-supply efficiency for LCD panel makers, system designers, and system manufacturers. We at Acer Display Technology strongly endorse SPWG's new standard.

Hui Hsiung, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Sales Division

Standardization is the first step towards an open market for TFT LCDs, which will eventually benefit TFT manufacturers, system manufacturers and end customers.

Dr. Jeff Hsu, Vice President

We at Hitachi support your effort of panel standardization, in which all LCD panel manufacturers can participate with their own advantageous technologies.

H. Kondo, Dept. Manager, Sales Engineering

For our OEM notebook panels, we have been participating in the industry initiative to standardize the mechanical mounting and electrical interface definition for future panels. We are happy to support this effort because of the promise it offers for better productivity within the industry.

Takahisa Hashimoto, General Manager

InnoLux is happy to endorse SPWG.  A good panel standard will help everybody in the TFT-LCD industry without restricting anybody's ability to create and innovate.

H. C. Tuan, President

LG.Philips LCD Co. Ltd. extends its warm welcome to the SPWG's proposal for portable PCs. This is going to be one of most important milestones that the portable PC industry and FPD industry have jointly achieved. The SPWG's effort will encourage more intra-industry dialogue which will lead to improved efficiency for both industries.

Davis Lee, Marketing Director

The SPWG's efforts to standardize and simplify packaging, interface design, and tooling for flat-panel display modules will clearly benefit our OEM/ODM customers. By incorporating a standard panel into the industrial design of a new platform, the PC OEM/ODM can focus on the specific benefits of a particular vendor, such as module front-of-screen performance, power consumption, or reliability, and not have to suffer compromises due to mechanical limitations. An additional benefit of the SPWG's efforts for both manufacturers and customers alike will be a better alignment of available supply to actual demand, thereby reducing the severity of the 'Crystal Cycle'."

Dale H. Maunu , Director of Marketing

Quanta supports the SPWG's efforts to set mechanical and electrical display standards for the notebook PC industry. We believe that the effort will be beneficial to the industry as well as our company.

Barry Lam, Chairman and President

Samsung remains committed to continuous improvements of displays in the flat panel industry. We believe that the efforts of SPWG group in panel standardization is beneficial and appreciate their work. As the world leader in TFT LCDs, Samsung will continue to work with the SPWG group in improving flat panel displays."

Pablo Temprano, Senior Manager

Sharp is proud to participate with the Standard Panels Working Group in their effort to standardize the mechanical and electrical characteristics of LCD's for the notebook PC industry. This effort will create efficiencies that do not exist today and will be a benefit to the industry as a whole.

Masaya Hijikigawa , Corporate Executive Director and Group General Manager

Toppoly supports the efforts of SPWG in developing standards for display panels to be used in the notebook industry. We believe that the industry will greatly benefit from such efforts.

Ying Chang, Senior Vice President

Tottori SANYO supports the SPWG's efforts in panel standardization. We believe that these efforts are really epoch-making and will improve the efficiency of our industry as a whole.

Masayoshi Fukuda, Director and GM

As a leader in the TFT LCD industry, Toshiba views the LCD standardization initiative as a good approach towards furthering the development of commodity LCDs. These standardization efforts will help fuel the continued growth of the notebook computer market.

Steve Vrablik, LCD Business Development Director

Acer fully endorses this initiative to bring greater flexibility to the notebook PC industry. The PC industry's success was largely built on open standards and industry-wide collaborations on several fronts. Acer has participated in many of these past efforts and is glad to participate in this new initiative to define a series of standards for LCD interface to notebook PCs.  

Dixon Cheng, SVP and GM, Mobile Systems Business Unit

In light of the potential advantages for both TFT LCD vendors and PC companies, Arima endorses the consolidated industry efforts towards this mechanical standardization.

Arthur Su, Vice President

We at ASUSTeK think the SPWG is a good idea.  Ensuring LCD vendors & PC makers are communicating together can let all of us work on the same path.

Vincent Liu, Notebook PC Product Manager

As one of the major notebook PC OEM/ODM suppliers in the world, Compal fully supports the SPWG. With LCDs the major notebook PC component, standardization will favor not only the manufacturers but also the end users. It will also reduce the total cost of ownership which is a major motivation for notebook PC growth. Compal will request that its current and future LCD suppliers meet the requirements of the SPWG standard.

