help point phone with lcd panel made in china

The newest member of the OnePlus 9 series – the OnePlus 9R – marks the first mid-to-high range product released in China by OnePlus in about five years. On April 15, 2021, the OnePlus 9R was announced for China and simultaneously released in India. This is no ordinary value tier product. Unlike other phones in a similar price range, the OnePlus 9R makes few compromises. The apps processor is a Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 870 mobile platform, which is a step up from the 865 Plus. It sports LPDDR4X memory + UFS 3.1 flash memory, VC liquid cooling system, dual main camera Quad-camera module and a 2K 120Hz flat screen display with Pixelworks visual processing technology.

A hallmark of all OnePlus phones powered by Pixelworks is display color accuracy, which is the foundation of image quality for all content – from movies to games, from photography to that bright blouse you bought online. Like other 8 and 9 series phones, every OnePlus 9R display is factory-tuned with Pixelworks’ patented, high-efficiency calibration and runs the Company’s color management software, enabling industry-leading color accuracy for all content, including skin tones, in sRGB, DCI-P3 and custom gamuts.

Many people enjoy reading e-books, browsing short videos or binge-watching the latest shows at night. That’s typically when screen brightness is low and AMOLED displays can experience unwanted color shifts. The new Pixelworks color shift correction feature mitigates such artifacts to ensure uniform color accuracy at across the entire panel, delivering OnePlus 9R users a consistent visual quality even when viewing in low light conditions. In this case, it’s what you don’t see that counts!

Our auto-adaptive display processing utilizes the phone’s light and RGB sensors to automatically adjust the luminance and tone of the display to match the brightness and color temperature of the ambient light, preserving clarity, reducing blue light and offering eye comfort for those non-stop social media engagements, extended reading, movie-watching and gaming in a wide range of viewing environments.

Most of us have experienced the challenge of trying to adjust our smartphone screens for very bright or dark viewing conditions. As the ambient light changes, the OnePlus 9R provides a graceful adaptation of the screen brightness to optimize eye comfort in a constantly changing mobile viewing environment.

As an extension of the Pixelworks adaptive display technology, the OnePlus 9R employs a fine-grained brightness control with 8,192 gradients of luminance, which makes screen transitions much more subtle and easily adjustable, whether in manual or auto adaptive mode.

The rise of OnePlus from flagship killer to true flagship brand, with all the accolades and proof points that go along with it, has been breathtaking to watch. The visual quality of its Fluid displays, powered by Pixelworks technology, is at the heart of the company’s differentiation. Can OnePlus succeed in China, arguably the world’s most fiercely competitive smartphone market? Well, if recent performance is any indication, I would not bet against OnePlus. They always seem to buck the trends, as the following aptly titled analysis by Counterpoint Research illustrates.

As a strategic partner, we look forward to the ongoing collaboration between OnePlus and Pixelworks, which continues to push the envelope of display performance at multiple price tiers, delivering unforgettable visual experiences for an increasing number of smartphone consumers.

Things made in China often carry a bad rep: after all, being affordable is almost always given as their first and foremost virtue. You can"t deny that being competitive in terms of price is what Chinese companies are great at, but recently they have picked up the pace with their innovation and design. Just look at the chart of the world"s biggest phone makers and you will see the rise of Xiaomi, Oppo, and many other makers of Chinese phones. That"s not a coincidence: the Chinese market has grown hugely, but it is also international buyers that appreciate the work done by its Android phone makers. So here are the best Chinese phones right now!

There are quite a lot of exciting new Chinese phones that you should know of. They offer a ton of bang for your buck, often undercutting the competition while having the same class of hardware inside. On the software side, some Chinese manufacturers like to go crazy with re-skinning the stock version of Android, making their phones look and feel, well, unique. Be warned that some of the phones on this list do not ship with Google Play Store or any Google services for the device (ahem, Huawei).

This can"t be a list of the best Chinese smartphones without including their king, the OnePlus 10 Pro. This phone was released recently in its home country and it reportedly delivers great performance in almost every area. A global release is expected shortly. It has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor coupled with 8 or 12GB of RAM and 128GB, 256GB or 512GB of storage. OnePlus smartphones are famous for being speedy, and this one is as snappy as it can get. The 10 Pro offers a gorgeous, 6.7-inch 120Hz LTPO2 AMOLED display with a QuadHD resolution. The premium OnePlus device has a nice quad-camera system too, with a 48MP main shooter and a 50MP ultra-wide camera. In terms of battery life, you won"t be disappointed either, as its 5,000mAh battery with blazing-fast 80W fast wired charging lasts at least a day. It also has one of the fastest wireless charging speeds.

Of course, all of this comes at a price, which might seem a bit hefty for some considering this company used to brag about making phones with flagship specs at affordable prices, but you can always go for the cheaper OnePlus 9 or OnePlus 9 Pro, which are great phones as well.

Xiaomi"s most premium 2021 smartphone is only available in select markets, but it is still one of the best Chinese smartphones out there. The high-end phone has an impressive under-display 20MP selfie camera, which might be the best iteration of the new technology we"ve seen so far. Other than that the Mix 4 comes packing the greatest of specs. It is powered by the fast Snapdragon 888+ processor, which is coupled with 8 or 12GB of RAM. The Mix 4 also has an impressive 6.7-inch 120Hz AMOLED display with an FHD+ resolution. In terms of battery it packs a 4,500mAh one.

A key selling point of this device is its blazing fast 120W wired charging, which is one of the best in the business. The phone also supports 50W fast wireless charging, which is very cool. This phone also has a very good 108MP quad-camera system which is capable of shooting 8K 24fps video.

Realme, an offshoot of Chinese smartphone superpower Oppo, has had great success lately. The Realme GT is an excellent phone undercutting other similarly specced devices. For around $700 you get plenty of flagship features, such as a 6.7" beautiful 120Hz LTPO2 AMOLED screen with a QuadHD+ resolution, and the powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip with at least 8GB of RAM. The battery is big, 5,000mAh in size, providing enough juice for more than a day of use. Camera-wise you get a 50MP main camera plus an 50MP ultra-wide, and a 3MP macro sensor.

The Realme GT 2 Pro just launched globally, so finding the device isn"t be as hard as it used to when its predecessor was first released. This phone will is easy to find in Europe at an early bid starting price of just €649.

If you want a phone that is gonna turn heads, you can"t go wrong with the Xiaomi 12S Ultra. It"s chock-full with bleeding edge, top-tier hardware on the inside, and a good value for money. As for the specs, it has a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor coupled with 8 or 12GB of RAM, a big 50.3MP main camera sensor with two more 48MP cameras for ultra-wide and telephoto shots, and a large 4,860mAh battery with blazing-fast 67W wired charging and 50W fast wireless charging.

