New Technologies for Display Devices

Kevin Nguyen
TCOM663
1/16/2003
 In the current marketplace, several technologies are vying to become the next great development

in display devices. These technologies all strive to replace the Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT) as the next

universal display device. They all try to improve on the CRT while at the same time retain the CRT's best

features. At present, no one technologies can truly replicate all the advantages of the CRT while

simultaneously address the CRT's many weaknesses.

The technological underpinning of the CRT is thoroughly understood. This is not surprising

since the CRT was first developed at the end of the 19th century. The CRT has been use as display

devices for a wide range of products, everything from television monitors to computer displays. As a

whole, CRTs are large and bulky, consume excessive electrical power, and produce potentially harmful

electro-magnetic emissions. Also, CRT manufacturers are approaching a limit as far as how fine a pixel

size can be. The attractive qualities of CRT that the other technologies try to emulate are the fast

response time for displaying images, and the realistic color reproduction.

The first key technology developed to replace the CRT in certain applications is the Liquid

Crystal Displays (LCD). Crystals in a semi-liquid state that can be electrically rotated were first

discovered at RCA Labs in 1968. They have been used in various appliances such as watches and

calculators. Their first use as high-resolution a display device was in laptop computers. Laptops need a

small, thin, and low-power display device; so manufacturers immediately turn to the LCD. The LCD in

laptops is essentially a grid of liquid crystals sandwiched between two polarizing glass plates. Upon the

activation of an electrical potential, the crystals orient themselves to block the passage of light. With the

type of LCD found on laptops today, the Active-matrix Thin-Film Transistor (TFT) type, each grid

location has a transistor to finely control the orientation of the liquid crystal. For a LCD display capable

of 1024x768 pixel resolution, there must be over 2.3 million transistors etched onto the glass substrate.

The large number of transistors required by a typical LCD leads to manufacturing difficulties. It

is not unheard of for a LCD manufacturer to reject one-third of the displays rolling off the assembly line

1
due to an unacceptable number of defective transistors. Manufacturing complication is one of the factors

preventing the development of larger-sized LCD. Also, the response time and contrast ratio are only now

approaching those of CRTs. The limited viewing angle and the low brightness of LCD are two obstacles

in preventing them from completely replacing CRTs.

The other promising display technology is Plasma Display Panels (PDP). A plasma is a highly-

ionized gas. In a PDP, a grid-like arrangement of tiny fluorescent light capsules (containing plasma) is

used to form images. Each pixel is made up three fluorescent light capsules : red, green, and blue (RGB).

Within each light capsule, the plasma is charged by electrical current, the resulting gas-ionization causes

release of photons which cause light phosphor to glow. Similar to the operation of a CRT, the intensity of

the different light is proportional to the magnitude of the electrical current. The grid structure of the

pixels leads to similar control arrangement as in LCD. PDP actually has simpler manufacturing

requirements than LCD. They also have better viewing angle and superior color performance than LCD.

With PDP, large wide screens can be made from very thin materials. Unfortunately, PDP can not easily

ramp from showing all-white image to all-black image. The pixel size can not be made below 0.3 mm,

and the display lifetimes are currently only around 10000 hours. These last two disadvantages are the

reasons why PDP are not used for computer displays.

A promising display technology still in development is the Field Emission Displays (FED). The

basis of operation for the FED is the well-known cathode-anode-phosphor technology used in CRT.

However, in an FED, the cathode-anode-phosphor reaction is occurring at the level of each display pixel.

Each RGB pixel is a miniature vacuum tube, with multiple electron emitters. The advantages of the FED

include: lower power consumption, larger viewing angle, better response time, and superior color

reproduction than LCD. The operation of the FED, with its multiple electron emitters for each pixel,

provides for built-in redundancy. Of course there are some disadvantages with FED. Manufacturing an

array of miniature vacuum tubes is still a immature procedure. There is also the difficulty of creating a

miniature vacuum tube that is structurally strong and very well sealed.

2
 Another display technology is centered around a well-known electronic device: the LED, Light

Emitting Diode. It was discovered in the early 1960's that a semiconductor device can emit visible light,

in the red wavelength region, from a passing electrical current. The LED produces light from the

electron-hole interaction within the semiconducting material, not from the heating of a filament. The

LED produces light very efficiently; however, the intensity is very low compared to a regular light bulb.

LED are often used as indicator lights in electronic equipment. With the subsequent development of

green and, later, blue LED, manufacturers know they have a device that can be used in large-scale

displays. LED have some attractive features such as reliability, sturdiness, and low-power consumption.

