Breakthrough made in low power LCDs
Saturday, November 15 2003
New development in ultra low power bistable LCD technologies will give mobile LCD displays dramatically superior optical properties according to Manoj Thanigasalam, speaking at Display Forum 2003 in Holland.
While development is only in the early stages, the benefits over traditional LCD sound impressive. Using zero power to retain its image, it has superior brightness and contrast, and a much wider viewing angle. It is readable under various lighting conditions, including bright sunlight and has a simple, low cost passive matrix structure.
Although currently black and white, Thanigasalam predicts 4K colour by 2004, 65K colour by 2005 and full video by 2006.
Potential new areas for this ultra low power technology include smart phones, ebooks and electronic labels.
ZDB Displays have prototyped a technical watch that acts as a PDA with a much improved form factor and superior optics over existing LCD technology. It also has an ultra low display system power requirement.
It will be interesting to see how this new innovation develops in a very price controlled display marketplace.