Ray Chen, President

The development of a standard document for mechanical dimensions and electrical requirements for LCD panels will vastly improve the procurement of these panels for our company. The advantages that would be achieved in the development of mechanical casings and the savings that will be realized in electrical design should lead to a substantial reduction in the cost of our notebooks. It would also lead to an improvement in the competitive stance of our LCD suppliers. First International Computer, Inc. is looking forward to the early adoption of this standard and will comply with the requirements stated in this standard.

Horace Tsiang, CEO

Inventec, as a major notebook PC manufacturer in Taiwan, would like to fully support The Standard Panels Working Group (SPWG). Standardization is the reason why the PC industry has been so successful in the past. With displays a major component of the notebook PC, the standard will reduce the cost of manufacturing, logistics and service. It will favor not only the manufacturers but also the end users. It will also reduce the total cost of ownership which is a major motivation for notebook PC growth.

Tom Cho, President

Quanta supports the SPWG's efforts to set mechanical and electrical display standards for the notebook PC industry. We believe that the effort will be beneficial to the industry as well as our company.

Barry Lam. Chairman and President

In an effort to provide cost effective standardization and universal compatibility to the display market place, while countering sole sourced and non-compatible solutions, BizLink fully supports and endorses the activities and direction of the SPWG.

Bill Kuypers, Director of Marketing

I-PEX recognizes the leadership of SPWG in standardization of TFT-LCD solution and no doubt that it’s the benefit to whole industry of this application.

Ike Sakurai, Product Marketing Senior Manager

JAE recognizes the LCD and system manufacturer’s need for standardization, and understands the ultimate benefit to the end-user. We are proud to be supporters of the Standard Panels Working Group initiative, which will make mobile computing more affordable and accessible.

Natsuki Kawabe, General Manager, Product Marketing Division

Jui Fang fully supports the SPWG's efforts to integrate display standards for notebook and PC Industry.  This great effort will create efficiencies that do not exist today and will benefit to the industry.

K. W. Chen, General Manager

KST is quite honored and pleased to take part in the Standard Panels Working Group. Due to the SPWG's efforts in panel standardization, we reap no little benefit. KST hereby fully supports and deeply appreciates the SPWG.

R. F. Chen, Executive Vice President

As a leading connector and cable manufacturer in LCD market, Longwell recognizes SPWG’s efforts and leadership in standardization of LCD solution and will continue to support SPWG’s innovative standard product that will benefit end user and PC industry.

Vincent Chen, Marketing Director

We, Pin Shine Industrial Co. Ltd., are pleased to join the SPWG since its standardization has benefited on lowering development cycle and procurement cost.

George Lin, Vice President

Rapid Conn supports the Standard Panels Working Group initiative as the manufacturing and diffusion of standardized products is more efficient.

Turker Hidirlar, CEO

We at STM, a professional connector manufacturer, are pleased to endorse the SPWG which provides a benefit to the end-user of the displays used in Notebook PCs.  

Wang Shun-Shiou, General Manager

Starconn recognizes that an industry-wide standard of display used in Notebook and LCD panel would be beneficial to end-users and manufactures in supply chain, price and performance. As a leading connector maker in LCD market, Starconn commit to supporting SPWG to create innovative standard product for extra value for customers.

Stephen Liou, Vice President, Marketing and RD/Engineering

SPWG speaks volumes to the benefits of standardization, which is essential to the expansion of the IT economy. Taking heart to be part of this initiative, Sunridge Corp looks to contribute its share of effort with a full coverage of SPWG compliant interconnect products: from interface header, backlight connectors, to complete interface cabling solutions.

Tony Su, President

TD1 conn is the loyal supporter & beneficiary of SPWG Spec. & standardization. In order to catch up and support to the fast growing & constant changing 3C industrial, TD1 will provide the best quality & most cost effective solution to our customer. The best benefit to the system manufacturer & end customers will always be the first priority to the TD1. TD1 will realization the idea of SPWG Spec. and insist made in Taiwan to provide the best quality & service   

Steve Chaing, General Manager

Uju Electronics, as a major LCD connector manufacturers in Korea, would like to fully support the Standardization initiative.  We strongly believe the SPWG efforts will favor not only the PC manufacturers but also end users and part makers.  Our company will remain committed to developing more advanced products that are SPWG-compliant and to helping our customers reduce costs and improve their product performance.

Y. B. Ro, President

Ambit is pleased to help the SPWG define inverter-related standards for notebook PCs. We will not only identify inverter-critical specifications, but will provide performance evaluations for TFT LCDs in combination with the backlight and inverter.

