tft display spec manufacturer

Distributor of component LCDs for equipment which provide high-contrast ratio, color saturation, luminance and performance enhancements such as advanced wide viewing (AWV) for true color fidelity, super-high brightness (SHB) and wide temperature range. Focus on industrial, instrumentation, hand-helds, medical and other low-to-medium volume markets. High-bright LED backlights for outdoor use. LVDS interfaces decrease EMI. Factory installed touch screen solutions. 3.5" to 12.1" QVGA, HVGA, VGA, WVGA, SVGA, XGA, WXGA. Also distributes other related products including LED drivers, lamps, indicators, LED assemblies, segment displays, LED mounts, LEDs, and light pipes. Distributor of electronic components, hardware and fasteners and provides design/value engineering support, fulfillment strategies, procurement services and transactional models to meet specific needs and priorities.

Asia has long dominated the display module TFT LCD manufacturers’ scene. After all, most major display module manufacturers can be found in countries like China, South Korea, Japan, and India.

However, the United States doesn’t fall short of its display module manufacturers. Most American module companies may not be as well-known as their Asian counterparts, but they still produce high-quality display products for both consumers and industrial clients.

In this post, we’ll list down 7 best display module TFT LCD manufacturers in the USA. We’ll see why these companies deserve recognition as top players in the American display module industry.

STONE Technologies is a leading display module TFT LCD manufacturer in the world. The company is based in Beijing, China, and has been in operations since 2010. STONE quickly grew to become one of the most trusted display module manufacturers in 14 years.

Now, let’s move on to the list of the best display module manufacturers in the USA. These companies are your best picks if you need to find a display module TFT LCD manufacturer based in the United States:

Planar Systems is a digital display company headquartered in Hillsboro, Oregon. It specializes in providing digital display solutions such as LCD video walls and large format LCD displays.

Planar’s manufacturing facilities are located in Finland, France, and North America. Specifically, large-format displays are manufactured and assembled in Albi, France.

Another thing that makes Planar successful is its relentless focus on its customers. The company listens to what each customer requires so that they can come up with effective display solutions to address these needs.

What makes Microtips a great display module TFT LCD manufacturer in the USA lies in its close ties with all its customers. It does so by establishing a good rapport with its clients starting from the initial product discussions. Microtips manages to keep this exceptional rapport throughout the entire client relationship by:

Displaytech is an American display module TFT LCD manufacturer headquartered in Carlsbad, California. It was founded in 1989 and is part of several companies under the Seacomp group. The company specializes in manufacturing small to medium-sized LCD modules for various devices across all possible industries.

The company also manufactures embedded TFT devices, interface boards, and LCD development boards. Also, Displaytech offers design services for embedded products, display-based PCB assemblies, and turnkey products.

Displaytech makes it easy for clients to create their own customized LCD modules. There is a feature called Design Your Custom LCD Panel found on their site. Clients simply need to input their specifications such as their desired dimensions, LCD configuration, attributes, connector type, operating and storage temperature, and other pertinent information. Clients can then submit this form to Displaytech to get feedback, suggestions, and quotes.

Clients are assured of high-quality products from Displaytech. This is because of the numerous ISO certifications that the company holds for medical devices, automotive, and quality management. Displaytech also holds RoHS and REACH certifications.

A vast product range, good customization options, and responsive customer service – all these factors make Displaytech among the leading LCD manufacturers in the USA.

Products that Phoenix Display offers include standard, semi-custom, and fully-customized LCD modules. Specifically, these products comprise Phoenix Display’s offerings:

Phoenix Display also integrates the display design to all existing peripheral components, thereby lowering manufacturing costs, improving overall system reliability, and removes unnecessary interconnects.

Clients flock to Phoenix Display because of their decades-long experience in the display manufacturing field. The company also combines its technical expertise with its competitive manufacturing capabilities to produce the best possible LCD products for its clients.

True Vision Displays is an American display module TFT LCD manufacturing company located at Cerritos, California. It specializes in LCD display solutions for special applications in modern industries. Most of their clients come from highly-demanding fields such as aerospace, defense, medical, and financial industries.

