difference between touchscreen and tft display free sample
A surface capacitive touchscreen uses a transparent layer of conductive film overlaid onto a glass sublayer. A protective layer is then applied to the conductive film. Voltage is applied to the electrodes on the four corners of the glass sublayer to generate a uniform electric field. When a conductor touches the screen, current flows from the electrodes to the conductor. The location of the conductor is then calculated based on the activity of the currents. Surface capacitive touchscreens are often used for large screen panels.
Projected capacitive touchscreens are extremely precise and quick responding and are typically found on smaller devices such as iPhones, iPod touches or iPads. Unlike the surface capacitive touchscreens, which use four electrodes and a transparent conductive film, the projected capacitive touchscreens use a vast amount of transparent electrodes arranged in a specific pattern and on two separate layers. When a conductor moves near the screen, the electrical field between the electrodes change and sensors can instantly identify the location on the screen. Projected capacitive touchscreens can accurately register multi-touch events.
Touchscreens have changed the way people expect to interact with their devices. When it comes to smartphones and tablets, touch is the way to go. Even handheld game consoles, laptops, and car navigation systems are moving towards touch. Manufacturers of these devices need to give their respective consumers the responsiveness these consumers are looking for. Selecting the right TFT-LCD display to use for different devices is important.
For touch-sensitive displays, two types of technologies are used: resistive and capacitive. The main difference is in how they respond to touch. Mobile phone comparison site Omio indicates that resistive technology is more accurate but capacitive technology is more responsive.
To elaborate on that, resistive touchscreens allow input from fingers and non-finger objects, like a stylus. A stylus has a smaller point than a finger and makes interaction on a resistive screen more accurate. This makes the technology suitable for devices whose applications require high accuracy, like sketching and pinpoint games. Mobile devices that use a stylus typically have resistive touchscreens.
Capacitive touchscreens, on the other hand, offer more responsiveness with better optical clarity and multi-touch performance. They detect more complex finger gestures. These qualities are shown to be more important for general interaction so it’s more dominant in smartphones and tablets, as well as in other devices with small to medium screen sizes.
As you can see, capacitive screens get general usage while resistive screens cater to more specific applications. With this, TFT-LCD module manufacturers, like Microtips Technology, focus on continuously improving capacitive screen technology.
Electronic Design states that many technological advances can be used to integrate touch sensors directly into the display. In some, manufacturers stack-up the touch sensors and integrate the controller with the display driver ICs. These advances allowed thinner and smarter capacitive touchscreens – a trend that you see in many devices today. For example, Windows phones originally worked exclusively with resistive touchscreen technology but later on moved over to capacitive. If the continuous development of capacitive touchscreen technology becomes successful, these screens may soon have abilities they don’t possess at the moment, such as hover support, non-finger support, and many more.
There are types of touch screen,such as resistive touch panel(RTP), capacitive touch panel (CTP), surface acoustic wave touch display, infrared touch screen. RTP and CTP are used more than others. Can you tell the difference between RTP and CTP? If not, you may want to read along.
In resistive touch screens, two very thin layers of material are separated by a thin gap of air. PET film and glass are typically used. Both upper and bottom layers are lined with conductors such as indium tin oxide (ITO). The conducting sides are placed facing one another. So, when you press the screen with finger or stylus, it connects top and bottom layers, creates a change in resistance (an increase in voltage). RTP controller detects this change, and calculates its coordinates, then determines the position of touch.
Capacitive touchscreens, on the other hand, respond directly to the touch of your finger or an input device such as a stylus. On top of LCD panel, lies a thin layer of transparent electrodes. When a human finger touches the screen, some of the electrical charge travels from screen to user. The change of capacitance is then detected by sensors located at screen"s four corners, allowing controller determine the touched location.
Resistive touch screens are effective in a variety of environments. Any object capable of applying force to the screen can trigger a touch event. For example, users wearing gloves can operate RTP with no difficulty.Resistive touch screens work well even when liquids or debris are present on the surface. This makes them especially useful in situations where substances could disrupt the function of other types of touch screens, for example, agricultural equipment, boats and underwater machinery. Due to its mature technology and simple structure, cost of resistive screens is lower.
Supporting of Multiple touches is a clear winner for capacitive touch screens (CTP). Thanks to smartphone and tablet, users are comfortable with using gesture on screen. And capacitive touch screen is what user is familiar with. In more specialized settings, such as multi-player gaming application, capacitiv e touch screens can support more than 10 inputs at a single time. Additionally, CTP needs no calibration and is highly accurate.
Resistive touch display cannot determine the location of a touch if more than one input is present. In terms of visibility, the film substrate commonly used as the top surface in resistive touch screens is less transmissive than glass. This leads to reduced brightness and a certain level of haze compared to touch screens with a top layer of glass. The film layer can also expand or contract based on temperature, which alters the distance between the two layers and affects touch accuracy. Additionally, the film substrates are susceptible to scratches and can start to wear away with repeated use, necessitating occasional recalibration or replacement over time.
Capacitive touch screens depend on variations in an electrical field to operate. While a passive stylus can activate this screen, a non-conductive tool like a pencil can"t. If cost is a top concern for a project, CTP may not align with budget limits. It is a more expensive technology than resistive screens, although it continues to grow more accessible in terms of price as the technology advances and improves.
TFT LCD touch displays are becoming more prevalent every day, in devices that range from consumer electronics to industrial and medical equipment. While design concepts for the use of TFT touch displays are well established, engineering and product design teams often come up against problems that are hard to solve. Following best practices on how to use TFT LCD touch screen can reduce a lot of "hair-pulling".
If the applied ground approach for a device equipped with a TFT touch display doesn’t follow best practices, a variety of issues can arise. Common challenges associated with grounding:
In general, there are two key considerations: keeping ground connections as short as possible, and keep impedance to a minimum. This requirement is particularly critical in ground connections between display housing and touch controller. The diameter of the ground connection also has an effect, though it is less important than length.
Another important attention for grounding design is to avoid ground loops. Star topology for ground distribution, can avoid a situation where two points that are both intended to be at ground, have a potential between them.