David Wen, Director, Power R&D

As a leader in mobile graphics, ATI is proud to participate with our fellow mobile innovators in endorsing the SPWG standard, and feel it is an important step in arriving at industry-wide, accepted benchmark for the notebook and panel industry."

Phil Eilser, VP and GM, Mobile and Integrated Business Unit

Being one of the major CCFL controller suppliers, BiTEK surely would like to participate in SPWG activities.

Steve Chuang, Sales & Marketing

Corning remains committed to helping our customers reduce costs and improve product performance.  We believe the SPWG will reduce complexity and contribute to improved productivity and efficiency in the AMLCD industry. We are pleased to give our support to this important work.

Mark Beck, Worldwide Product Manager, Display Technologies

Fairchild Semiconductor, the world's leading manufacturer of multi-market semiconductor products, applaud the efforts of the Standard Panel Working Group to better enable participants in the notebook PC industry to provide improved consumer and industrial products.

John Whalen, Staff Engineer

Honeywell is proud to endorse SPWG's standardization activities. SPWG's work improves the display industry's competitive business environment, resolves industry-shared technical issues, and enables display system designers and integrators to develop innovative, and unique products built upon well defined electrical and mechanical display panel interfaces.

John Schmidt, Technical Staff Engineer

We welcome this industry effort which will help enhance the availability of mobile PCs to users, in a more timely and cost effective fashion.

Francis Truntzer, Strategic Planning Manager, Mobile and Handheld Products Group

Lack of standardization benefits only a few of the very top manufacturers at the expense of almost everyone else, and even those that benefit from it are seeing those benefits disappear as the manufacturing technology becomes more standardized itself. Differentiation ought to be focused on bringing value to the end user.

Peter Opdahl, CEO/President, ITO America

Kontron supports the SPWG effort to standardizing the mechanical and electrical spec of TFT panels. This will reduce time to market, overall system costs and our customers will benefit from this. All new products of Kontron Hamburg will be designed according to SPWG standards.

Dirk Finstel, CEO

“As a leading CCFL technology developer, Microsemi endorses SPWG’s efforts for developing an LCD standard. Standards allow more resources to be spent on those innovations that directly benefit the consumer.”

Paul Pickle, Marketing Vice President

THine Electronics, Inc. welcome the SPWG's effort which will accelerate the standardization of mobile FPD modules in high quality and amore cost effective fashion."

Toshiyuki Sako, Director for Sales Strategy

Wacom is pleased to endorse SPWG efforts in LCD industry cooperation. We hope that industry standardization will enable and grow the market for such new product categories as Tablet PC and other computing tablets.

Steve Sedaker, OEM Sales Manager

All American is pleased to be the first distributor to join the SPWG.  Standardizing the mechanical and electrical specs of TFT panels will drive innovation, technology, and display performance.  As the SPWG standard evolves into the embedded market, we look forward to providing continued top notch TFTs, related components, support and solutions for our customers.

Rob Dautel, Field Applications Engineer

Apollo Display Technologies is proud to support the SPWG work group.  We feel it is imperative to have such an open forum as the SPWG to jointly work through the display standards which will benefit the entire industry. This group effort can only serve to further our own unique flat panel electrical and mechanical engineering/designs as they relate to our TFTs, LCD controllers and interface products.

Richard McKay, Mgr. of Value Added Technology

DFF - the German Flat Panel Display Forum - is proud to endorse the SPWG.  As a networking and communication platform for the European FPD industry and research institutes we strongly believe that joining efforts in standards making processes will benefit the whole FPD Community, cut costs, and reinforce competitiveness.

Dr. Joerg Winkler, VDMA -- The German Engineering Federation

The Display Lab at the University of Applied Sciences Pforzheim, Germany offers a wide range of activities in the field of Electronic Displays: applied research and development, consulting, applications, talks, lectures (also in-house), measurements, ... We have experience in booth hard- and software.

Karlheinz Blankenbach, Prof. Dr., University of Applied Sciences

In supporting the DisplayMasters Programme run by the Universities of Dundee, Abertay Dundee, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford and Nottingham Trent we have benefited from the involvement of industrial companies around the world in all areas of the displays food chain.  In the networking periods that supplement the intensive teaching programme, we have the opportunity to discuss wide ranging topics with the degree students and the academic and industrial speakers. The questions from the students can be brutally honest, and it remains a difficult task to explain why there are so many different glass sizes, pixel resolutions, and monitor options, for LCD products.  When backed up with the industrial problems caused by short term obsolescence as products are overtaken by "next generation" types with no or little backwards compatibility, it becomes increasingly difficult to answer the comment "but- that's stupid" which is the most common response from the students.  We support your work, and hope that a successful conclusion may seek to bring order into the present chaotic world of product supply.