You can buy a global version (with Google services) Xiaomi 12S Ultra from some international resellers for a price between $900 or $1,100, depending on the store, memory option, and choice of finish.

OK, this is the actual Xiaomi flagship right now — not the super-charged Ultra and not a money-saver like the 12X. The Xiaomi 12 has top-tier hardware and performance, a fantastic screen, and good looks. Spec-wise you once again have the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor with 8 or 12GB of RAM. The main camera is a 50MP sensor. A 4,500mAh battery keeps the lights on. The screen is a 6.28-inch 120Hz AMOLED panel, which means the phone is relatively small. Xiaomi 12"s global version has all the Google services every Android user needs, so no worries there. Price is about $600.

The phone itself should be a fantastic performer. The camera itself should also be fantastic — certainly capable of rivaling the iPhones and Galaxies of the world. The P50 Pro has an impressive-sounding 6.6-inch 120Hz OLED display too. It"s just a bummer that it runs HarmonyOS 2.0, which doesn"t come with Google services. This phone is a bit hard to obtain in Western markets too. The battery is 4,360mAh, which isn"t an impressive size.

ZTE launched its latest flagship in May. The Axon 40 Ultra pulls no stops, with a massive camera module, all the top-shelf hardware, and an eye-catching, matte finish on its back. It aims to be a contender for the Android crown, with its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, 120Hz screen refresh rate, 8 to 16GB of RAM, and big 5,000mAh battery with 65W fast wired charging.

The ZTE Axon 40 Ultra has a cutting camera setup, consisting of three 64MP cameras, one of which is a periscope sensor with 3.5x optical zoom. Its price tag is desirable too, starting at about $780. This phone also has a 16MP under-display selfie camera, which is arguably the best of its kind in current days. Overall this is an impressive phone which checks all the boxes to be a true flagship, so don"t underestimate it for a second.

Another Xiaomi device brings an even better value for money than the ones above. The 12T Pro is sort of an upper-mid-range device with a giant 200MP main camera and flagship-grade Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor. It is offered with either 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of storage. The camera system of the 12T Pro also includes a pretty basic 8MP ultra-wide shooter and an ever more useless 2MP macro sensor.

Oppo"s Find X series always presents a flagship with an "experimental twist". In the case of the Find X5 Pro, it"s a ceramic or eco leather back, showing all these other flagships with glass backs how it"s done. But that"s in no way the only thing that the Find X5 Pro has going for it. This is a pretty-looking, super-performing smartphone with a very decent camera system, a beautiful LTPO2 120Hz OLED screen, and a bunch of software features.

ColorOS, on top of Android 12, is chock-full of little enhancements that make the user experience quite fun with this phone. It also has an international version that comes with Google services, so it"s most surely worth a look, though, it"s not super-easy to obtain.

The Redmi series consists of Xiaomi"s mid-range and budget-friendly phones. A step below their flagship Mi phones, the Redmis still have powerful hardware and good cameras at super easy-to-swallow prices. The Redmi Note 11 Pro has pretty decent specs and a 120Hz AMOLED screen.

While we haven"t gotten ahold of it yet, you can check out our review of the Redmi Note 9 and Redmi Note 9 Pro phones to get a general feel for what you will get with this here jewel. This phone still isn"t available in most western markets, but you can always go for the very similar Redmi Note 10 Pro which is.

Foldable phones are pretty much the pinnacle of technological achievement in the smartphone space right now. That is not to say that they are good enough to warrant their sky-high pricing, no. But they are certainly a marvel to admire from afar.

Such is the case of the Huawei Mate Xs2, which costs an arm and a leg, while it is crippled by the lack of Google services on the phone. Well, at least to westerners — Huawei is still doing well in China.

The Huawei Mate Xs2, just like the OG Mate X, ditches the inward fold idea of the Galaxy Z Fold and goes with an outward fold instead. That way when the foldable display is closed, the device looks much more like a regular smartphone, rather than a weird tall phone with big bezels.

Poco is Xiaomi"s off-shoot brand that focuses on budget phones. Of their current portfolio, the Poco X3 NFC sits squarely in the middle — it offers an upper midrange processor and a 6.67-inch 120Hz LCD screen. The X3 Pro is the global variant of the device and is easily obtained for a very good price. The software onboard is Xiaomi"s MIUI, slightly modified to fit the Poco brand.

One of the newest Poco phones, the F3, strives to be a true flagship killer. The Poco F3 is the best phone the company currently offers - it has a flagship caliber Snapdragon 870 processor and a gorgeous, 6.68-inch 120Hz AMOLED display with an FHD+ resolution. As for memory, it has either 6 or 8GB of RAM and 128 or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. This phone is sold globally by Poco, and its price makes it a lot more appealing than some of its competition. In Europe, the Poco F3 can be found for as low as €300, depending on the storage version you choose.

So there you have it, the best Chinese smartphones you can currently get. Even smaller brands like Realme and Poco have caught up to the competition, and large manufacturers in the face of Xiaomi and Oppo are breathing down Samsung"s neck. There are plenty of excellent Android phones on this list, and most of them truly emphasise what a flagship smartphone should be.

Beijing-based BOE Technology has long vied with Japanese LCD panel makers for the right to supply displays for Apple’s lower-end smartphones, but this month it may get the opportunity to supply more expensive OLED-type displays for the newest iPhone 13. The Chinese manufacturer claims 40% of the supply, thereby taking a big cut from Samsung’s share.

Nikkei Asian Review reported that in late September, a small amount of BOE brand OLED panels had already been sent to Apple for qualification tests. The final stage of testing is scheduled for this month, it will have to confirm that the BOE displays meet Apple’s requirements for reliability. The Chinese company has already supplied Apple with OLED displays for the iPhone 12, but they were only used to repair used smartphones.

BOE will launch 6.1-inch OLEDs for iPhone 13 at its Sichuan plant, which has been designated as a preferred power utility as part of a new Chinese government policy to reduce its carbon footprint from manufacturing. Even if the production of displays for the iPhone 13 does not suffer from planned power outages, the problem could be a shortage of related components, which will prevent Apple itself from producing enough smartphones. The company is rumored to have already cut its next-generation iPhone production program for this year from 90 million to 80 million.

