Display Technology News Roundup 11.26.2013

Image via ExtremeTech

IGZO display tech finally makes it to mass market "Low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) is another alternative to a-Si that has higher electron mobility and thus excellent image quality, but LTPS is difficult and expensive to manufacture. One of the best examples of LTPS is the new Kindle Fire HDX, which is probably the only device on the market that has a better display than the iPad Air. According to Raymond Soneira at DisplayMate, the iPad Air’s use of IGZO reduces the display’s power consumption by 57% over last year’s iPad 4 — a huge reduction for a single generation." via ExtremeTech

How to build a "stealth" computer display "Brusspup specializes in optical illusion. He noticed that if you completely remove polarizer P1, an LCD display shows essentially uniform illumination with a varying pattern of polarization over the screen. However, as the human eye is not very sensitive to the polarization of light with which it sees the world, an LCD display from which the final polarizing film has been removed appears to be bright and featureless." via Gizmag

Are PC Displays Still Needed? "From the success of crowdfunding for cheap displays, there is clearly a need on the market for low-cost digital screens. The fact that prices for this equipment continue to drop will provide a stimulus to new and innovative uses for displays by businesses, especially by small and midsize companies where budgets are tight. Displays may eventually become a cost-saving commerce solution for advertising and marketing departments." via Midsize Insider

Display database for engineers Search thousands of display panels by multiple characteristics and compare results side-by-side using the display database multisearch.

How MIT Invented A Screen That Lets You Reach Through And Touch Things "They call it inFORM. Unveiled this week, the device employs 900 plastic pegs on a square grid that can be raised or lowered to form shapes. A depth camera tracks the shape and movement of the input (your hand, your dog... whatever) and displays it with the pegs." via International Science Times

Why Smartphone Makers Are Racing to Build Flexible Screens "Just as liquid-crystal displays supplanted cathode ray tubes years ago in televisions, Korean display makers are now concentrating their efforts in organic light-emitting diode screens, which offer more vivid colors and can be made even thinner than liquid-crystal displays, since they don't require a backlight. Display makers in Japan and Taiwan have also been experimenting with different types of flexible screens though they haven't been able to reach mass production." via The Wall Street Journal

What is the future of displays? Qualcomm's Toq Smartwatch Displays "The Toq uses MEMS to produce the IMOD effect. Interferometric Modulation creates colors in a different way than LCDS or OLEDS. Essentially, the MEMS that comprise the display have two elements: coated glass on top and reflective membranes on bottom. An air pocket between the two layers is what creates colors depending on what type of electrical charge is applied to the pixel." via ReadWrite

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New liquid crystal structure reported by Kent State researchers "A research group at Kent State University has described and documented the structure of a new type of liquid crystal that had been predicted theoretically, but never seen. The new "twist-bend nematic" liquid crystal, one with a spiral twist, was observed by a Kent State research group led by Oleg D. Lavrentovich, Ph.D., D.Sc., trustees research professor of chemical physics and former director of the Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State. The new type of liquid crystal, akin to a new species in biology, might enable new technologies, ranging from faster-switching display devices to biological sensors, Lavrentovich said." via Record-Courier

Is Ink-Jet Printing the Key to Next-Generation OLED Displays? "Kateeva’s setup—available as of today to display makers—features a movable platform that precisely positions glass panels or plastic sheets large enough for six 55-inch displays beneath custom print heads. Each head contains hundreds of nozzles tuned to deposit picoliter-scale droplets in exact locations to build up the pixels of a display. The company says the tool can be incorporated fairly easily into existing display production lines. Kateeva cofounder and president Conor Madigan says the system, based on the same technology in consumer ink-jet printers, eliminates the need for a step in the conventional manufacturing scheme that increases the risk of defects in the displays." via MIT Technology Review

New chip can detect gestures in front of tiny wearable displays "A fledgling company, Chirp Microsystems is developing a gesture-based operating system to work with a new chip that uses sound, rather than vision, to track the user’s movements. ...Inspired by medical technology, the system uses ultrasound, rather than light, to detect hand gestures within a range of about a meter. The system can sense gestures that don’t occur directly in front of its display, and it uses far less battery power than existing gesture camera-based interfaces: It runs up to 30 hours continuously on a tiny battery." via Singularity Hub