Chris Williams, Chairman of the Industrial Steering Committee for the DisplayMasters MSc Programme in Display Technology, Systems & Applications

The standardization of notebook PC display modules is a win for notebook PC manufacturers, FPD manufacturers and users. From the FPD manufacturers' perspective, it results in fewer part numbers, improved inventory control, better utilization of engineering resources, longer product life, reduced manufacturing and service costs and fewer obstacles to achieving an increased number of design wins. For the notebook PC manufacturer, it results in reduced time to market, shorter development cycles, improved inventory control and reduced servicing and tooling costs. Ultimately the customer wins, with better availability and pricing as costs get squeezed out of the process

Ross Young, President

Widespread adoption of the SPWG’s efforts will provide significant benefits to the flat panel repair industry and help us achieve the target repair costs of our customers.

Bob Wentworth, Vice President of Engineering

After the SPWG 2.0 specification was developed in September 2001, no ongoing updates occurred for an extended period of time. EBL-WG members realized the need to update the specification to keep up with the pace of changing mobile PC display industry.  With the support of the EBL-WG, the SPWG 3.0 specification adds recommendations for integrated inverter and power measurement methodology.  This is a step in the right direction which will lead to matched 1:1 panel/inverter combination resulting in the most power efficient operation of the notebook display.  The SPWG 3.0 specification’s adoption of the power measurement guidelines developed by the mobile PC EBL-WG will also help ensure consistent measurement across the industry.

Kamal Shah, Chairman

Incline is pleased to endorse the SPWG goals and written guideline as effective methods of reducing notebook flat panel display design, integration and maintenance costs.  Standard electrical interface elements simplify all test requirements and will thereby reduce life cycle maintenance costs.  Adoption of the SPWG guideline will represent a substantial, industry wide, improvement in display maintainability.

John Chapman, Director of Engineering

We at InfoCater look forward to supporting the SPWG’s efforts to help standardize the displays used in Tablet PCs.  We believe that such standardization will help enable the growth of this increasingly popular segment of the portable PC market.

Geoff Palmer, President

Meko supports the standardization work of the SPWG. Meko believes that more can often be achieved by working together than by acting in isolation.  Furthermore, we believe the saying that "Standards Make Markets".  The willingness of the LCD makers to standardize is one of the drivers that has established LCD as the current driving technology in the display market.

Bob Raikes, Principal

Optronic Laboratories is proud to endorse and support the efforts of the Standard Panels Working Group. Beyond VESA, there is a need to specifically address the dynamic requirements of notebook displays, and we commend the group’s initiative to do this. Such efforts will go a long way toward improving performance and reducing costs, making better displays available to more people and growing the industry.

 Alexandre Y. Fong, Vice-President, Marketing and Sales

Standardization goes a long way in helping keep the costs of manufacturing down, and therefore the cost of ownership, benefiting the consumer. 

Chuck Pearson, CEO

Radiant Imaging, Inc. welcomes the SPWG's effort to aid in the standardization of mobile FPD modules. Standardization of optical performance and screen cosmetic defects is a necessary component to reduce supply-chain costs due to performance quality issues for components as well as entire LCD systems.

Dave Jenkins, Vice President of Sales and Marketing

The SPWG's efforts to standardize the form, fit and function of flat panel displays will have a very positive impact on development-cycles and procurement issues. Raylar Design, Inc. applauds the SPWG!

Ray Page, Vice President

Standardization of electrical and mechanical standards for notebook displays enables manufacturers to focus on differentiation that truly benefits the end user - display performance.

Paul Semenza, Executive Vice President

Veritas et Visus, publisher of the Display Standard, a newsletter about display-related standards and regulations, is pleased to support the ongoing efforts of the SPWG.

Phillip Hill, Editor

Westar Display Technologies offers performance improvement products and services for the information display industry. We supply test systems for R&D and QA/QC, deliver universal display module testers, and offer unique video adapters for visual systems. We also perform display optical measurement and qualification services.

Phillip A. Downen, Product Manager FPM Systems

WitsView Technology Corporation appreciates SPWG's years of contribution in notebook panel standardization.  SPWG's initiative and effort enhance an industry-wide production efficiency and technology improvement, and benefit the end-consumers and the society on the whole.  We are, as well, pleased to make effort to facilitate a continued industry growth.

Henry Wang, CEO