BOE will compete with Samsung in delivering OLED displays for the iPhone 13. In the first phase, BOE will claim 20% of the supply; but over time hopes to increase the share to 40%. Until now, BOE has supplied OLED displays primarily to Chinese smartphone manufacturers; but the contract with Apple will take the Chinese company to the next level.

British analyst firm Omdia has published a report on the state of the market for large LCD panels for 2020. The report covers LCD panels used in TVs and shows that China’s BOE has overtaken LG Display; to become the leader in this segment for the first time.

The data shows that BOE’s share of the large LCD market reached 22.9%, up 2.2 percentage points from 2019. Thanks to this, the Chinese company has surpassed LG Display; which has been the leader in this market for a long time. LG’s share fell to 17.2%, which is 6.7 percentage points less than it was recorded in 2019. The third largest supplier of LCD panels for TVs is Taiwan’s AU Optronics; which delivered 11.9% of large screens in 2020.

Another Chinese company, China Star Optoelectronics; which controls 8.8% of the market, entered the top five leaders in the LCD TV market. It ousted Samsung from fifth place, which occupied it in 2019.

Also, Global LCD TV shipments reached 130 million units in the first half of 2021; up 2.5% year-on-year, according to data from research firm CINNO Research. In addition, the LCD market is likely to hit record shipments again this year; with Chinese manufacturers likely to take a larger share of that market.

SHENZHEN, CHINA -Media OutReach- 31 March 2022 - The OPPO Find X5 Pro has the most advanced display ever seen in an OPPO phone: The 1 Billion Colour Bionic Display. It uses a 120Hz Adaptive Dynamic Refresh Rate and 1000Hz instantaneous touch sampling rate panel with multi-point calibration, 8192-level bionic dimming and support for HDR10+, among other highlights. In this generation of the Find series, OPPO has taken a renewed focus not just on display quality, but how the eyes see.

Its 6.7-inch ultra-clear AMOLED curved screen is matched with ultra-tough contoured Gorilla Glass Victus protection for flagship-grade drop and scratch resistance.

The curve catches the light, a charming visual effect in itself, but also helps OPPO achieve a superb 92.7% screen to body ratio. This maximizes the canvas for users’ favorite apps, games and photos, relative to the size of the phone.

The OPPO Find X5 Pro 1 Billion Colour AMOLED display is capable of rendering 100% of the colors in the DCI P3 gamut, the standard used by Hollywood colourists to perfect movies for big-screen reproduction. Careful calibration is key here, though. The Find X5 Pro has received one of the highest accolades available to phones as a result, a DisplayMate A+ rating.

The OPPO Find X5 Pro advanced color engine will also adapt the array of colors used to match the content. While users are editing the holiday photos, rest assured the bright tones of tropical flowers and deep oranges, reds and umbers of an ocean sunset are not simply flattered by the OPPO Find X5 Pro’s rich display. Such memories are made for sharing with others.

New for this generation of Find phones, the OPPO Find X5 Pro also offers Multi-Brightness Colour Calibration. Most phones, even those with excellent-quality displays, are made to look their best at a specific brightness level. OPPO’s Find X5 Pro is tuned for peak performance at the display power used both indoors and outdoors. Perfect display calibration is like a fragile ornament, broken by changes in multiple factors, but OPPO adjusts to compensate for them all.

However, color tone is not always the most important factor in a phone display. Brightness matters more if the users are out at a picnic with friends and want to video call another who couldn’t make it. Or if the user wants to compose a picture of a sun-baked beach while on holiday. The OPPO Find X5 Pro’s screen panel provides peak brightness of a searing 1300 nits, enough to cut through the most dazzling sunny days.

Such versatility is just as important at the other extreme. In a dark room our pupils constrict, making even a dim phone screen seem ultra-bright, even painful. The OPPO Find X5 Pro can simmer all the way down to 20 nits of brightness, so everyone can read articles or watch videos under the covers in comfort.

The OPPO Find X5 Pro’s brightness scaling mirrors the way the eyes and brains function, with 12 scaling modes. These gears of modulation alter the rate at which display power changes depending on its current level. The end result is it appears smooth, consistent and pleasantly gradual to the eyes in all conditions.

The OPPO Find X5 Pro’s 120Hz Adaptive Dynamic Refresh Rate further enhances the smoothness provided by the fine-grain brightness control and self-calibrating color enhancement. It lets Android apps display at twice the usual frame rate, making menus glide with such grace the term “scroll” no longer seems to do them justice.

A low refresh rate reduces power consumption, letting users to spend more time enjoying the power of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor in the latest games before needing to give the 5000mAh battery a turbo 80W SuperVOOC Flash Charge and 50W AirVOOC Wireless Flash Charge to top-up, or spend longer relaxing with an HDR movie.

The display makes composing photos easier outdoors, is a great way to watch movies on-the-go, and can adapt to the users’ needs in almost every situation. Setting new standards for smartphones, there’s something everyone can appreciate in the OPPO Find X5 Pro screen.

Ms. Lim said the software was intended to help the Chinese client identify junk text messages and calls. She did not identify the company that requested it and said she did not know how many phones were affected. She said phone companies, not Adups, were responsible for disclosing privacy policies to users. “Adups was just there to provide functionality that the phone distributor asked for,” she said.

Android phones run software that is developed by Google and distributed free for phone manufacturers to customize. A Google official said the company had told Adups to remove the surveillance ability from phones that run services like the Google Play store. That would not include devices in China, where hundreds of millions of people use Android phones but where Google does not operate because of censorship concerns.

Because Adups has not published a list of affected phones, it is not clear how users can determine whether their phones are vulnerable. “People who have some technical skills could,” Mr. Karygiannis, the Kryptowire vice president, said. “But the average consumer? No.”

Adups also provides what it calls “big data” services to help companies study their customers, “to know better about them, about what they like and what they use and there they come from and what they prefer to provide better service,” according to its website.

Buying from China often gets a bad rap: we’ve all got stories of times we’ve bought something online and received something entirely different in its place or, worse, the item doesn’t arrive at all. But don’t tar Chinese tech with the same brush: Chinese phones now top all our major smartphone charts.

While Huawei without Google services is no longer the attractive proposition it once was, many other Chinese brands have stepped up to fill its place. From Xiaomi to OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Vivo and others, these phones typically offer incredible value for money, with the premium build quality and feature set you’d expect from the top Android phones, but at a price point much lower.

An outstanding follow-up to 2020’s best mid-range phone, with great performance, 5G, OnePlus’s signature Oxygen OS user experience, and a near-flagship main camera. What’s not to love?