To address those issues, you need to follow best practices, including physical device assembly and grounding design. And those are just the top challenges, engineer will encounter a range of additional challenges, like longevity, slim design, and so on. Partnering with a hardware provider like Topway, who can advise you at every step along your path to market, is critical. With deep bench of expertise and 20+ years experience on TFT LCD industry, Topway offers you that guidance and ability to speed your time to market.
TFT refreshes more quickly response than a monochrome LCD display and shows motion more smoothly. TFT displays use more electricity in driving than monochrome LCD screens, so they not only cost more in the first place, but they are also more expensive to drive tft lcd screen.
The Arduino TFT screen is a backlit TFT LCD screen with a micro SD card slot in the back. You can draw text, images, and shapes to the screen with the TFT library. The screen"s pin layout is designed to easily fit into the socket of an Arduino Esplora and Arduino Robot, but it can be used with any Arduino board.14-Sept-2022
Performance wise LEDs are far better than TFT and LCD displays. LEDs provide high contrast than LCDs/TFTs. In a LED display, you will see perfect black and perfect white which is not able to see in TFT or LCD. LED has a better viewing angle.17-Dec-2020
TFT displays also have a much longer lifespan than AMOLED displays and are available in a far greater range of standard sizes, which can be cut down to fit a space restricted enclosure for a relatively low cost adder.
If you"ve ever used a smartphone, tablet or touch screen computer, you"ve likely used a Thin Film Transistor touch screen. A TFT touch screen is a combination device that includes a TFT LCD display and a touch technology overlay on the screen.
SPI TFT Touch screen and Quad SPI TFT (Serial Peripheral Interface) is a synchronous serial data transfer protocol named by Motorola, . Here two or more serial devices are connected to each other in full-duplex mode. The devices connected to each other are either Master or Slave.
To run your display easily, you should use Arduino LCDs libraries and add them to your code. Otherwise running the display may be very difficult. There are many free libraries you can find on the internet but the important point about the libraries is their compatibility with the LCD"s driver.12-Oct-2018
TFT displays are also known as an “Active Matrix TFT LCD module” and have an array of thin film transistors fabricated on the glass that makes the LCD. There is one of these transistors for each pixel on the LCD.
LCDs use voltage applied to a field of microscopic liquid crystals to change the crystal’s orientation, which in turn changes the polarization of the liquid crystal which creates light or dark pixels on the display.
These pixels are arranged to create characters or graphic images. This type of display may be sunlight-readable and may have a backlight, which allows it to be viewed in dark areas.
Beautiful, complex images: All of our TFT modules are full-color graphic displays. Unlike standard monochrome character displays, you can create complex images for an imaginative user experience.
Thin and light: These are ideal display modules for handheld devices, communications equipment, information displays, and test and measurement equipment.
Single Supply: Most of the TFTs use an integrated controller with built-in voltage generation so only a single 3.3v supply is needed for both the panel power and logic voltage.
Many of our character LCD modules use a standard HD44780 controller, so they can be quickly integrated into a new product or used as a replacement in your existing products.
Many of the LCD controllers on board our graphic LCD display modules also include a CGROM (character generator ROM) which allows for easy character information as well as full bit-mapped graphic information to be shown.
Some of the graphic LCD displays have the ability to render graphics in grayscale, enabling you to show images and elements of your UI (user interface) with more depth and definition.
Because OLEDs are emissive, these displays can always be used in dark environments. There is usually a software command or hardware setting that will allow OLEDs to be dimmed.
Some OLED displays are bright enough to be sunlight readable–these models will typically take more current and may have a shorter rated lifetime. Additionally, OLEDs have extremely wide viewing angles.
What makes OLEDs useful for display construction is that they can be fabricated in bulk. Using OLED fabrication techniques, all the diodes can be made at the same time, at a much lower cost. OLEDs also come in a wide variety of colors.
The TFT LCD screen display, for the general masses, is no longer a difficult noun. And it is another after semiconductor could create a large number of emerging technology products of the business turnover, more because of its features, thin so it than using the application scope of the cathode ray tube (CRT, cathode ray tube) display made by wider. Today, I’m going to talk about how the TFT LCD Touch Screen Display Works.
As I mentioned earlier, liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) refer to a bunch produced by using the TFT screen LCD display. Now for LCD displays the name is directed mostly used in notebook computers, or desktop computer applications display. Is the thin film transistor TFT LCD display. Abbreviation of TFT LCD. This kind of display form has two main characteristics, one is a thin film transistor, the other is TFT LCD itself. Let’s talk about the TFT screen itself.
We usually think of substances like water as three states, solid-liquid, and gas. The three states of material actually are for water, for different materials, a different state may exist.
As we want to talk about liquid crystal state is concerned, it is a state between solid and liquid, actually, this kind of state is only part of the material of a kind of phase change process (see figure 1), as long as the material has the above process, namely the state exists between solid and liquid, a physicist called liquid crystal.
This type of TFT LCD screen was first discovered, had been spent more than one hundred years ago. In 1888 AD, the Austrian botanist Friedrich Reinitzer, found in the observation from the plant refined out of benzoic acid cholesterol (cholesteryl benzoate) found that when the melting behavior of the compound heated to 145.5 ℃, Solid can melt, presents a kind of solid phase and liquid phase between the half gonorrhea melt flow of the liquid. This situation will always maintain ℃ temperature rise to 178.5 degrees, to form a clear isotropic liquid (isotropic liquid).
The next year, in 1889, the study of thermodynamic equilibrium and the phase transfer German physicist O.L Ehmann, compounds for a more detailed analysis of this. He found that under the polarizing microscope, half of the viscous liquid gonorrhea liquid compounds with different parts peculiar to the crystal birefringence (birefringence) of the optical properties, namely, optical interphase (optically anisotropic). It will be a name to this as the liquid crystal. Since then, scientists will be the nature of this new discovery, known as the fourth state material – LCD (liquid crystal). It at a specific temperature range can have the characteristics of the liquid and solid at the same time.
