Nanosys and LG Innotek agree deal for newfangled LED-backlit displays

For the nitty gritty of how Nanosys' proprietary LED backlighting technology works, check out our earlier coverage here -- what you really need to know is that the company promises a significantly wider color gamut from its displays, while reducing power consumption by up to 50 percent. Quantum dot LEDs have shown their faces before, but now there's the big hulking heft of LG Innotek -- LG's component manufacturing arm -- behind what Nanosys is offering, which indicates we might actually see the release of nanotech-infused displays within the first half of this year as promised. The early focus appears to be on mobile phones, which gives us yet another next-gen feature to add to our list of requirements for our next phone. Check out the full PR after the break.

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Nanosys Completes Commercial Agreement with LGIT for its Quantum Rail™ Lighting Products

Next generation mobile phones will have exceptional color quality

Palo Alto, Calif., January 21, 2010 – Nanosys, Inc. today announced that it has signed a definitive commercial agreement with cutting edge electronics component manufacturer LG Innotek (LGIT). The agreement, involving Nanosys' quantum dot phosphors for use in displays, represents the first real world commercial application of quantum dots in electronics.

Use of Nanosys' architected quantum dots enables LGIT to be the first company in the world to provide ultra high color gamut displays to its customers such as LG Group and others. The agreement secures sales of Nanosys' process ready components into the display market for many years.

"Our Quantum Rail™ device takes quantum dots out of the lab and delivers them as process ready components for customers such as LGIT," said Jason Hartlove, CEO of Nanosys. "With a reputation for quick implementation, LGIT is the perfect commercial partner."

"Nanosys' Quantum Rail technology is a solution ready for integration into backlight sub-assemblies without major tooling changes, making it our first choice for our next generation high color gamut displays," said Charlie (Cheol-Kee) Hong, LG Innotek VP and Head of R&D Center.

About Nanosys, Inc.

Nanosys, Inc. is an advanced material architect, harnessing the fundamental properties of inorganic materials into process ready systems that can integrate into existing manufacturing to produce vastly superior products in lighting, electronic displays, solar power, energy storage and medical. For more information, visit www.nanosysinc.com.

About LG Innotek

LG Innotek was established as the first general electronic component company in Korea, and is now producing the best products in the world such as tuner, precision motor, tape substrate and so on. Also, the company has proved its excellent technologies in the areas of LED, PCB, Mobile, Display, Network and Automobile Parts. For more information, visit www.lginnotek.com.

[makryger Posted Jan 22nd 2010 9:58PM]

Hmmm, I wonder if this is how LG is managing to put a 720p display into a 3.8" phone (The rumored LG Apollo)? Can quantum dots do higher resolution?

[M3 Posted Jan 22nd 2010 10:08PM]

@(Unverified)
I don't see how backlit LEDs have anything to do with the Screen Resolution. That being said, companies have already been able to do much higher pixel density then the rumoured LG Apollo's: How do you think LCD Projectors work?

[Wwhat Posted Jan 23rd 2010 10:25AM]

Although this is about backlighting I read you can actually make complete displays from quantum dots itself, and seeing they range in size from 5 to 50nm (the dots themselves not including structures needed)I guess you can cram a lot in small spaces.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_dot_display

[makryger Posted Jan 23rd 2010 10:29AM]

@Wwhat Ah, I missed the part about it just being a backlit display. Oh well, maybe in a couple years.

[bigmattown Posted Jan 22nd 2010 10:04PM]

Initech.

[idiot Posted Jan 22nd 2010 11:01PM]

@bigmattown those no talent, ass-clowns...

[NAME Posted Jan 22nd 2010 10:15PM]

Its friday night...

here is the pole |

here is the dollar bill $

here is the stripper! (. )-( .)

| (. )$( .) aww yea

[Pasha Posted Jan 22nd 2010 10:33PM]

You better make it brighter, you fools with higher education!

[luisprat Posted Jan 23rd 2010 12:18AM]

we should be at this right now... not reading tech news... how geek are we !!!

[luisprat Posted Jan 23rd 2010 12:19AM]

I mean been at a stripper club

[luisprat Posted Jan 23rd 2010 12:24AM]

I mean to be at a strippers club !

[cosmicinglewood Posted Jan 23rd 2010 1:08AM]

nice :) anything that boost battery life on mobil devices without adding size or weight is spiffy! AMOLED seems to be the best solutions, to look directly at the light source, to have the LED's composing the pixel array; but if there is another interim technology worth a tweet, the rock on LG and load that sauce factory into the ENV4 when ever the text gods send us one of those~

[Raffi256 Posted Jan 23rd 2010 3:30AM]

@cosmicinglewood

This is much better than OLED though, Quantum Dot displays are similar to OLED but are better because they don't need to have red/green/blue subpixels, each quantum dot can be tuned individually to any wavelength of light eliminating the need for subpixels. Also are more efficient than OLED and longer-lasting.

[cosmicinglewood Posted Jan 23rd 2010 2:34PM]

@Raffi256 word, after reading into this more, I see the light and agree that Quantum Dot kicks the OLED in the nuts :)

[Wwhat Posted Jan 23rd 2010 3:03PM]

@cosmicinglewood
Once they make displays with them
Oh and wikipedia lists some cons:
Cons

1) Less saturated blue: Blue quantum dot is pretty difficult to manufacture due to the timing control during the reaction. Blue quantum dot is just slightly above the minimum size, where red to green can be easily obtained. Also, human eyes need 50x brighter blue than green in order to detect the same signal.

2) Heat emission: They either emit light or heat, one or the other due to fermions (e- + e+ → photon or heat).

3) Causes overexposure on cameras.