What the OnePlus Nord 2 really demonstrates is the company’s ability to prioritise the features that users are looking for right now and wrapping them up in an attractive package with a compelling price point.

The Xiaomi 12 is a compelling flagship smartphone. Its compact form factor will appeal to those who don’t want a huge handset and, overall, the design looks and feels great.

You also get some high-end specs, such as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, an AMOLED screen with 120Hz refresh rate, and speedy 67W charging. It’s also got a solid main camera, along with a good ultra-wide shooter, but few buyers will be excited by a telemacro lens.

The phone’s biggest weakness is, as ever, its camera, which like so many OnePlus flagships before it, will likely require numerous post-launch patches to bring it in line with competitors.

The ZTE Axon 30 Ultra is a stunning proposition and offers buckets of value. It’s a genuinely exciting flagship smartphone in practically every department: it’s lightweight, feels great in the hand, the 144Hz 6.67in AMOLED display is detailed and crisp, the Snapdragon 888 allows it to perform like a gaming phone and, well, that camera setup is incredible.

There are plenty of creative shooting modes available to make the most of the system, and it caters to videographers with 8K@30fps video recording too.

The results are comparable to those taken on ultra-premium smartphones like the Galaxy S21 Ultra and iPhone 12 Pro, but with one key difference – it’s hundreds of pounds/dollars cheaper.

The software could do with a visual tweak here and there and there’s no wireless charging, but those are minor complaints in what is an otherwise phenomenal flagship.

But the 165Hz refresh rate still isn’t adaptive – combined with a smaller battery capacity, battery life is noticeably worse than last year. While the software is great for gaming, it’s slightly lacking for everyday use.

The Red Magic 7 is still an excellent phone for mobile gaming, especially at its mid-range starting price. But the better selfie camera, larger battery and much faster charging on the 7 Pro could be worth waiting for.

The Poco X4 Pro 5G is a huge upgrade over its predecessor in terms of features and design, with a premium look and feel despite the plastic body. The 120Hz AMOLED display is bright, vibrant and buttery-smooth, with one of the smallest camera cutouts we’ve seen.

While the refresh rate isn’t adaptive like premium alternatives, the phone can still comfortably last more than a day with average use, and when it does need a top up there’s 67W fast wired charging (with the necessary charger supplied in the box).

The internals are mid-range, with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 695 leading the show, but performance is very decent for the money. A tempting option for the cost-conscious.

Highlights here start with the stunning screen offering AMOLED technology and a 120Hz refresh rate, and continue with an excellent set of cameras. The headline is a 108Mp whopper which is backed up by a reasonable ultra-wide and a surprisingly decent telemacro.

There are smaller delights too such as the inclusion of a headphone jack, Arc fingerprint scanner, stereo speakers and even an IR blaster. Battery life is also strong (Xiaomi includes a 33W charger in the box), and core specs are decent with a Snapdragon 732G ensuring smooth performance.

Not only is it among the first phones in the world to offer a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, it’s the first example of Realme pushing past Full HD+ resolution (while also showcasing advanced LTPO 2.0 tech) in order to deliver a more premium experience to users. It also ushers in improved long-term software support, further improving the company’s existing value-for-money proposition.

The company hasn’t stopped there, however, with green credentials that include integrating biopolymer into the phone’s design, the move to near plastic-free packaging (21.7% down to just 0.3%) and the fact that, in terms of sustainability, the GT 2 Pro is also the world’s first TCO 9.0-certified phone.

The Realme GT 2 Pro pushes the envelope, but not necessarily in the ways you might expect, and while the camera could be better and typical top-tier flagship features (like water resistance and wireless charging) are still missing, this phone is a promising sign of what’s to come.

The Honor 50 is the first phone to launch globally since the company split from former owner Huawei – and as a result it’s also the first Honor phone in years to run Google software.

Setting the software aside, it’s the beautiful curved OLED display that really excels by mid-range standards, made better by being squeezed into a phone that’s only 175g and 7.8mm thick. That makes this one of the best choices around if you want a big, beautiful display without a bulky phone.

The Snapdragon 778G delivers solid specs and 5G, but the base 6GB RAM is a little low for the price. Solid battery life and fast 66W wired charging help though.

Today it’s easier than ever to get hold of Chinese phones in the UK, with many of the big names now officially retailing here. This means you no longer need to rely on Chinese stockists such as

Geekbuying to import Chinese phones – though you will very often still find cheaper prices when you do. (Do keep in mind that when importing phones from China to the UK you are liable for import duty at 20% of the value on the shipping paperwork.)

Chinese phones are now regularly offered on contract by the UK’s major mobile operators, but sometimes when buying a Chinese phone you will need to get a SIM-free model and then pair it with a

Lower down the smartphone food chain there are countless other Chinese brands you’ll likely not have heard of, for example UMIDIGI and Bluboo, Ulefone and Elefone, Oukitel and Meizu. On paper the specifications of their phones impress, but you’ll often find corners are cut in the specifications to keep down prices – they might swap in lower-power MediaTek processors and large but lower-resolution displays, for example, while NFC, wireless charging and waterproofing are rare.

On the plus side, Chinese phones pretty much always support dual-SIM (dual-standby), and often will provide this in addition to expandable storage. As they strive to mimic the market leaders, design and build quality of Chinese phones tend to be very high.

► When the leading Korean players Samsung Display and LG Display exit LCD production, BOE will be the most significant player in the LCD market. Though OLED can replace the LCD, it will take years for it to be fully replaced.

► As foreign companies control evaporation material and machines, panel manufacturers seek a cheaper way to mass-produce OLED panels – inkjet printing.

When mainstream consumer electronics brands choose their device panels, the top three choices are Samsung Display, LG Display (LGD) and BOE (000725:SZ) – the first two from Korea and the third from China. From liquid-crystal displays (LCD) to active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED), display panel technology has been upgrading with bigger screen products.

From the early 1990s, LCDs appeared and replaced cathode-ray tube (CRT) screens, which enabled lighter and thinner display devices. Japanese electronics companies like JDI pioneered the panel technology upgrade while Samsung Display and LGD were nobodies in the field. Every technology upgrade or revolution is a chance for new players to disrupt the old paradigm.

The landscape was changed in 2001 when Korean players firstly made a breakthrough in the Gen 5 panel technology – the later the generation, the bigger the panel size. A large panel size allows display manufacturers to cut more display screens from one panel and create bigger-screen products. "The bigger the better" is a motto for panel makers as the cost can be controlled better and they can offer bigger-size products to satisfy the burgeoning middle-class" needs.