General with water, solid lattice in heating because it is over, began to heat and destroy the lattice, when the temperature exceeds melting point will be dissolved into a liquid. And cause the type of liquid crystal is different (see figure 2), when the solid heat does not directly into the liquid, will be dissolved to form a liquid crystal state. When you continue heating, it will only then dissolve into a liquid (isotropic liquid). This is called the secondary dissolution phenomenon.
The liquid crystal state, as the name implies, will be a solid lattice and the liquid. When the liquid crystal was found, because of a lot of more phyletic, In 1922, the results observed by g. Friedel with a polarizing microscope divided liquid crystals into Nematic Smectic and Cholesteric categories. However, if they were classified according to the order of molecular arrangement (see figure 3), they could be divided into the following four categories:
Its structure is composed of TFT LCD molecules stick together, forming a layer structure. It’s every layer of the molecular long axis direction parallel to each other. And the long axis direction for each layer plane is vertical or a tilt Angle. Due to its structure is very similar to crystals, so they are called phase. The order parameter S (the order parameter) tend to be 1. Type in layered crystal layer and interlayer bonding can fracture because of temperature, so the layer and interlayer sliding more easily. But each layer within the molecular bonding is stronger, so it is not easy to be interrupted. Therefore in the context of the monolayer, Its arranged orderly and viscosity is bigger. If we use the macroscopic phenomenon to describe the physical properties of liquid crystal, we can make a group of regional average points as the liquid crystal molecules are pointing in the direction of the arrow (director), which is the direction of a group of liquid crystal molecules regional average. And with lamellar liquid crystal, because of its structure, the TFT LCD molecules will cambium-like so can point to a vector of different classification of the different lamellar liquid crystal again. When the long axis of the liquid crystal molecules are vertical stand, Call it “Sematic A phase.” if stand long axis direction of the TFT LCD molecules have some Angle of tilt (tilt), call it “Sematic C phase”. In A, C and other letters to name, which was discovered in accordance with the order to address, and so on, there should be A “Semantic phase B is.” but later found A deformation phase B is C phase, And the liquid crystal molecules in the structure layer by layer, in addition to each layer of TFT LCD molecules have tilt Angle, the tilt Angle between layer by layer will form a helical structure.
Nematic is a Greek word, the word mean in the thread is the same as in English. Mainly because with the naked eye to observe the liquid crystal, it looks like a silk pattern. The LCD screen molecules on the space of the regular arrangement of one dimension, all rod long axis of the liquid crystal molecules will choose a particular direction (that is, pointing vector) as the main shaft and arranged parallel to each other. And don’t like lamellar liquid crystal has a layered structure. Compared with the layer column type liquid crystal alignment is no order, That is to say, its order parameter S is smaller than the lamellar liquid crystal, and its viscosity is smaller, so it is easier to flow (its flow mainly comes from the free movement of molecules in the long axis direction). Linear liquid crystal is the common TFT LCD display screen TN(Twisted nematic) type liquid crystal.
Most of the sources of the name, because are generated by the derivative of the cholesterol. But some without cholesterol structure of LCD screen with this liquid crystal phase. This kind of liquid crystal as shown in figure 5, if it is a layer of a layer to separate, would very much like a linear LCD screen. But look at the Z-axis, may find it pointing in the direction of the arrow will with layers and layers of different distribution, like a spiraling when the pointing vector rotate 360 degrees for molecular layer thickness is called a pitch. Because of its every layer like linear LCD, so also known as Chiral nematic phase. In terms of cholesterol crystal, and pointing in the direction vector of the vertical distribution of LCD screen molecules, due to the different point to vector, will have the different optical or electrical differences, thus has produced different features.
If we are according to the molecular weight of high and low points can be divided into liquid crystal polymer (polymer liquid crystal, the polymer in many of the liquid crystal molecules) and low molecular liquid crystal. This kind of classification of TFT LCD belongs to the application of the low molecular liquid crystal. If the reasons for the formation of liquid crystal state, because it can be divided into type temperature formation of liquid crystal state to a liquid crystal (thermotropic), and because of the concentration and the formation of a liquid crystal state type lyotropic liquid crystal (lyotropic).
In the classification of the mentioned before, Lamellar liquid crystal and liquid crystal of the linear type liquid crystal to cause the more common, as the temperature changes and form liquid crystal state. For the lyotropic liquid crystal, we need to consider the situation of molecules dissolved in a solvent. When the concentration is low, the molecular and mixed and disorderly, which are distributed in the solvent of the isotropic solution, but when higher concentration is greater than a certain critical concentration, because the molecule has no enough space to form mixed and disorderly, the distribution of molecular began to gather to form part of the rules, To reduce the space of the block. Therefore form different sex (anisotropic).
The solution so types lyotropic TFT screen molecules in the appropriate solvents reaches a certain critical concentration, the formation of liquid crystal state. Type lyotropic liquid crystal is one of the best examples that is soap. When soap bubbles in the water will not be at once into a liquid, and the bubble in the water for a long time, after the formation of white matter, is its liquid crystal state.
Due to the structure of the liquid crystal molecules for different parties (Anisotropic), so caused by the photoelectric effect will vary because of a different direction, in short, that is, the liquid crystal molecules in the dielectric coefficient and refractive index, and so on photoelectric properties have different sex, so we can use these properties to change the intensity of the incident light, so that the formation of gray-scale, to apply on the display component. We’ll discuss below, is one of the characteristics of liquid crystal belongs to the optical and electrical related, about the following items:
Our dielectric coefficient can be separated into two directions respectively is epsilon / / (and point to parallel component) and epsilon coming (a component perpendicular to the pointing vector). When the epsilon / / > epsilon coming then called the dielectric coefficient of different parts of LCD, can be used in parallel coordination. And epsilon / / < epsilon is called the dielectric coefficient of the different part coming negative type of TFT screen, only can be used in vertical coordination will need the photoelectric effect. When the applied electric field, the liquid crystal molecules will vary with dielectric coefficient is positive or negative, To determine whether the orientation of the liquid crystal molecules is parallel or perpendicular to the electric field, to determine whether the light penetrates. Now on most commonly used type TN LCD TFT LCD that belongs to the dielectric coefficient are type liquid crystal. When the dielectric coefficient of square difference Δ epsilon (= epsilon / / – epsilon) comes, the greater the LCD of the critical voltage (threshold voltage) will be smaller. So the LCD can be in the low voltage operation.
