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Sharp shows off IGZO LCD and OLEDs including a 13.5-inch QFHD screen
Sharp announced earlier this year that it was starting to crank out LCD panels based on new indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) technology and now it's ready to show some off at the Society for Information Display show in Boston. Currently sized for phones and tablets, the first prototypes include a pair of LCDs, one a 4.9-inch 720x1280 display, and the other coming at 6.1-inches with a resolution of 2560x1600. As an example of what will be possible further down the line, it also has a pair of OLED panels, one 13.5-inch 3840x2160 QFHD panel based on White OLEDs with RGB color filters (similar to the LG HDTV recently introduced), and a flexible 3.4-inch 540x960 screen (shown above). According to Sharp the new tech means screens with higher resolutions, lower power consumption, narrower bezels and higher performance touch screens because it enables even smaller thin-film transistors than the ones currently in use. The Associated Press reports it expects to apply the upgrade to production lines in this fiscal year, for now you can hit the source link for a few diagrams and examples of crystalline structures or check the gallery for pics of the other displays. %Gallery-156633%
Panasonic teams up with NHK on 145-inch 8K Super Hi-Vision plasma TV (Update: video)
We thought the 8K 85-inch Super Hi-Vision LCD we saw during CES was impressive, but Japanese broadcaster NHK is already looking to surpass that by going even bigger. To that end it worked with Panasonic (above: that's Panasonic's Keishi Kubota on the left, Yoshio Ito of NHK on the right) to create this 145-inch prototype plasma, unveiled today as an example of the kind of displays we can expect to see once broadcasts jump to the higher resolution some day. The world's first self-illuminating Super Hi-Vision TV, it features every pixel of its expected 8K resolution -- 7,680 x 4,320. After working for months on smaller (only 85- or 103-inch) 4K plasmas, the two companies had to come up with an entirely new drive method for the display that works by scanning the pixels vertically to achieve a uniform picture quality. The NHK plans to show off the new display at its open house in May, although we're a bit more interested to see if we can watch the Olympics on it this summer. Check the gallery below for a few more pictures from DigInfo.TV's Ryo Osuga, or hit the more coverage link for a breakdown of the difficulties encountered in building a high resolution display that's this massive. Update: Now with video from DigInfo.tv. [Image Credit: Ryo Osuga, DigInfo.TV]
iPhone and iPad win Display of the Year honors
Those of us who use the iPhone 4 and iPad know how amazing the displays on the devices are. The iPhone 4, with its Retina Display, never ceases to impress those who are familiar with less capable smartphone screens, and the iPad's touchscreen has revolutionized computing. Now the Society for Information Display has joined the chorus of people praising the displays on the two devices. On May 16 at SID Display Week 2011 in Los Angeles, the group presented Apple with the Display of the Year Gold Award for the Retina Display and the Display Application of the Year Gold Award for the iPad. As reported on The Loop, SID noted that "the 640x960-pixel Retina display set a new benchmark for mobile display resolution, low power consumption and image quality." The group also listed technical advancements introduced in the Retina Display, including a "customized LTPS TFT backplane with organic passivation and optimized pixel design" and an "advanced IPS compensation polarizer technology for high contrast (800:1) and color consistency regardless of viewing direction." The Society for Information Display was somewhat less technical and more ecstatic in their plaudits for the iPad, noting that "The iPad marks a new era of tablet computing, transforming the way people communicate, consume and create content, play games and learn." The group also found the display's power efficiency, allowing up to 10 hours of battery life for Wi-Fi web surfing, to be solid grounds for the award the iPad received. Congrats to Apple on yet another award, and we're sure the next display Apple uses will be just as excellent.
Toshiba's latest use for OCB LCDs: 3D glasses
Even after years of demos, we're not aware of Toshiba Mobile Display's OCB (Optically Compensated Bend) LCD panels actually making their way into shipping products, so here's hoping these large-bezeled 3D glasses on display at SID 2010 will be the ones to break through. Sure, the last time we saw OCB it was supposed to show us the way towards no-glasses-needed autostereoscopic screens but that was in 2009, when Law & Order was on, prototype iPhones weren't floating all over Korea and the company was called Toshiba Matsushita display. In this iteration the high speed, high contrast characteristics of the curiously aligned crystals in those LCDs are claimed to make the ideal 3D glasses technology with brighter images, less crosstalk and a wider field of view, but with similar specifications to existing hardware from RealD and others we'll probably be in for another all new / all old tech demo and more vapor in 2011.
Sharp adds cyan and yellow to its RGB displays, laughs scornfully at magenta
Sharp is taking some cues from the nearly dearly departed print publishing world for its next line of LCDs, adding two colors to the typical RGB gamut. Cyan and yellow, half of the CMYK spread that makes your Sunday Garfield sketch pop, are going to be added to the company's displays to make up what it's dubbing "Multi-Primary-Color Technology." The tech is said to be able to reproduce 99 percent of all colors able to be perceived by the human eye -- because apparently 1.7 billion colors from a traditional LCD wasn't enough. The displays will be on display at the Society for Information Display Symposium in San Antonio starting next week. So, lucky Texans, prepare to get your cone cells massaged.
Philips spins off Liquavista to develop thin Electrowetting displays
A bunch of venture capitalists have been poking around Philips' R&D labs lately, and it seems that they like what they see. New Venture Partners has joined with the Dutch electronics giant to spin off several companies based on technology first developed by Philips Research, with the first collaboration, Liquavista, being announced today. Based on a thin-display technology called Electrowetting, Liquavista will attempt to integrate its products into DAPs, cellphones, watches, and other portable devices where high brightness and rapid refresh rates are valued (which is like, all of them). Electrowetting supposedly provides better brightness and response time than competing reflective display technologies while using essentially the same manufacturing techniques, and according to a handy comparison chart on MobileRead, is just about the best thing ever. Skeptics will be able to peep the displays for themselves in early June, however, when Liquavista will present some prototypes at the Society for Information Display's 2006 exhibition in San Francisco. [Warning: PDF link][Via MobileRead]