LCD panel makers have been striving to realize bigger-size products in the past four decades. The technology breakthrough of Gen 5 in 2002 made big-screen LCD TV available and it sent Samsung Display and LGD to the front row, squeezing the market share of Japanese panel makers.

The throne chair of LCD passed from Japanese companies to Korean enterprises – and now Chinese players are clinching it, replacing the Koreans. After twenty years of development, Chinese panel makers have mastered LCD panel technology and actively engage in large panel R&D projects. Mass production created a supply surplus that led to drops in LCD price. In May 2020, Samsung Display announced that it would shut down all LCD fabs in China and Korea but concentrate on quantum dot LCD (Samsung calls it QLED) production; LGD stated that it would close LCD TV panel fabs in Korea and focus on organic LED (OLED). Their retreats left BOE and China Stars to digest the LCD market share.

Consumer preference has been changing during the Korean fab"s recession: Bigger-or-not is fine but better image quality ranks first. While LCD needs the backlight to show colors and substrates for the liquid crystal layer, OLED enables lighter and flexible screens (curvy or foldable), higher resolution and improved color display. It itself can emit lights – no backlight or liquid layer is needed. With the above advantages, OLED has been replacing the less-profitable LCD screens.

Samsung Display has been the major screen supplier for high-end consumer electronics, like its own flagship cell phone products and Apple"s iPhone series. LGD dominated the large OLED TV market as it is the one that handles large-size OLED mass production. To further understand Korean panel makers" monopolizing position, it is worth mentioning fine metal mask (FMM), a critical part of the OLED RGB evaporation process – a process in OLED mass production that significantly affects the yield rate.

Prior to 2018, Samsung Display and DNP"s monopolistic supply contract prevented other panel fabs from acquiring quality FMM products as DNP bonded with Hitachi Metal, the "only" FMM material provider choice for OLED makers. After the contract expired, panel makers like BOE could purchase FFM from DNP for their OLED R&D and mass production. Except for FFM materials, vacuum evaporation equipment is dominated by Canon Tokki, a Japanese company. Its role in the OLED industry resembles that of ASML in the integrated circuit space. Canon Tokki"s annual production of vacuum evaporation equipment is fewer than ten and thereby limits the total production of OLED panels that rely on evaporation technology.

The shortage of equipment and scarcity of materials inspired panel fabs to explore substitute technology; they discovered that inkjet printing has the potential to be the thing to replace evaporation. Plus, evaporation could be applied to QLED panels as quantum dots are difficult to be vaporized. Inkjet printing prints materials (liquefied organic gas or quantum dots) to substrates, saving materials and breaking free from FMM"s size restriction. With the new tech, large-size OLED panels can theoretically be recognized with improved yield rate and cost-efficiency. However, the tech is at an early stage when inkjet printing precision could not meet panel manufacturers" requirements.

Display and LGD are using evaporation on their OLED products. To summarize, OLED currently adopts evaporation and QLED must go with inkjet printing, but evaporation is a more mature tech. Technology adoption will determine a different track for the company to pursue. With inkjet printing technology, players are at a similar starting point, which is a chance for all to run to the front – so it is for Chinese panel fabs. Certainly, panel production involves more technologies (like flexible panels) than evaporation or inkjet printing and only mastering all required technologies can help a company to compete at the same level.

Presently, Chinese panel fabs are investing heavily in OLED production while betting on QLED. BOE has four Gen 6 OLED product lines, four Gen 8.5 and one Gen 10.5 LCD lines; China Star, controlled by the major appliance titan TCL, has invested two Gen 6 OLED fabs and four large-size LCD product lines.

Remembering the last "regime change" that occurred in 2005 when Korean fabs overtook Japanese" place in the LCD market, the new phase of panel technology changed the outlook of the industry. Now, OLED or QLED could mark the perfect time for us to expect landscape change.

After Samsung Display and LGD ceding from LCD TV productions, the vacant market share will be digested by BOE, China Star and other LCD makers. Indeed, OLED and QLED have the potential to take over the LCD market in the future, but the process may take more than a decade. Korean companies took ten years from panel fab"s research on OLED to mass production of small- and medium-size OLED electronics. Yet, LCD screen cell phones are still available in the market.

LCD will not disappear until OLED/QLED"s cost control can compete with it. The low- to middle-end panel market still prefers cheap LCD devices and consumers are satisfied with LCD products – thicker but cheaper. BOE has been the largest TV panel maker since 2019. As estimated by Informa, BOE and China Star will hold a duopoly on the flat panel display market.

BOE"s performance seems to have ridden on a roller coaster ride in the past several years. Large-size panel mass production like Gen 8.5 and Gen 10.5 fabs helped BOE recognize the first place in production volume. On the other side, expanded large-size panel factories and expenses of OLED product lines are costly: BOE planned to spend CNY 176.24 billion (USD 25.92 billion) – more than Tibet"s 2019 GDP CNY 169.78 billion – on Chengdu and Mianyang"s Gen 6 AMOLED lines and Hefei and Wuhan"s Gen 10.5 LCD lines.

Except for making large-size TVs, bigger panels can cut out more display screens for smaller devices like laptops and cell phones, which are more profitable than TV products. On its first-half earnings concall, BOE said that it is shifting its production focus to cell phone and laptop products as they are more profitable than TV products. TV, IT and cell phone products counted for 30%, 44% and 33% of its productions respectively and the recent rising TV price may lead to an increased portion of TV products in the short term.

Except for outdoor large screens, TV is another driver that pushes panel makers to research on how to make bigger and bigger screens. A research done by CHEARI showed that Chinese TV sales dropped by 10.6% to CNY 128.2 billion from 2018 to 2019. Large-size TV sales increased as a total but the unit price decreased; high-end products like laser TV and OLED TV saw a strong growth of 131.2% and 34.1%, respectively.

The change in TV sales responded to a lifestyle change since the 4G era: people are getting more and more used to enjoy streaming services on portable devices like tablets and smartphones. The ‘disappearing living room" is a phenomenon common for the young generation in Chinese tier-1 cities.

The demand for different products may vary as lifestyles change and panel fabs need to make on-time judgments and respond to the change. For instance, the coming Olympics is a new driving factor to boost TV sales; "smart city" projects around the world will need more screens for data visualization; people will own more screens and better screens when life quality improves. Flexible screens, cost-efficient production process, accessible materials, changing market and all these problems are indeed the next opportunity for the industry.

Glass substrate with ITO electrodes. The shapes of these electrodes will determine the shapes that will appear when the LCD is switched ON. Vertical ridges etched on the surface are smooth.