Liquid crystal molecules are also known as heterotropic crystals because they are mostly formed from rod-like or saucer-like molecules, and thus have different physical properties that are parallel to or perpendicular to the long axis of the molecule. Like the dielectric perp, the refractive index is also divided into vectors perpendicular to and parallel to the vector, namely, n // and n perpendicular to each other.
In addition, for uniaxial crystal, there are two different definitions of refraction coefficient, one is no, which refers to the refraction coefficient of ordinary ray, so it is shortened to no, and ordinary ray refers to the electric field component of its light wave is perpendicular to the optical axis, and the other is ne, which refers to the refraction coefficient of extraordinary ray. The extraordinary ray is referred to as the light of the electric field component parallel to the optical axis. At the same time, it defines the birefringence (birefringence) Δ n = no-no for the above two refractive index differences.
In accordance with the described above, the lamellar liquid crystal, linear liquid crystal, and LCD screen for cholesterol levels, because of its long liquid crystal molecules like a stick, so point to the direction of the vector and the molecular long axis parallel. To be defined with reference to the refraction coefficient of a single optical axis crystal, it will have two refractive indexes, respectively is perpendicular to the direction of the long axis of the liquid crystal n coming (= ne) and parallel to the long axis of the liquid crystal direction n / / (= no), so when the incident light liquid crystal, will be affected by two refractive indexes, cause in the vertical long axis of the liquid crystal and LCD long axis parallel to the direction of the speed of light will be different.
If with the molecular long axis parallel to the direction of light speed, when less than perpendicular to the speed of the molecular long axis direction, which means that parallel the molecular long axis direction of refractive index is greater than the vertical direction of the refractive index (because the refractive index is inversely proportional to the speed of light), is the one – no > 0. So the birefringence Δ n > 0, we think that it is called optics is a type of LCD, and lamellar liquid crystal and LCD are all belong to the optical is almost linear LCD. If the light of the parallel to the direction of the long axis was faster, On behalf of the flat to the governor of the axis of the refractive index is less than the vertical direction, so the birefringence Δ n < 0. We call it is the optical negative type of LCD. The cholesterol liquid crystal optical negative type of LCD.
For example, the elastic constant (kappa 11, kappa 22, kappa 33) contains the three most important constants: kappa 11 is the elastic constant at splay, kappa 22 is the elastic constant at the twist. Kappa 33 refers to predominating the elastic constants of bending (bend). The other as the coefficient of viscosity (viscosity coefficients and eta), will affect the rotational speed of the liquid crystal molecules with reaction time (response time), its value as small as possible. But this feature is affected by temperature is the largest. In addition to magnetic susceptibility (magnetic susceptibility), but also because of liquid crystals of different sex, Divided into c / / c coming. And the difference of magnetic susceptibility is defined as Δ c = c / / – c coming. In addition to the conductance coefficient (conductivity), and so on the photoelectric properties. Liquid crystal properties of the most important are the dielectric coefficient and refractive index of liquid crystal. The dielectric coefficient is determined liquid crystal under the influence of the electric field to the characteristics of the liquid crystal molecules, while the refractive index is liquid crystal in the light of its important parameters influencing the light path. The LCD is in using the liquid crystal itself of these features, the appropriate use of voltage, to control the rotation of the TFT LCD molecules, in turn, affect the direction of the light, to form different grayscale, a tool for displaying images. Of course, LCD itself is not alone as the monitor, also need other materials to help, Below, we will introduce the composition of various materials and operating principle of TFT LCD display.
I remember in high school physics class, when to teach the relevant physical properties of light, to do a lot of physical experiments, the purpose is to prove that light is a wave. And the marching direction of light waves, and the electric field and magnetic field perpendicular to each other. Light itself of the electric field and magnetic field component at the same time also is perpendicular to each other. That is to say with the electric field and magnetic field component direction, each other is two parallel to each other. (see figure 7) and the role of the polarizing film is like a fence, usually will be cut off a component perpendicular to the fence, With a fence parallel component only permitted through. So if we picked up a piece of the light polarization slabs, feel like wearing sunglasses, the light became dark. But if the two pieces of polarizing film ideas together, it won’t be the same. When you rotate the two pieces of the relative Angle of the polarizing film, you will find that as the relative Angle is different, the brightness of the light will be more and darker. When two polaroids fence Angle perpendicular to each other, Light was completely failing. (see figure 8) and a liquid crystal display is to use this feature. Use upper and lower two pieces of fences between perpendicular slant plate, filled with liquid crystal, recycle electric field control liquid crystal rotation, to change the direction of light, so that different electric field sizes, can form different gray-scale brightness.
The upper and lower two layers of glass are mainly to grip the LCD with. Below the glass layer with Thin film transistor (thin film transistor, TFT screen), while the layer above the glass with a Color filter (Color filter). If you notice (see figure 3), these two pieces of glass are in contact with the side of the LCD screen, not smooth, but with jagged grooves. The main purpose of the groove with the hope of a long rod, liquid crystal molecules will line up along the grooves. In this way, Liquid crystal molecules are arranged neatly. Because if it is smooth and flat, the arrangement of the liquid crystal molecules will not neat, causing light scattering, forming a light-leaking phenomenon. In fact, this is just a theory that told us to put the glass and LCD interface, complete processing so that the arrangement of liquid crystal has a certain order. But in the actual manufacturing process, and can not be with such a groove, the distribution of glass is made usually in glass coating on the surface layer of the PI (polyimide), and then a cloth to do the action of friction (rubbing), In order to make the surface molecules of PI no longer be scattered and arranged in a fixed and uniform direction, this layer of PI is called the coordination membrane, and its function is just like the grooves in the glass in FIG. 3, which provides the interface conditions for the uniform arrangement of liquid crystal molecules and allows the liquid crystals to be arranged in a predetermined order.
