Dr. Fang-Chen Luo, AUO's CIPO (Chief Intellectual Property Officer), was honored by the 2011 IEEE(*) Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal for his long-term contribution to the development of TFT-LCD. The medal was presented on 20 August 2011 at the IEEE Honors Ceremony in San Francisco, Calif., USA to formally acknowledge the contributions and accomplishments of the recipients.

"In 1974 when we first fabricated a working 5-inch by 5-inch 100 x 100 pixels TFT driven panel at Westinghouse R&D Center, the news was soon reported by a TIME magazine article with a title of Picture On the Wall. At that time, frankly it was beyond our imagination that one day this technology could evolve into large TFT-LCD TVs up to 80 inches in diagonal and 10 bits color data" said Dr. Luo when he received the IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal.

The medal, sponsored by the Federation of Electric Power Companies, Japan, and the Semiconductor Research Foundation, recognizes Dr. Fang-Chen Luo, Dr. Bernard J. Lechner and Dr. T. Peter Brody for pioneering contributions to thin-film-transistor (TFT) liquid-crystal displays (LCDs).

Many engineers have contributed to the innovations responsible for the current success of TFT LCDs used in today's televisions, laptops and mobile phones. However, it was the pioneering contributions and persistent efforts of Lechner and Brody in the 1960s and Luo in the 1970s that set the stage for the technology we see today. The trio overcame the initial limitations of using liquid crystals to display complex moving images to make the dream of being able to hang a television on the wall a reality.

Working at Westinghouse during the 1970s, Luo extended Lechner's active matrix work, and demonstrated the world's first TFT-EL and TFT-LCD panels in 1974. Although modest by today's standards, given the technology available to them at the time it was a great achievement. No longer did the industry have to wonder if the technology was possible, it could now focus on improving the technology and making it more cost-effective. In 1982, Brody formed Panelvision; he was joined later by Luo. The firm was the first to offer commercial TFT LCDs.

An IEEE Life Member, Luo is also a Fellow of Society for Information Display. His honors include the SID Special Recognition Award, the Award For Industrial Technology Advancement and the Gold Panel Award, both from the Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs. He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, and his master's and doctorate degrees from Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill, USA.

* IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) was formed by the merger of American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) and the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) in 1963. The organization is the world's largest electrical and electronics engineering technical professional association, and currently has around 400,000 members in 160 countries. IEEE's diverse representation makes it influential in areas such as aerospace, computer, telecommunications, biomedicine, and consumer electronics.

** Courtesy of IEEE. The original release is at: http://www.ieee.org/about/news/2011/honors_ceremony/releases_nishizawa.html