A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directlybacklight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome.seven-segment displays, as in a digital clock, are all good examples of devices with these displays. They use the same basic technology, except that arbitrary images are made from a matrix of small pixels, while other displays have larger elements. LCDs can either be normally on (positive) or off (negative), depending on the polarizer arrangement. For example, a character positive LCD with a backlight will have black lettering on a background that is the color of the backlight, and a character negative LCD will have a black background with the letters being of the same color as the backlight. Optical filters are added to white on blue LCDs to give them their characteristic appearance.

LCDs are used in a wide range of applications, including LCD televisions, computer monitors, instrument panels, aircraft cockpit displays, and indoor and outdoor signage. Small LCD screens are common in LCD projectors and portable consumer devices such as digital cameras, watches, digital clocks, calculators, and mobile telephones, including smartphones. LCD screens are also used on consumer electronics products such as DVD players, video game devices and clocks. LCD screens have replaced heavy, bulky cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays in nearly all applications. LCD screens are available in a wider range of screen sizes than CRT and plasma displays, with LCD screens available in sizes ranging from tiny digital watches to very large television receivers. LCDs are slowly being replaced by OLEDs, which can be easily made into different shapes, and have a lower response time, wider color gamut, virtually infinite color contrast and viewing angles, lower weight for a given display size and a slimmer profile (because OLEDs use a single glass or plastic panel whereas LCDs use two glass panels; the thickness of the panels increases with size but the increase is more noticeable on LCDs) and potentially lower power consumption (as the display is only "on" where needed and there is no backlight). OLEDs, however, are more expensive for a given display size due to the very expensive electroluminescent materials or phosphors that they use. Also due to the use of phosphors, OLEDs suffer from screen burn-in and there is currently no way to recycle OLED displays, whereas LCD panels can be recycled, although the technology required to recycle LCDs is not yet widespread. Attempts to maintain the competitiveness of LCDs are quantum dot displays, marketed as SUHD, QLED or Triluminos, which are displays with blue LED backlighting and a Quantum-dot enhancement film (QDEF) that converts part of the blue light into red and green, offering similar performance to an OLED display at a lower price, but the quantum dot layer that gives these displays their characteristics can not yet be recycled.

Since LCD screens do not use phosphors, they rarely suffer image burn-in when a static image is displayed on a screen for a long time, e.g., the table frame for an airline flight schedule on an indoor sign. LCDs are, however, susceptible to image persistence.battery-powered electronic equipment more efficiently than a CRT can be. By 2008, annual sales of televisions with LCD screens exceeded sales of CRT units worldwide, and the CRT became obsolete for most purposes.

Each pixel of an LCD typically consists of a layer of molecules aligned between two transparent electrodes, often made of Indium-Tin oxide (ITO) and two polarizing filters (parallel and perpendicular polarizers), the axes of transmission of which are (in most of the cases) perpendicular to each other. Without the liquid crystal between the polarizing filters, light passing through the first filter would be blocked by the second (crossed) polarizer. Before an electric field is applied, the orientation of the liquid-crystal molecules is determined by the alignment at the surfaces of electrodes. In a twisted nematic (TN) device, the surface alignment directions at the two electrodes are perpendicular to each other, and so the molecules arrange themselves in a helical structure, or twist. This induces the rotation of the polarization of the incident light, and the device appears gray. If the applied voltage is large enough, the liquid crystal molecules in the center of the layer are almost completely untwisted and the polarization of the incident light is not rotated as it passes through the liquid crystal layer. This light will then be mainly polarized perpendicular to the second filter, and thus be blocked and the pixel will appear black. By controlling the voltage applied across the liquid crystal layer in each pixel, light can be allowed to pass through in varying amounts thus constituting different levels of gray.

The chemical formula of the liquid crystals used in LCDs may vary. Formulas may be patented.Sharp Corporation. The patent that covered that specific mixture expired.

Most color LCD systems use the same technique, with color filters used to generate red, green, and blue subpixels. The LCD color filters are made with a photolithography process on large glass sheets that are later glued with other glass sheets containing a TFT array, spacers and liquid crystal, creating several color LCDs that are then cut from one another and laminated with polarizer sheets. Red, green, blue and black photoresists (resists) are used. All resists contain a finely ground powdered pigment, with particles being just 40 nanometers across. The black resist is the first to be applied; this will create a black grid (known in the industry as a black matrix) that will separate red, green and blue subpixels from one another, increasing contrast ratios and preventing light from leaking from one subpixel onto other surrounding subpixels.Super-twisted nematic LCD, where the variable twist between tighter-spaced plates causes a varying double refraction birefringence, thus changing the hue.

LCD in a Texas Instruments calculator with top polarizer removed from device and placed on top, such that the top and bottom polarizers are perpendicular. As a result, the colors are inverted.

The optical effect of a TN device in the voltage-on state is far less dependent on variations in the device thickness than that in the voltage-off state. Because of this, TN displays with low information content and no backlighting are usually operated between crossed polarizers such that they appear bright with no voltage (the eye is much more sensitive to variations in the dark state than the bright state). As most of 2010-era LCDs are used in television sets, monitors and smartphones, they have high-resolution matrix arrays of pixels to display arbitrary images using backlighting with a dark background. When no image is displayed, different arrangements are used. For this purpose, TN LCDs are operated between parallel polarizers, whereas IPS LCDs feature crossed polarizers. In many applications IPS LCDs have replaced TN LCDs, particularly in smartphones. Both the liquid crystal material and the alignment layer material contain ionic compounds. If an electric field of one particular polarity is applied for a long period of time, this ionic material is attracted to the surfaces and degrades the device performance. This is avoided either by applying an alternating current or by reversing the polarity of the electric field as the device is addressed (the response of the liquid crystal layer is identical, regardless of the polarity of the applied field).

Displays for a small number of individual digits or fixed symbols (as in digital watches and pocket calculators) can be implemented with independent electrodes for each segment.alphanumeric or variable graphics displays are usually implemented with pixels arranged as a matrix consisting of electrically connected rows on one side of the LC layer and columns on the other side, which makes it possible to address each pixel at the intersections. The general method of matrix addressing consists of sequentially addressing one side of the matrix, for example by selecting the rows one-by-one and applying the picture information on the other side at the columns row-by-row. For details on the various matrix addressing schemes see passive-matrix and active-matrix addressed LCDs.