We can know from figure 10, when there is no applied voltage between the upper and lower two pieces of glass, the arrangement of LCD will be in accordance with the match to the membrane of the upper and lower two pieces of glass. For TN type of LCD, and match to the film’s point of view of the poor to 90 degrees. (see figure 9) so the liquid crystal molecules are arranged by the up and down automatically rotate 90 degrees when the incident light passes through the upper polarizing film, the polarization of light waves will only order direction. Through the liquid crystal molecules, the liquid crystal molecules rotate for 90 degrees, so when the waves reach the lower polarizing film, the polarization direction of the light just turned 90 degrees. The polarizing film of the lower and upper polarizing film, 90 – degree Angle is just the differences. (see figure 9) so can smoothly through the light, but if we applied voltage between the upper and lower two pieces of glass, because the type TN LCD for the dielectric coefficient of different sex more positive type of LCD (epsilon / / > epsilon coming, represent the parallel direction of the dielectric coefficient is larger than the dielectric coefficient of the vertical direction, so when the liquid crystal molecules are influenced by an electric field, will tend to be parallel to the orientation of the electric field direction.), so we can see from figure 10, At this time, the polarized light wave passing through the upper polarizer will not change the polarization direction when passing through the liquid crystal molecule, so it cannot pass through the lower polarizer.
The so-called NW (Normally white), is to point to when we don’t apply voltage on the LCD screen panel, we can see the panel is pervious to light, also is bright, so-called Normally white. But on the other hand, when we don’t apply voltage on the LCD panel if the panel is not pervious to light, the look is black, it’s called NB (Normally black). We have just mentioned in figure 9 and figure 10 all belongs to the configuration of NW, also we can know from figure 11, For type TN LCD, located in the upper and lower glass is perpendicular to the membrane, and the difference between NB and NW just lies in the relative position of the polarizing film is different. For NB, the fluctuation of the polarizing film polarity is parallel to each other. So when the NB no applied voltage, the light will be because the polarity of the LCD to rotate 90 degrees to be pervious to light. Why there are NW and NB these two kinds of a different configuration of the polarizing film? Mainly for different applications. Commonly used in a desktop computer or notebook computer, most of the NW configuration. That’s because, if you notice, generally the use of computer software environment, you will find that most of the entire screen is a bright spot, that is to say, computer software for the application of white background and black text. Since on the point of the majority, using NW is more convenient, of course. Also because the NW window does not need to add the voltage, the average will compare to save electricity. In turn, said that the application of the NB environment mostly belongs to the screen for the application of black.
The STN LCD and TN LCD are very similar in structure, the main difference between TN LCD, the arrangement of the liquid crystal molecules, the rotation angle from top to bottom. A total of 90 degrees and type the STN LCD liquid crystal molecules are arranged, the rotation angle will be greater than 180 degrees, usually is 270 degrees. (see figure 12) because of its rotation Angle is different, its characteristics different. We from figure 13 TN type and type the STN LCD voltage of the transmittance curve can know, when the voltage is low, the light penetration rate is very high. With a high voltage, the light of the penetration rate is very low. So they belong to the Normal White polaroids configuration. When the voltage in the middle position, the change of type TN LCD curve is flat, and the change of the STN LCD type curve is steep. So in TN type LCD, when transmittance change from 90% to 10%, corresponding to the voltage difference is larger than the STN LCD. We mentioned before, in the liquid crystal display, The different characteristics of TN and STN will result in TN type LCD, which has more grayscale changes than STN type LCD, so generally TN type LCD has 6~8 bits of changes. It is 64 ~ 256 gray-scale changes. Type the STN LCD for a maximum of 4 bits are only 16 orders of gray-scale changes. In addition, the STN type and TN LCD has a different place is the reaction time (response time) general type the STN LCD it’s response time to type in more than 100 ms and TN LCD its response time is 30 ~ 50 ms as shown in the image change quickly for the STN LCD type ghosting effect phenomenon is easy to happen.
TFT LCD Chinese translation of the name is called a thin film transistor liquid crystal display, from the beginning, we mentioned LCD voltage control is needed to produce gray. And the use of a thin-film transistor to generate the voltage, to control the transition of liquid crystal display, is called a TFT LCD. From the point of the cross-section structure of figure 8, between upper and lower two layers of glass, with LCD, will form a parallel plate capacitor, we call it the CLC (capacitor of liquid crystal). Its size is about 0.1 m3, But on the practical application, the capacitance and unable to keep the voltage to the next time to update the data in the picture.
That is to say, when TFT is good to the capacitor charging power, it is impossible to maintain voltage, until the next TFT this point charge again. (in general of 60 Hz screen update frequency, need time to keep about 16 ms.) as a result, there were changes in voltage, displayed gray scale is not correct. Therefore generally on the design of the panel, we will add a storage capacitor CS (storage capacitor is about 0.5 pF). So charged electric voltage can keep until the next update screen. But the right, long on the glass TFT itself, just use a transistor to make the switch. Its main work is to determine the LCD source voltage on the driver whether to charge to this point. As for this point more charge to high voltage, so as to show how the gray-scale. It is outside of the LCD source driver.
If you have a chance, take a magnifying glass, close to the LCD screen. You will find that as shown in figure 9 shows. We know that red, blue and green, are the so-called primary colors. That is to say, using the three kinds of color, can produce a variety of different colors. In a lot of flat-panel displays, this principle is used to show the color. We put the RGB 3 kinds of color, is divided into independent three points, each has different gray-scale changes, then the three neighboring RGB display point, as the basic unit of a display, Pixel is that this a pixel, and can have different color changes. Then for a need for a 1024 * 768 resolution display screen, we just let the composition of the flat panel display with 1024 * 768 pixels, can show a picture of the right. In figure 9, each point between the Black part of RGB is called the Black matrix. We can find that looking back on it in figure 8Black matrix is mainly used to cover do not intend to previous to light part. Such as some ITOs walk the line, or Cr/Al walk the line or are part of a TFT. This is why we in figure 9, the highlight of each RGB, it seems, is not a rectangle, and also on the top left corner is a piece of black matrix cover part, this part of a black missing Angle is the location of the TFT.