By grouping LED into RGB clusters, large displays with fairy fast response times can be made. The main

disadvantage of LED as display device is the pixel size of around 10mm. This is the reason LED displays

are usually used as displays at sports stadium and at other public events.

Evolved from LED displays are OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) displays. The principal

difference between OLED and regular LED is in the material used. OLED is constructed from various

organic compounds not traditionally associated with semiconductor devices. The organic substances

enable OLED to be even more efficient emitter of light, as well as producing a brighter light. With a

whole range of organic compounds to choose from, a wide variety of light can be produced. As display

devices, OLED is an emissive technology (just like CRT) that is lightweight and thin (just like LCD). A

matrix arrangement of OLED can provide a bright, highly efficient flat display.

Currently, OLED display is progressing in two directions. One group, led by Kodak, is using

small molecules as building blocks for OLED. Some existing products using this type of OLED are

Motorola cell phones and Pioneer car stereos. The other direction of OLED display involves using

polymers. In 1989, researchers at Cambridge University discovered that certain polymers can emit light.

Consequently, Cambridge Display Technology, Philips, and Seiko Epson are the leaders in polymer

OLED development. Some advantages of polymer OLED include a simpler manufacturing process than

3
that of LCD, since plastic sheets are used instead of glass substrate. OLED displays have lower power

consumption than LCD, and the resulting image can be viewed from a wider angle. Most enticing, not

only large displays can be made using OLED, but curved and even flexible displays are possible.

Of course, there are obstacles in the development of OLED displays. Although the organic

compounds hold attractive potential for making LED displays, knowledge regarding making conducting

organic compounds is still limited. The organic compounds that can conduct electricity tend to be

difficult to work with since they are sensitive to air and moisture. Furthermore, the lifetime of OLED is

determine by the individual compound and polymer used. OLED of different colors require different

compounds, which have different lifetimes. With an OLED display consisting of the three primary

colors, the compounds used must have similar, or extremely long, lifetimes. Finally, manufacturing the

OLED is also a concern. With Kodak's OLED, the small molecules are deposited onto a heated glass

substrate using a process known as vacuum deposition. This method limits the type of compounds that

can be manufactured. The polymer OLED are manufactured at a lower temperature. However, the

polymers used are highly sensitive to oxygen and moisture, so it is difficult to find the proper plastic to

spray the OLED on.

Finally, there exist a display technology that is not only aiming to supplant the CRT, but possibly

to compete with paper in certain circumstances. This technology is known as electronic ink (e-ink). E-

ink has millions of tiny microcapsules containing the ink compound; each microcapsule is about 100

microns wide. Inside each microcapsule are hundreds of negatively charged black-pigmented chips and

hundreds of positively charged white-pigmented chips. The e-ink can be applied to almost any material

regular ink can go on. In the case of a digital book, the paper can be made from some thin polymer film,

which is divided into a grid structure consisting of many cells. Each cell can be electrically controlled by

microelectronics to have either positive or negative charge. The e-ink is spread out over the whole page.

A positive charge to a cell would pull the negatively charged black-pigmented chips to the bottom and

the cell would show up as white. The complexity of the e-ink technology is in the microelectronics

4
embedded in the material receiving the e-ink. The difficulty is in wiring the material to control the charge

on each cell while simultaneously maintaining the paper-thin page quality.

One advantage of the e-ink technology is its extremely low power requirement. According to the

developers of this technology, devices using e-ink for displays would utilize 50 to 100 times less power

than LCD. Furthermore, power is only required to change the displayed image. This would make e-ink

technology very attractive for making electronic signs or digital books. In fact, prototypes of e-ink

products have included a dozen two-color, 11x14 inch placards displaying product and price information

at a Macy’s in New Jersey. The displayed information can be changed wirelessly, and the each placard

can run off 3 AA batteries for over a year. In the case of a digital book, the information can be

downloaded once and read many times. New information can be downloaded as often as desired. E-ink

holds the promise to be a truly portable, low-power display device.

In surveying the various display technologies currently in development, one factor stands out. It

is likely that in the near future no one technology will replace the CRT as a display device. In other

words, no one technology can replicate all the attractive features of the CRT. One technology (LCD)

might prevail in the computer monitor segment, and another technology (PDP) might be dominant in

television. Five to ten years from now, FED might replace LCD in computer monitors as well as

replacing PDP in television and video displays. Perhaps the electronic signs and the very-large displays

of tomorrow will be made from OLED. It is even possible that the technology behind the 21st century's

CRT has yet to be known.