LCDs, along with OLED displays, are manufactured in cleanrooms borrowing techniques from semiconductor manufacturing and using large sheets of glass whose size has increased over time. Several displays are manufactured at the same time, and then cut from the sheet of glass, also known as the mother glass or LCD glass substrate. The increase in size allows more displays or larger displays to be made, just like with increasing wafer sizes in semiconductor manufacturing. The glass sizes are as follows:

Until Gen 8, manufacturers would not agree on a single mother glass size and as a result, different manufacturers would use slightly different glass sizes for the same generation. Some manufacturers have adopted Gen 8.6 mother glass sheets which are only slightly larger than Gen 8.5, allowing for more 50 and 58 inch LCDs to be made per mother glass, specially 58 inch LCDs, in which case 6 can be produced on a Gen 8.6 mother glass vs only 3 on a Gen 8.5 mother glass, significantly reducing waste.AGC Inc., Corning Inc., and Nippon Electric Glass.

In 1888,Friedrich Reinitzer (1858–1927) discovered the liquid crystalline nature of cholesterol extracted from carrots (that is, two melting points and generation of colors) and published his findings at a meeting of the Vienna Chemical Society on May 3, 1888 (F. Reinitzer: Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Cholesterins, Monatshefte für Chemie (Wien) 9, 421–441 (1888)).Otto Lehmann published his work "Flüssige Kristalle" (Liquid Crystals). In 1911, Charles Mauguin first experimented with liquid crystals confined between plates in thin layers.

In 1922, Georges Friedel described the structure and properties of liquid crystals and classified them in three types (nematics, smectics and cholesterics). In 1927, Vsevolod Frederiks devised the electrically switched light valve, called the Fréedericksz transition, the essential effect of all LCD technology. In 1936, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph company patented the first practical application of the technology, "The Liquid Crystal Light Valve". In 1962, the first major English language publication Molecular Structure and Properties of Liquid Crystals was published by Dr. George W. Gray.RCA found that liquid crystals had some interesting electro-optic characteristics and he realized an electro-optical effect by generating stripe-patterns in a thin layer of liquid crystal material by the application of a voltage. This effect is based on an electro-hydrodynamic instability forming what are now called "Williams domains" inside the liquid crystal.

In 1964, George H. Heilmeier, then working at the RCA laboratories on the effect discovered by Williams achieved the switching of colors by field-induced realignment of dichroic dyes in a homeotropically oriented liquid crystal. Practical problems with this new electro-optical effect made Heilmeier continue to work on scattering effects in liquid crystals and finally the achievement of the first operational liquid-crystal display based on what he called the George H. Heilmeier was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of FameIEEE Milestone.

In the late 1960s, pioneering work on liquid crystals was undertaken by the UK"s Royal Radar Establishment at Malvern, England. The team at RRE supported ongoing work by George William Gray and his team at the University of Hull who ultimately discovered the cyanobiphenyl liquid crystals, which had correct stability and temperature properties for application in LCDs.

The idea of a TFT-based liquid-crystal display (LCD) was conceived by Bernard Lechner of RCA Laboratories in 1968.dynamic scattering mode (DSM) LCD that used standard discrete MOSFETs.

On December 4, 1970, the twisted nematic field effect (TN) in liquid crystals was filed for patent by Hoffmann-LaRoche in Switzerland, (Swiss patent No. 532 261) with Wolfgang Helfrich and Martin Schadt (then working for the Central Research Laboratories) listed as inventors.Brown, Boveri & Cie, its joint venture partner at that time, which produced TN displays for wristwatches and other applications during the 1970s for the international markets including the Japanese electronics industry, which soon produced the first digital quartz wristwatches with TN-LCDs and numerous other products. James Fergason, while working with Sardari Arora and Alfred Saupe at Kent State University Liquid Crystal Institute, filed an identical patent in the United States on April 22, 1971.ILIXCO (now LXD Incorporated), produced LCDs based on the TN-effect, which soon superseded the poor-quality DSM types due to improvements of lower operating voltages and lower power consumption. Tetsuro Hama and Izuhiko Nishimura of Seiko received a US patent dated February 1971, for an electronic wristwatch incorporating a TN-LCD.

In 1972, the concept of the active-matrix thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid-crystal display panel was prototyped in the United States by T. Peter Brody"s team at Westinghouse, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Westinghouse Research Laboratories demonstrated the first thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD).high-resolution and high-quality electronic visual display devices use TFT-based active matrix displays.active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AM LCD) in 1974, and then Brody coined the term "active matrix" in 1975.

In 1972 North American Rockwell Microelectronics Corp introduced the use of DSM LCDs for calculators for marketing by Lloyds Electronics Inc, though these required an internal light source for illumination.Sharp Corporation followed with DSM LCDs for pocket-sized calculators in 1973Seiko and its first 6-digit TN-LCD quartz wristwatch, and Casio"s "Casiotron". Color LCDs based on Guest-Host interaction were invented by a team at RCA in 1968.TFT LCDs similar to the prototypes developed by a Westinghouse team in 1972 were patented in 1976 by a team at Sharp consisting of Fumiaki Funada, Masataka Matsuura, and Tomio Wada,

In 1983, researchers at Brown, Boveri & Cie (BBC) Research Center, Switzerland, invented the passive matrix-addressed LCDs. H. Amstutz et al. were listed as inventors in the corresponding patent applications filed in Switzerland on July 7, 1983, and October 28, 1983. Patents were granted in Switzerland CH 665491, Europe EP 0131216,

The first color LCD televisions were developed as handheld televisions in Japan. In 1980, Hattori Seiko"s R&D group began development on color LCD pocket televisions.Seiko Epson released the first LCD television, the Epson TV Watch, a wristwatch equipped with a small active-matrix LCD television.dot matrix TN-LCD in 1983.Citizen Watch,TFT LCD.computer monitors and LCD televisions.3LCD projection technology in the 1980s, and licensed it for use in projectors in 1988.compact, full-color LCD projector.

In 1990, under different titles, inventors conceived electro optical effects as alternatives to twisted nematic field effect LCDs (TN- and STN- LCDs). One approach was to use interdigital electrodes on one glass substrate only to produce an electric field essentially parallel to the glass substrates.Germany by Guenter Baur et al. and patented in various countries.Hitachi work out various practical details of the IPS technology to interconnect the thin-film transistor array as a matrix and to avoid undesirable stray fields in between pixels.