Figure 9 shows the common arrangement of color filters. Stripe is most commonly used in OA products, such as laptops, desktop computers, etc. Why is stripe used in this application? More often than not, the reason is now software is the Windows interface. That is to say, we can see the screen content, is composed of a pile of boxes of various sizes. The strips, just can make the edge of the box, look more straight, and there won’t be a straight line, look have the feeling of burrs or serrated. But if it is applied in the AV products, just not the same. Probably because the TV signal is a character, the character of the line is not straight, the contour is a mostly irregular curve. So in the beginning, the Use Mosaic arrangement used in AV products is (Mosaic, or called arranged diagonally). But the latest AV products, more have been improved to use triangle arrangement (triangle, or known as the delta). In addition to the above arrangement, still have a kind of arrangement, which is called a square arrangement. It is not the same as the first few, it is not three-point to as a pixel, but with four points as a pixel. And just four points are combined to form a square.
The CRT screen, it is using a high-speed electron gun that emits electrons, hits the phosphors on the silver screen, so as to produce the light, to show the picture. LCD itself, however, can only control the brightness of the light through, no glowing function itself. Therefore, a liquid crystal display must be combined with a backplate, to provide high brightness, brightness, and uniform distribution of the light source. We can see in figure 14, of the backplate of the main parts are CCFL (cold cathode tube), reflex plate, guide plate, prism sheet, Diffuser plate, and so on. Tubes are the main light-emitting parts, by a light guide, everywhere. The light distribution and baffle will be limited only to the TFT LCD light direction. Finally, by prism sheet and help diffuser, the light evenly distributed to all areas, provide TFT LCD a bright light. While TFT LCD is borrowed by the rotation of the voltage-controlled liquid crystal, control through the brightness of the light, so as to form different grayscale.
Another box in figure 14 glue and spacer structure of two kinds of ingredients. The box adhesive USES is to make the LCD panel in the upper and lower two layers of glass, to be able to stick close and to provide a panel of LCD screen molecules, cut off from the outside world, so the box plastic as its name suggests, is around and around in the panel to the liquid crystal molecules box limited to within a panel. The spacer is mainly provided two-layer glass support, it must be distributed evenly on the glass, or a part but uneven distribution cause spacer gathered together, it will block the light, It is also unable to maintain the appropriate gap between the upper and lower glass, which will lead to uneven distribution of electric field and affect the performance of the crystal grayscale.
A very important specification of LCD is brightness, and the most important factor to determine the brightness is the opening rate. What is the opening rate? Is simple light can pass through the effective area proportion. 17, let’s look at the picture to the left of figure 17 is an LCD display from directly above or below the past structure. When the light is emitted through the backplate, not all of the light can be through the panel, like for LCD source driver chip and the gate driver chip signal line, and TFT itself, the stored voltage is the use of storage capacity, etc. These places besides incomplete pervious to light, but also because the light through these places is not under voltage control, to display the correct gray-scale, so have to use the black matrix to cover, in order to avoid interference to other correct brightness of the light area. So the effective area of the previous to light, it’s just like figure 17 shows area on the right. This piece of the effective area of the previous to light and the ratio of the total area is called the opening rate.
STONE is industrial screen manufacturers, provide a full range of 3.5 inches to 15.1 inches of small and medium-size standard quasi TFT LCD module, TFT screen module, TFT display module, display industry, industrial LCD screen, under the sunlight visually highlight TFT LCD display, industrial custom TFT screen, TFT LCD screen-wide temperature, industrial TFT LCD screen, touch screen industry. The TFT LCD module is very suitable forindustrial control equipment, medical instruments, POS system, electronic consumer products, vehicles, and other products.
A resistive touch screen is made of a glass substrate as the bottom layer and a film substrate (normally, clear poly-carbonate or PET) as the top layer, each coated with a transparent conductive layer (ITO: Indium Tin Oxide), separated by spacer dots to make a small air gap. The two conducting layers of material (ITO) face each other. When a user touches the part of the screen with finger or a stylus, the conductive ITO thin layers contacted. It changes the resistance. The RTP controller detects the change and calculate the touch position. The point of contact is detected by this change in voltage.
One of the main reasons why resistive touch panels still exist is its simple manufacturing process and low production cost. The MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) and NRE (Non-Recurring Expense) are low. The driving is simple and low cost. The power consumption is low too. Resistive touch panel also immune to EMI well. Although it can’t use cover lens at the surface, the overlay can make it flexible for designs.
Resistive touchscreens offer an unparalleled level of durability. Manufacturing companies, restaurants and retailers often prefer them over other types of touchscreens for this very reason. With their durable construction, resistive touchscreens can withstand moisture and stress without succumbing to damage.
You can control a resistive touchscreen using a stylus or while wearing gloves. Most capacitive touchscreens only register commands performed with a bare finger (or a special capacitive stylus). If you use a stylus or a gloved finger to tap the interface, the capacitive touchscreen won’t respond to your command. Resistive touchscreens register and respond to all forms of input, though. You can control them with a bare finger, a gloved finger, a stylus or pretty much any other object.
The biggest advantages for resistive touch panel are its touch experience and clarity. It can only be used for single touch, no gestures or multi-touch. False touches can be generated if using two or more fingers to touch it.
Resistive touch panel’s transparency is relatively low. In order to prevent Newton rings or fingerprint mark, sometimes AG(anti-glare) film has to be used to make it look more smoky. Optical bonding can’t be used for RTP. The surface of resistive touch panel is soft and easily get scratched.
There are still a few potential cons associated with resistive touchscreens. When compared to capacitive touchscreens, resistive touchscreens aren’t as sensitive. They are still responsive, but you’ll have to tap or press the interface with greater force for a resistive touchscreen to recognize your input.
Resistive touchscreens usually offer lower display resolutions than capacitive touchscreens. Granted, not all applications require a high-resolution display. If a touchscreen is used as a point-of-sale (POS) system in a retail environment, for example, resolution shouldn’t be a concern.