The company produces several types of TFT LCD products. Most of them are industrial-grade and comes in various resolution types such as VGA, QVGA, XGA, and SXGA. Clients may also select product enclosures for these modules.

Slow but steady growth has always been True Vision Display’s business strategy. And the company continues to be known globally through its excellent quality display products, robust research and development team, top-of-the-line manufacturing facilities, and straightforward client communication.

All of their display modules can be customized to fit any kind of specifications their clients may require. Display modules also pass through a series of reliability tests before leaving the manufacturing line. As such, LXD’s products can withstand extreme outdoor environments and operates on a wide range of temperature conditions.

Cystalfontz America is a leading supplier and manufacturer of HMI display solutions. The company is located in Spokane Valley, Washington. It has been in the display solutions business since 1998.

Crystalfontz takes pride in its ISO 9001 certification, meaning the company has effective quality control measures in place for all of its products. After all, providing high-quality products to all customers remains the company’s topmost priority. Hence, many clients from small hobbyists to large top-tier American companies partner with Crystalfontz for their display solution needs.

We’ve listed the top 7 display module TFT LCD manufacturers in the USA. All these companies may not be as well-known as other Asian manufacturers are, but they are equally competent and can deliver high-quality display products according to the client’s specifications. Contact any of them if you need a US-based manufacturer to service your display solutions needs.

We also briefly touched on STONE Technologies, another excellent LCD module manufacturer based in China. Consider partnering with STONE if you want top-of-the-line smart LCD products and you’re not necessarily looking for a US-based manufacturer. STONE will surely provide the right display solution for your needs anywhere you are on the globe.

Raystar is a global leading LCD panel supplier and specialized in producing TFT LCD Panel, including Color TFT, Monochrome TFT Display and bar type TFT Display. Raystar Color TFT displays are available in various resolutions and offers a wide product range of small to medium-sized TFT-LCD modules from 0.96” to 12.3". The interface options are in MCU / RGB / SPI / UART / 8080 / LVDS. TFT Panel with control board or TFT LCD Panel with micro controller are also available.

LCD stands for “Liquid Crystal Display” and TFT stands for “Thin Film Transistor”. These two terms are used commonly in the industry but refer to the same technology and are really interchangeable when talking about certain technology screens. The TFT terminology is often used more when describing desktop displays, whereas LCD is more commonly used when describing TV sets. Don’t be confused by the different names as ultimately they are one and the same. You may also see reference to “LED displays” but the term is used incorrectly in many cases. The LED name refers only to the backlight technology used, which ultimately still sits behind an liquid crystal panel (LCD/TFT).

As TFT screens are measured differently to older CRT monitors, the quoted screen size is actually the full viewable size of the screen. This is measured diagonally from corner to corner. TFT displays are available in a wide range of sizes and aspect ratios now. More information about the common sizes of TFT screens available can be seen in our section about resolution.

The aspect ratio of a TFT describes the ratio of the image in terms of its size. The aspect ratio can be determined by considering the ratio between horizontal and vertical resolution.

16:9 = wide screen formats such as 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440. 16:9 is commonly used for multimedia displays and TV’s and is increasingly becoming the standard

Ultra-high resolution panels will offer varying aspect ratios including Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 = 16:9), 4K (4096 x 2160 = an odd 1:9:1 aspect ratio) and 5K (5120 x 2880 = 16:9)

The resolution of a TFT is an important thing to consider. All TFT’s have a certain number of pixels making up their liquid crystal matrix, and so each TFT has a “native resolution” which matches this number. It is always advisable to run the TFT at its native resolution as this is what it is designed to run at and the image does not need to be stretched or interpolated across the pixels. This helps keep the image at its most clear and at optimum sharpness. Some screens are better than others at running below the native resolution and interpolating the image which can sometimes be useful in games.

You generally cannot run a TFT at a resolution of above its native resolution although some screens have started to offer “Virtual” resolutions, for example “virtual 4k” where the screen will accept a 3840 x 2160 input from your graphics card but scale it back to match the native resolution of the panel which is often 2560 x 1440 in these examples. This whole process is rather pointless though as you lose a massive amount of image quality in doing so.

