It’s readily apparent to anyone that follows the smartphone market that display size has become a key selling factor.   To demonstrate this, I randomly looked at a few websites and printed advertisements from both carriers and device OEM’s, and sure enough the first specification I saw (after OS) was the aforementioned display size.

A larger display is better for most—especially with the evolving video usage of smartphones.  A larger display offers a bigger viewing area and typically (but not always) a better resolution.   As home televisions are increasing in size (defined as diagonal viewing area, of course), consumers have begun to look at the other screens in their life (the smartphone, computer/tablet) and demand they start to grow as well.

Don’t believe it?  Check out a recent NPD study. In summary, the study concludes that smartphones with 4-inch or larger display — such as Samsung’s Galaxy S, HTC’s EVO 4G and Motorola’s Droid X — grew to account for 24% of the market by 2010 year’s end.   By comparison, the share of smartphones with display sizes between 3.5 inches and 3.9 inches increased just 2% from the fourth quarter of 2009 (this includes the iPhone).  Even further, for phones with displays under 3.5 inches, market share contracted to 36% of the smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2010 from 63% in the year-earlier period.

Displays are getting bigger, and consumers are showing their desire for this with their wallets and pocketbooks.  We’ve proclaimed loudly “we want larger screens” (just not larger phones, which is a very interesting dichotomy).

So, the natural question here is, what does this mean for QuickLogic?

I would argue that a larger display means a greater expectation of display quality—and our VEE helps directly with this.  With the effects of ambient light more pronounced on larger displays, there are ever-increasing pressures on OEM’s to insure that viewability keeps up with size.  CSSP-based VEE is just as effective on a 5” as it is a 3”, or 11” for that matter.  Of course, we also can’t forget DPO—larger displays inevitably consume more power.  Since the average consumer doesn’t want their phone to grow much in size, larger and heavier batteries are not an option for system designers.  Implement a CSSP with DPO into a system, and you’ve got up to a 41% increase in single-charge battery life without adding size to the phone.

So, bring on the larger display phones.   Just make sure they still fit in my pants pocket, last longer than 3 hours (finger wagging directly at my personal phone), and are visible in sunlight.