If you have any questions about Orient Display capacitive touch panels. Please feel free to contact: Sales Inquiries, Customer Service or Technical Support.
TFT (Thin Film Transistor) LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) dominates the world flat panel display market now. Thanks for its low cost, sharp colors, acceptable view angles, low power consumption, manufacturing friendly design, slim physical structure etc., it has driven CRT(Cathode-Ray Tube) VFD ( Vacuum Fluorescent Display) out of market, squeezed LED (Light Emitting Diode) displays only to large size display area. TFT LCD displays find wide applications in TV, computer monitors, medical, appliance, automotive, kiosk, POS terminals, low end mobile phones, marine, aerospace, industrial meters, smart homes, handheld devices, video game systems, projectors, consumer electronic products, advertisement etc. For more information about TFT displays, please visit our knowledge base.
There a lot of considerations for how to choose a most suitable TFT LCD display module for your application. Please find the check list below to see if you can find a right fit.
It is the start point for every project. There aretwo dimensions to consider: outside dimension (width, height, thickness) and AA (active area or pixel area). Orient Display’s standard product line ranges from 1.0” to 32”. Our OLED size can go down to 0.66” which fit for wearable devices.
Resolution will decide the clearance. Nobody likes to see a display showing pixel clearly. That is the reason for better resolution, going from QVGA, VGA to HD, FHD, 4K, 8K. But higher resolution means higher cost, power consumption, memory size, data transfer speed etc. Orient Display offers low resolution of 128×128 to HD, FHD, we are working on providing 4K for our customers. For full list of resolution available, please see Introduction: LCD Resolution
Orientation of either landscape or portrait has to be taken into consideration. Beside Aspect Ratio is also very important. You might be satisfied with 4:3 in the past, now, you might be willing to trying wider screen like 16:9 or even 21:9.
TFT screen brightness selection is very important. You don’t want to be frustrated by LCD image washout under bright light or you drain the battery too fast by selecting a super brightness LCD but will be used indoor only. There are general guidance listed in the table below.
Orient Display offers standard brightness, medium brightness , high brightness, and high end sunlight readable IPS TFT LCD display products for our customers to choose from.
If the budget is tight, TN type TFT LCD can be chosen but there is viewing angle selection of either 6 o’clock or 12 o’clock. Gray scale inversion needs to be taken of carefully. If a high-end product is designed, you can pay premium to select IPS TFT LCD which doesn’t have the viewing angle issue.
It is similar to viewing angle selection, TN type TFT LCD has lower contrast but lower cost, while IPS TFT LCD has much high contrast but normally with higher cost. Orient Display provides both selections.
Normal TFT LCD displays provide wide enoughtemperature range for most of the applications. -20 to 70oC. But there are some (always) outdoor applications like -30 to 80oC or even wider, special liquid crystal fluid has to be used. Heater is needed for operating temperature requirement of -40oC. Normally, storage temperature is not an issue, many of Orient Display standard TFT display can handle -40 to 85oC, if you have any questions, feel free to contact our engineers for details.
Power consideration can be critical in some hand-held devices. For a TFT LCD display module, backlight normally consumes more power than other part of the display. Dimming or totally shutdown backlight technology has to be used when not in use. For some extreme power sensitive application, sleep mode or even using memory on controller consideration has to be in design. Feel free to contact our engineers for details.
Genetic Interfaces: Those are the interfaces which display or touch controller manufacturers provide, including parallel, MCU, SPI(,Serial Peripheral Interface), I2C, RGB (Red Green Blue), MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface), LVDS (Low-Voltage Differential Signaling), eDP ( Embedded DisplayPort) etc. Orient Display has technologies to make the above interface exchangeable.
High Level Interfaces: Orient Display has technologies to make more advanced interfaces which are more convenient to non-display engineers, such as RS232, RS485, USB, VGA, HDMI etc. more information can be found in our serious products. TFT modules, Arduino TFT display, Raspberry Pi TFT display, Control Board.
Touch panels have been a much better human machine interface which become widely popular. Orient Display has been investing heavy for capacitive touch screen sensor manufacturing capacity. Now, Orient Display factory is No.1 in the world for automotive capacitive touch screen which took around 18% market share in the world automotive market.
Based on the above three types of touch panel technology, Orient Display can also add different kinds of features like different material glove touch, water environment touch, salt water environment touch, hover touch, 3D (force) touch, haptic touch etc. Orient Display can also provide from very low cost fixed area button touch, single (one) finger touch, double finger (one finger+ one gesture) touch, 5 finger touch, 10 points touch or even 16 points touch
Considering the different shapes of the touch surface requirements, Orient Display can produce different shapes of 2D touch panel (rectangle, round, octagon etc.), or 2.5D touch screen (round edge and flat surface) or 3D (totally curved surface) touch panel.
Considering different strength requirements, Orient Display can provide low cost chemical tampered soda-lime glass, Asahi (AGC) Dragontrail glass and Corning high end Gorilla glass. With different thickness requirement, Orient Display can provide the thinnest 0.5mm OGS touch panel, to thickness more than 10mm tempered glass to prevent vandalizing, or different kinds of plastic touch panel to provide glass piece free (fear) or flexible substrates need.
Of course, Orient Display can also offer traditional RTP (Resistive Touch Panel) of 4-wire, 5-wire, 8-wire through our partners, which Orient Display can do integration to resistive touch screen displays.
If you can’t find a very suitable TFT LCD Display in our product line, don’t be discouraged. The products listed on our website is only small part of standard products. We have thousands of standard products in our database, feel free to contact our engineers for details.
If you like to have a special display, Orient Display is always flexible to do partial custom solution. For example, to modify the FPC to different length or shape, or use as fewer pinouts as possible, or design an ultra-bright LCD display, or a cover lens with your company logo on it, or design an extreme low power or low cost TFT display etc. our engineers will help you to achieve the goals. The NER cost can start from hundreds of dollars to Thousands. In rare case, it can be tens of thousands of dollars.
A fully custom TFT LCD panel can have very high NRE cost. Depending on the size of the display, quantity and which generation production line to be used. The tooling cost can start from $100,000 to over $1M.