Make sure your graphics card can support the desired resolution of the screen you are choosing, and based on your uses. If you are a gamer, you may want to consider whether your graphics card can support the resolution and refresh rate you will want to use to power your screen. Also keep in mind whether you are planning to connect external devices and the resolution they are designed to run at. For instance if you have a 16:10 format screen and plan to use an external device which runs at 16:9, you will need to ensure the screen is able to scale the image properly and add black borders, instead of distorting the aspect ratio of the image.

Ultra-high resolutions must be thought of in a slightly different way. Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) and 4K (4096 x 2160) resolutions are being provided nowadays on standard screen sizes like 24 – 27” for instance. Traditionally as you increased the resolution of panels it was about providing more desktop real estate to work with. However, with those resolutions being so high, and the screen size being relatively small still, the image and text becomes incredibly small if you run the screen at normal scaling at those native resolutions. For instance imagine a 3840 x 2160 resolution on a 24” screen compared with 1920 x 1080. The latter would probably be considered a comfortable font size for most users. These ultra-high resolutions nowadays are about improving image clarity and sharpness, and providing a higher pixel density (measured as pixels per inch = PPI). In doing so, you can improve the sharpness and clarity of an image much like Apple have famously done with their “Retina” displays on iPads and iPhones. To avoid complications with tiny images and fonts, you will then need to enable scaling in your operating system to make everything easier to see. For instance if you enabled scaling at 150% on a 3840 x 2160 resolution, you would end up with a screen real estate equivalent to a 2560 x 1440 panel (3840 / 1.5 = 2560 and 2160 / 1.5 = 1440). This makes text much easier to read and the whole image a more comfortable size, but you then get additional benefits from the higher pixel density instead, which results in a sharper and crisper image.

Generally you will need to take scaling in to consideration when purchasing any ultra-high resolution screen, unless it’s of a very large size. The scaling ability does vary however between different operating systems so be careful. Apple OS and modern Windows (8 and 10) are generally very good at handling scaling for ultra-high res displays. Older operating systems are less capable and may sometimes be complicated. You will also find varying support from different applications and games, and often end up with weird sized fonts or sections that are not scaled up and remain extremely small. A “standard” resolution where you don’t need to worry about scaling might be simpler for most users.

To display this content of this type, your screen needs to be able to 1) handle the full resolution naturally within its native resolution, and 2) be able to handle either the progressive scan or interlaced signal over whatever video interface you are using. If the screen cannot support the full resolution, the image can still be shown but it will be scaled down by the hardware and you won’t be take full advantage of the high resolution content. So for a monitor, if you want to watch 1080 HD content you will need a monitor which can support at least a vertical resolution of 1080 pixels, e.g. a 1920 x 1080 monitor.

Unlike on CRT’s where the dot pitch is related to the sharpness of the image, the pixel pitch of a TFT is related to the distance between pixels. This value is fixed and is determined by the size of the screen and the native resolution (number of pixels) offered by the panel. Pixel pitch is normally listed in the manufacturers specification. Generally you need to consider that the ‘tighter’ the pixel pitch, the smaller the text will be, and potentially the sharper the image will be. To be honest, monitors are normally produced with a sensible resolution for their size and so even the largest pixel pitches return a sharp images and a reasonable text size. Some people do still prefer the larger-resolution-crammed-into-smaller-screen option though, giving a smaller pixel pitch and smaller text. It’s down to choice and ultimately eye-sight.

For instance you might see a 35″ ultra-wide screen with only a 2560 x 1080 resolution which would have a 0.3200 mm pixel pitch. Compare this to a 25″ screen with 2560 x 1400 resolution and 0.2162 mm pixel pitch and you can see there will be a significant different in font size and image sharpness. There are further considerations when it comes to the pixel pitch of ultra-high resolution displays like Ultra HD and 4K. See the section on PPI for more information.