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Touchscreen display coating market to see major shift in technology "Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) now has a 95 percent market share for touch-screen transparent conductive coatings. At the same time, shipments of non-ITO films are forecast by IHS to increase 320 percent this year. By the end of 2017, shipments of alternative technologies--such as silver nanowire, copper mesh, silver mesh, silver halide and silver nano particle--will account for 34 percent of the market, reducing ITO's share to 66 percent." via FierceMobileIT

Could Biological Semiconductors Transform Tech Industry? "The semiconductors are known as quantum dots and are made from naturally occurring organic compounds called peptides, short chains of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. ...In a demonstration, Mr. Rosenman shone a blue light (the backlight in an LCD TV is blue) onto tubes containing different solutions of quantum dots. The tubes lit up in red, green and blue—the constituents of any display. “There is a cost saving of about 10 times compared to other displays,” said Mr. Myersdorf. “The manufacturing process is the same as for making OLEDs.” An OLED is an organic light-emitting diode, commonly found in some smartphones and TVs." via The Wall Street Journal

New Twists On Autofocus, Multitouch, And Energy Harvesting "Qeexo has not built a new MEMS device; rather, it’s using information from the accelerometers already built into smartphones and tablets in a new way. ...Qeexo’s software analyzes the vibration generated when you touch the screen and determines whether you’re using your fingertip, knuckle, fingernail, or a stylus. Apps can then use that information to allow different types of touches to perform different function—a knuckle swipe, for example, could highlight text instead of scroll down the page; a fingernail could bring up a menu. It seems simple, but it’s not so easy to implement: Schwarz said she’s met with manufacturers who aren’t interested at first, then come back and tell her that they tried and failed to replicate the technology and are now ready to talk." via IEEE Spectrum

How To Add a Touch Interface to your Hardware with Touch Board "Want to create an interactive design with touch interface? Well, the Touch Board may be just what you are looking for. Arduino compatible, the Touch Board comes with 12 capacitive touch channels and will respond to anything conductive that is connected to one of the channels. You can turn on a light, ring a doorbell, or even play midi music, all from your very own Touch Board." via Engineering.com

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Display Technology News Roundup 9.25.2013

Image via Bot & Dolly

Visually stunning art performance using cutting edge display technology "'Box' explores the synthesis of real and digital space through projection-mapping on moving surfaces. The short film documents a live performance, captured entirely in camera. Bot & Dolly produced this work to serve as both an artistic statement and technical demonstration. It is the culmination of multiple technologies, including large scale robotics, projection mapping, and software engineering. We believe this methodology has tremendous potential to radically transform theatrical presentations, and define new genres of expression." via Bot & Dolly

South Africans Develop ‘Digital Laser’ ""Our digital laser uses the LCD as one of its mirrors that is fitted at one end of the laser cavity. Just as with LCD televisions, the LCD inside the laser can be sent pictures to display. When the pictures change on the LCD inside, the properties of the laser beams that exit the device change accordingly," said professor Andrew Forbes, leader of CSIR's mathematical optics research group, where the work was done. Forbes, who in March became the first South African inducted as an SPIE Fellow, led the team, supported by postdoctoral fellow Dr. Igor Litvin and doctoral students Sandile Ngcobo and Liesl Burger. " via Photonics.com

Tetrapod quantum dot LEDs could lead to cheaper, better HDTVs "Manufacturers are seeking to "print" tetrapod quantum dots onto backplane films in liquid crystal displays (LCD) for brighter images, larger screens and a wider gamut of colors to deliver a new visual experience in image technology. Thinner, lighter, brighter and less expensive QD-LED displays, including portable and flexible devices, will offer almost infinite contrast levels, deep black levels and high light output with no motion blur or field-of-view issues." via Engadge

LCDs enter the fast lane "The molecules in a nematic liquid crystal do not line up perfectly with one another, resulting in a finite distribution of orientations around that of the director. The magnitude of this variation affects the phase of light passing through the liquid crystal and as a result its intensity. Since an applied electric field changes that magnitude, it also changes the amount of light passing through. Physicists have known for decades that such an effect ought to exist. What Lavrentovich and co-workers have done is to prove experimentally that it does exist and that it takes place over much shorter timescales than the relaxation of molecular reorientation in conventional LCDs." via Physics World

Display database for engineers Search thousands of display panels by multiple characteristics and compare results side-by-side using the display database multisearch.