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In this Arduino touch screen tutorial we will learn how to use TFT LCD Touch Screen with Arduino. You can watch the following video or read the written tutorial below.
For this tutorial I composed three examples. The first example is distance measurement using ultrasonic sensor. The output from the sensor, or the distance is printed on the screen and using the touch screen we can select the units, either centimeters or inches.
The next example is controlling an RGB LED using these three RGB sliders. For example if we start to slide the blue slider, the LED will light up in blue and increase the light as we would go to the maximum value. So the sliders can move from 0 to 255 and with their combination we can set any color to the RGB LED, but just keep in mind that the LED cannot represent the colors that much accurate.
As an example I am using a 3.2” TFT Touch Screen in a combination with a TFT LCD Arduino Mega Shield. We need a shield because the TFT Touch screen works at 3.3V and the Arduino Mega outputs are 5 V. For the first example I have the HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor, then for the second example an RGB LED with three resistors and a push button for the game example. Also I had to make a custom made pin header like this, by soldering pin headers and bend on of them so I could insert them in between the Arduino Board and the TFT Shield.
Here’s the circuit schematic. We will use the GND pin, the digital pins from 8 to 13, as well as the pin number 14. As the 5V pins are already used by the TFT Screen I will use the pin number 13 as VCC, by setting it right away high in the setup section of code.
As the code is a bit longer and for better understanding I will post the source code of the program in sections with description for each section. And at the end of this article I will post the complete source code.
I will use the UTFT and URTouch libraries made by Henning Karlsen. Here I would like to say thanks to him for the incredible work he has done. The libraries enable really easy use of the TFT Screens, and they work with many different TFT screens sizes, shields and controllers. You can download these libraries from his website, RinkyDinkElectronics.com and also find a lot of demo examples and detailed documentation of how to use them.
After we include the libraries we need to create UTFT and URTouch objects. The parameters of these objects depends on the model of the TFT Screen and Shield and these details can be also found in the documentation of the libraries.
Next we need to define the fonts that are coming with the libraries and also define some variables needed for the program. In the setup section we need to initiate the screen and the touch, define the pin modes for the connected sensor, the led and the button, and initially call the drawHomeSreen() custom function, which will draw the home screen of the program.
So now I will explain how we can make the home screen of the program. With the setBackColor() function we need to set the background color of the text, black one in our case. Then we need to set the color to white, set the big font and using the print() function, we will print the string “Arduino TFT Tutorial” at the center of the screen and 10 pixels down the Y – Axis of the screen. Next we will set the color to red and draw the red line below the text. After that we need to set the color back to white, and print the two other strings, “by HowToMechatronics.com” using the small font and “Select Example” using the big font.
Next is the distance sensor button. First we need to set the color and then using the fillRoundRect() function we will draw the rounded rectangle. Then we will set the color back to white and using the drawRoundRect() function we will draw another rounded rectangle on top of the previous one, but this one will be without a fill so the overall appearance of the button looks like it has a frame. On top of the button we will print the text using the big font and the same background color as the fill of the button. The same procedure goes for the two other buttons.
Now we need to make the buttons functional so that when we press them they would send us to the appropriate example. In the setup section we set the character ‘0’ to the currentPage variable, which will indicate that we are at the home screen. So if that’s true, and if we press on the screen this if statement would become true and using these lines here we will get the X and Y coordinates where the screen has been pressed. If that’s the area that covers the first button we will call the drawDistanceSensor() custom function which will activate the distance sensor example. Also we will set the character ‘1’ to the variable currentPage which will indicate that we are at the first example. The drawFrame() custom function is used for highlighting the button when it’s pressed. The same procedure goes for the two other buttons.
getDistance(); // Gets distance from the sensor and this function is repeatedly called while we are at the first example in order to print the lasest results from the distance sensor
Here’s that function which uses the ultrasonic sensor to calculate the distance and print the values with SevenSegNum font in green color, either in centimeters or inches. If you need more details how the ultrasonic sensor works you can check my particular tutorialfor that. Back in the loop section we can see what happens when we press the select unit buttons as well as the back button.
Ok next is the RGB LED Control example. If we press the second button, the drawLedControl() custom function will be called only once for drawing the graphic of that example and the setLedColor() custom function will be repeatedly called. In this function we use the touch screen to set the values of the 3 sliders from 0 to 255. With the if statements we confine the area of each slider and get the X value of the slider. So the values of the X coordinate of each slider are from 38 to 310 pixels and we need to map these values into values from 0 to 255 which will be used as a PWM signal for lighting up the LED. If you need more details how the RGB LED works you can check my particular tutorialfor that. The rest of the code in this custom function is for drawing the sliders. Back in the loop section we only have the back button which also turns off the LED when pressed.
In order the code to work and compile you will have to include an addition “.c” file in the same directory with the Arduino sketch. This file is for the third game example and it’s a bitmap of the bird. For more details how this part of the code work you can check my particular tutorial. Here you can download that file:
getDistance(); // Gets distance from the sensor and this function is repeatedly called while we are at the first example in order to print the lasest results from the distance sensor
Capacitive touch technology is increasingly used in user interfaces for a variety of devices. A capacitive touch display is created by attaching a capacitive layer on top of a glass panel substrate. These components are then covered with a protective outer layer, and the surface of the device will maintain a static charge. As a person’s finger or a stylus touches the surface, the charge will transfer from the panel surface to the device or finger. This allows the capacitive device to register the touch location.
Thin-film transistor (TFT) LCD capacitive touch screens have become a popular choice when compared to the other leading touch screen technology – resistive touch. While resistive touch screens have been around for a longer time and can be built at a lower cost, capacitive touch displays offer several significant advantages over other display technologies. In this post, we’ll explore what makes capacitive touch technology unique and how it performs across several parameters.
Capacitive touch technology offers excellent screen sensitivity when used with a finger or stylus. The surface of these devices will respond to varying degrees of pressure, as opposed to a resistive touch screen where firm and direct pressure must be used. A TFT LCD capacitive touch screen is also sensitive eno