Instead manufacturers are now focusing on delivering higher resolutions in to existing panel sizes, not for the purpose of providing more desktop real-estate, but for the purpose of improving image sharpness and picture quality. Apple started this trend with their “Retina Displays” used in iPads and iPhones, improving image sharpness and clarity massively. It is common now to see smaller screens such as 24″ and 27″ for instance, but with high resolutions like 3840 x 2160 (Ultra HD) or even 5120 x 2880 (5K). By packing more pixels in to the same screen size which would typically offer a 2560 x 1440 resolution, panel manufacturers are able to provide much smaller pixel pitches and improve picture sharpness and clarity. To measure this new way of looking at resolution you will commonly see the spec of ‘Pixels Per Inch’ (PPI) being used.

Of course the problem with this is that if you run a screen as small as 27″ with a 5K resolution, the font size is absolutely tiny by default. You get a massive boost of desktop real-estate, just like when moving from 1920 x 1080 to 2560 x 1440, but that’s not the purpose of these higher resolutions now. To overcome this you need to use the scaling options in your Operating System software to scale the image and make it more usable. Windows provides for instance scaling options like 125% and 150% within the control panel. On a 3840 x 2160 Ultra HD resolution if you use a 150% scaling option for example you will in effect reduce the desktop area by a third, resulting in the same desktop area as a 2560 x 1440 display (i.e. 2560 x 150% = 3840). The OS scaling makes font sizes more comfortable and reasonable, but you maintain the sharp picture quality and small pixel pitch of the higher resolution panel. A 3840 x 2160 res panel scaled at 150% in Windows will look sharper and crisper than a 2560 x 1440 native panel without scaling, despite the fact both would have the same effective desktop area available.

While this aspect is not always discussed by display manufacturers it is a very important area to consider when selecting a TFT monitor. The LCD panels producing the image are manufactured by many different panel vendors and most importantly, the technology of those panels varies. Different panel technologies will offer different performance characteristics which you need to be aware of. Their implementation is dependent on the panel size mostly as they vary in production costs and in target markets. The four main types of panel technology used in the desktop monitor market are:

TN Film was the first panel technology to be widely used in the desktop monitor market and is still regularly implemented in screens of all sizes thanks to its comparatively low production costs. TN Film is generally characterized by good pixel responsiveness making it a popular choice for gamer-orientated screens. Where overdrive technologies are also applied the responsiveness is improved further. TN Film panels are also available supporting 120Hz+ refresh rates making them a popular choice for stereoscopic 3D compatible screens. While older TN Film panels were criticized for their poor black depth and contrast ratios, modern panels are actually very good in this regard, often producing a static contrast ratio of up to 1000:1. Perhaps the main limitation with TN Film technology is its restrictive viewing angles, particularly in the vertical field. While specs on paper might look promising, in reality the viewing angles are restrictive and there are noticeable contrast and gamma shifts as you change your line of sight. TN Film panels are normally based around a 6-bit colour depth as well, with a Frame Rate Control (FRC) stage added to boost the colour palette. They are often excluded from higher end screens or by colour enthusiasts due to this lower colour depth and for their viewing angle limitations. TN Film panels are regularly used in general lower end and office screens due to cost, and are very popular in gaming screens thanks to their low response times and high refresh rate support. Pretty much all of the main panel manufacturers produce TN Film panels and all are widely used (and often interchanged) by the screen manufacturers.

