Novel LCD technology takes a broader view: News from Display Technology

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Display Technology now offers Samsung's mSWV+ technology for wide angle mobile viewing under impaired lighting conditions. Display Technology, the leading TFT LCD specialist with its own true R and D facilities for interface products, works very closely with Samsung Electronics, the world's leading supplier of thin-film-transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT LCD), which has developed a new design for mobile displays 10in or smaller that allows viewing of ultrasharp LCD images at a 160-degree viewing angle in a variety of low or high ambient lighting conditions. The company's proprietary PVA technology, which until now has been used to improve off-axis viewing characteristics for large-sized LCDs, has been successfully adapted to work with small and medium-sized LCDs.

When combined with a transflective mobile display mode, the new Mobile Super WideView+ (mSWV+) will enable a new generation of rotational mobile View+ multimedia displays.

Conventional transmissive LCDs are difficult to view in high ambient light conditions, even with a backlight.

Samsung has created a high contrast, low-power, wide-angle mobile display that can be viewed with backlighting for indoor applications, or without a backlight by reflecting natural sunlight in outdoor environments.

With a transflective mode mobile LCD and Samsung's mSWV+ technology, a number of viewers can enjoy multimedia images simultaneously, whether indoors or outdoors, because of the wide viewing angle.

Uses include watching movies via digital multimedia broadcasting at an airport, viewing a game stored in mobile handset's memory, or conducting a video teleconference in poor lighting or at a less than optimal viewing angle.

Previously, small and medium-sized transmissive LCDs had a low contrast ratio of 250:1 with a viewing angle of only 80 degrees up and down and 100 degrees left and right.

The combination of transflective mode LCD and Samsung mSWV+ technologies increase the contrast ratio by 60% to 400:1 with no grey scale inversion.

Screen colours remain unchanged as the display moves throughout a 160-degree bi-axial direction.

According to Display Technology Product Manager Mr Nick Shaw: 'Samsung's challenge was to develop a transflective mobile display with enhanced optical and electrical advantages'.

'The Samsung Electronics transflective mSWV+ offers breakthrough features, in terms of high contrast, superior aperture ratio and lower power consumption'.

'This development reaffirms Samsung's commitment to the advancement of mobile display technology, while underscoring the many ways in which our PVA viewing enhancements can be applied'.

Samsung will begin mass production of its transflective mSWV+ technology for high-end handsets in 2006.

Later uses may include medium-sized audio-video products, such as personal media players and car navigation systems.

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