Hitachi also improved the viewing angle dependence further by optimizing the shape of the electrodes (Super IPS). NEC and Hitachi become early manufacturers of active-matrix addressed LCDs based on the IPS technology. This is a milestone for implementing large-screen LCDs having acceptable visual performance for flat-panel computer monitors and television screens. In 1996, Samsung developed the optical patterning technique that enables multi-domain LCD. Multi-domain and In Plane Switching subsequently remain the dominant LCD designs through 2006.South Korea and Taiwan,

In 2007 the image quality of LCD televisions surpassed the image quality of cathode-ray-tube-based (CRT) TVs.LCD TVs were projected to account 50% of the 200 million TVs to be shipped globally in 2006, according to Displaybank.Toshiba announced 2560 × 1600 pixels on a 6.1-inch (155 mm) LCD panel, suitable for use in a tablet computer,transparent and flexible, but they cannot emit light without a backlight like OLED and microLED, which are other technologies that can also be made flexible and transparent.

In 2016, Panasonic developed IPS LCDs with a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, rivaling OLEDs. This technology was later put into mass production as dual layer, dual panel or LMCL (Light Modulating Cell Layer) LCDs. The technology uses 2 liquid crystal layers instead of one, and may be used along with a mini-LED backlight and quantum dot sheets.

Since LCDs produce no light of their own, they require external light to produce a visible image.backlight. Active-matrix LCDs are almost always backlit.Transflective LCDs combine the features of a backlit transmissive display and a reflective display.

CCFL: The LCD panel is lit either by two cold cathode fluorescent lamps placed at opposite edges of the display or an array of parallel CCFLs behind larger displays. A diffuser (made of PMMA acrylic plastic, also known as a wave or light guide/guiding plateinverter to convert whatever DC voltage the device uses (usually 5 or 12 V) to ≈1000 V needed to light a CCFL.

EL-WLED: The LCD panel is lit by a row of white LEDs placed at one or more edges of the screen. A light diffuser (light guide plate, LGP) is then used to spread the light evenly across the whole display, similarly to edge-lit CCFL LCD backlights. The diffuser is made out of either PMMA plastic or special glass, PMMA is used in most cases because it is rugged, while special glass is used when the thickness of the LCD is of primary concern, because it doesn"t expand as much when heated or exposed to moisture, which allows LCDs to be just 5mm thick. Quantum dots may be placed on top of the diffuser as a quantum dot enhancement film (QDEF, in which case they need a layer to be protected from heat and humidity) or on the color filter of the LCD, replacing the resists that are normally used.

WLED array: The LCD panel is lit by a full array of white LEDs placed behind a diffuser behind the panel. LCDs that use this implementation will usually have the ability to dim or completely turn off the LEDs in the dark areas of the image being displayed, effectively increasing the contrast ratio of the display. The precision with which this can be done will depend on the number of dimming zones of the display. The more dimming zones, the more precise the dimming, with less obvious blooming artifacts which are visible as dark grey patches surrounded by the unlit areas of the LCD. As of 2012, this design gets most of its use from upscale, larger-screen LCD televisions.

RGB-LED array: Similar to the WLED array, except the panel is lit by a full array of RGB LEDs. While displays lit with white LEDs usually have a poorer color gamut than CCFL lit displays, panels lit with RGB LEDs have very wide color gamuts. This implementation is most popular on professional graphics editing LCDs. As of 2012, LCDs in this category usually cost more than $1000. As of 2016 the cost of this category has drastically reduced and such LCD televisions obtained same price levels as the former 28" (71 cm) CRT based categories.

Monochrome LEDs: such as red, green, yellow or blue LEDs are used in the small passive monochrome LCDs typically used in clocks, watches and small appliances.

Mini-LED: Backlighting with Mini-LEDs can support over a thousand of Full-area Local Area Dimming (FLAD) zones. This allows deeper blacks and higher contrast ratio.MicroLED.)

Today, most LCD screens are being designed with an LED backlight instead of the traditional CCFL backlight, while that backlight is dynamically controlled with the video information (dynamic backlight control). The combination with the dynamic backlight control, invented by Philips researchers Douglas Stanton, Martinus Stroomer and Adrianus de Vaan, simultaneously increases the dynamic range of the display system (also marketed as HDR, high dynamic range television or FLAD, full-area local area dimming).

The LCD backlight systems are made highly efficient by applying optical films such as prismatic structure (prism sheet) to gain the light into the desired viewer directions and reflective polarizing films that recycle the polarized light that was formerly absorbed by the first polarizer of the LCD (invented by Philips researchers Adrianus de Vaan and Paulus Schaareman),

Due to the LCD layer that generates the desired high resolution images at flashing video speeds using very low power electronics in combination with LED based backlight technologies, LCD technology has become the dominant display technology for products such as televisions, desktop monitors, notebooks, tablets, smartphones and mobile phones. Although competing OLED technology is pushed to the market, such OLED displays do not feature the HDR capabilities like LCDs in combination with 2D LED backlight technologies have, reason why the annual market of such LCD-based products is still growing faster (in volume) than OLED-based products while the efficiency of LCDs (and products like portable computers, mobile phones and televisions) may even be further improved by preventing the light to be absorbed in the colour filters of the LCD.

A pink elastomeric connector mating an LCD panel to circuit board traces, shown next to a centimeter-scale ruler. The conductive and insulating layers in the black stripe are very small.

A standard television receiver screen, a modern LCD panel, has over six million pixels, and they are all individually powered by a wire network embedded in the screen. The fine wires, or pathways, form a grid with vertical wires across the whole screen on one side of the screen and horizontal wires across the whole screen on the other side of the screen. To this grid each pixel has a positive connection on one side and a negative connection on the other side. So the total amount of wires needed for a 1080p display is 3 x 1920 going vertically and 1080 going horizontally for a total of 6840 wires horizontally and vertically. That"s three for red, green and blue and 1920 columns of pixels for each color for a total of 5760 wires going vertically and 1080 rows of wires going horizontally. For a panel that is 28.8 inches (73 centimeters) wide, that means a wire density of 200 wires per inch along the horizontal edge.

The LCD panel is powered by LCD drivers that are carefully matched up with the edge of the LCD panel at the factory level. The drivers may be installed using several methods, the most common of which are COG (Chip-On-Glass) and TAB (Tape-automated bonding) These same principles apply also for smartphone screens that are much smaller than TV screens.anisotropic conductive film or, for lower densities, elastomeric connectors.

Monochrome and later color passive-matrix LCDs were standard in most early laptops (although a few used plasma displaysGame Boyactive-matrix became standard on all laptops. The commercially unsuccessful Macintosh Portable (released in 1989) was one of the first to use an active-matrix display (though still monochrome). Passive-matrix LCDs are still used in the 2010s for applications less demanding than laptop computers and TVs, such as inexpensive calculators. In particular, these are used on port