E-ink display adds a second screen to your iPhone "An 'always on' e-ink display has been created for the iPhone that turns the back of the device into a second screen. The 4in display, as demonstrated in the video below, combines Plastic Logic's plastic OTFT backplane with reflective frontplane technology from leading electrophoretic display (EPD) provider E Ink." via New Electronics

Comparison of Display Polarizer Technologies "The Moxtek® wire grid polarizer technology provides a consistent, highly durable solution to high quality LCoS display technology with a perfect polarization match to the LC imager. Latest improvements in the polarizing beam splitter (PBS) technology enable a 10% improvement in efficiency. This technical article offers a comparison between imaging needs and how Moxtek is improving its products. It explains how competing technologies in LCoS projectors compare in terms of brightness, performance, durability and reliability." via Azom

UCLA creates flexible OLED display that can be stretched to double its normal size, folded in half "The material functions in this way thanks to a novel layered construction. The light comes from a single layer of electroluminescent polymer, which is held between two transparent elastic composite electrode layers. The electrodes themselves are a notable advancement. A lack of stretchable electrodes has been one of the problems holding this kind of display back." via ExtremeTech

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The PenTile RG-BW LCD display on the new Note 10.1 consumes 30% less power "The problem is a lot of the backlight is absorbed and turned to heat, and thus wasted. To allow more light through, Samsung added a “white” subpixel to the arrangement, though a better term would be “clear”. This subpixel doesn’t absorb light like the other three types and serves to increase brightness, especially when it comes to displaying the white backgrounds that are prevalent on the Web." via Android Authority

LG, Samsung Display feel heat from little-known Chinese LCD makers "While the Korean giants were busy developing next-generation organic light emitting diode (OLED) TVs, little-known Chinese companies have started selling a type of display that are sharper than the standard LCD and cheaper than OLED. Say hello to ultra high-definition (UHD) displays. ...As Korean display makers work on their response to this growing menace, Chinese UHD makers are enjoying the fattest margins in the industry." via Reuters

Filthy touchscreens carry more germs than toilet seats "Firms like Apple actively discourage users from using detergents on their touchscreens because they can damage them. The presence of the germs simply shows that touchscreen users fail to wash their hands properly, while few people bother to clean the devices and keyboards." via Business Report

Are you an engineer or have display expertise? Email jason@displayalliance.com to be featured in the interviews section.

Touchscreen displays cost how much?!?! "If your boss or client is still clinging to the idea that a cheaper option would suffice, perhaps we should move onto the issues of design and usability. Touch overlays, although seemingly a lesser investment, actually introduce more costs and opportunity loss due to several factors. ...The best integrated touch displays are designed to be beautiful and compact. Each monitor should have its own metal design to ensure the best fit, form and function." via Digital Signage Today

Movable Display is Made of Paper "Human organs shimmer in red on a sheet of paper displaying a longitudinal view of the human abdomen. The spinal column and pelvic bones form contrasting yellow islands. As the sheet of paper is bent downwards at the ends, the bones appear to come into the foreground while the soft tissue recedes. What appears to be science fiction at first glance, is the result of the “Flexpad” research project developed under the leadership of Jürgen Steimle in the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S. and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, in cooperation with Kiel University. " via Laboratory Equipment

Wonder Material Ignites Scientific Gold Rush "One factor holding graphene back is cost. Some U.S. vendors are selling a layer of graphene on copper foil for about $60 a square inch. "It needs to be around one dollar per square inch for high-end electronic applications such as fast transistors, and for less than 10 cents per square inch for touch-screen displays," estimates Kenneth Teo, a director at the Cambridge unit of Germany's Aixtron that makes machines to produce graphene." via The Wall Street Journal

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