IPS was originally introduced to try and improve on some of the drawbacks of TN Film. While initially viewing angles were improved, the panel technology was traditionally fairly poor when it came to response times and contrast ratios. Production costs were eventually reduced and the main investor in this technology has been LG.Display (formerly LG.Philips). The original IPS panels were developed into the so-called Super IPS (S-IPS) generation and started to be more widely used in mainstream displays. These were characterized by their good colour reproduction qualities, 8-bit colour depth (without the need for Frame Rate Control) and very wide viewing angles. These panels were traditionally still quite slow when it came to pixel response times however and contrast ratios were mediocre. In more recent years a change was made to the pixel alignment in these IPS panels (see our detailed panel technology article for more information) which gave rise to the so-called Horizontal-IPS (H-IPS) classification. With the introduction of overdrive technologies, response times were improved significantly, finally making IPS a viable choice for gaming. This has resulted more recently in IPS panels being often regarded as the best all-round technology and a popular choice for display manufacturers in today’s market. Improvements in energy consumption and reduced production costs lead to the generation of so-called e-IPS panels. Unlike normal 8-bit S-IPS and H-IPS classification panels, the e-IPS generation worked with a 6-bit + FRC colour depth. Developments and improvements with colour depths also gave rise to a generation of “10-bit” panels with some manufacturers inventing new names for the panels they were using, including the co-called Performance-IPS (p-IPS). It is important to understand that these different variants are ultimately very similar and the names are often interchanged by different display vendors. For more information, see our detailed panel technologies guide.

Nowadays IPS panels are produced and developed by several leading panel manufacturers. LG.Display technically own the IPS name and continue to invest in this popular technology. Samsung began production of their very similar PLS (Plane to Line Switching) technology, as did AU Optronics with their AHVA (Advanced Hyper Viewing Angle). These are all so similar in performance and features that they can be simply referred to now as “IPS-type”. Indeed monitor manufacturers will normally stick to the common IPS name but the underlying panel may be produced by any number of different manufacturers investing in this type of panel tech. AU Optronics have done a good job with finally increasing the refresh rate of their IPS panels, and making them a more viable option for gamers. Native 144Hz IPS-type panels are now available and response times continue to be reduced as well. Modern IPS panels are characterized by decent response times, if not quite as fast as TN Film they are certainly more fluid than older panels. Contrast ratios are typically around 1000:1 and viewing angles continue to be the widest and most stable of any panel technology. You will find varying colour depths including 6-bit+FRC and 8-bit commonly being used, although this makes little difference in practice. One of the remaining limitations with IPS-type technologies are the so-called “IPS glow”, where darker content introduces a pale glow when viewed from an angle. It’s a characteristic of the panel technology and pretty hard to avoid without additional filters being added to the panels. On larger and wider screens some people find this glow distracting and problematic.

This technology was developed by Sharp for use in some of their TFT displays. It consists of several improvements that Sharp claim to have made, mainly to counter the drawbacks of the popular TN Film technology. They have introduced an Anti-Glare / Anti-Reflection (AGAR) screen coating which forms a quarter-wavelength filter. Incident light is reflected back from front and rear surfaces 180° out of phase, thus canceling reflection rather diffusing it as others do. As well as reducing glare and reflection from the screen, this is marketed as being able to offer deeper black levels. Sharp also claim to offer better contrast ratios than any competing technology (VA and IPS); but with more emphasis on improving these other technologies, this is probably not the case with more modern panels. There are very few ASV monitors around really, with the majority of the market being dominated by TN, VA and IPS panels.

This technology was developed by BOE Hydis, and is not really very widely used in the desktop TFT market, more in the mobile and tablet sectors. It is worth mentioning however in case you come across displays using this technology. It was developed by BOE Hydis to offer improved brightness and viewing angles to their display panels and claims to be able to offer a full 180/180 viewing angle field as well as improved colours. This is basically just an advancements from IPS and is still based on In Plane technology. They claim to “modify pixels” to improve response times and viewing angles thanks to improved alignment. They have also optimised the use of the electrode surface (fringe field effect), removed shadowed areas between pixels, horizontally aligned electric fields and replaced metal electrodes with transparent ones. More information about AFFS can be found here.

This panel technology was developed by NEC LCD, and is reported to offer wide viewing angles, fast response times, high luminance, wide colour gamut and high definition resolutions. Of course, there is a lot of marketing speak in there, and the technology is not widely employed in the mainstream monitor market. Wide viewing angles are possible thanks to the horizontal alignment of liquid crystals when electrically charged. This alignment also helps keep response times low, particularly in grey to grey transitions. Their SFT range also offers high definition resolutions and are commonly used in medical displays where extra fine detail is required.

Response Time is the spec which many people, especially gamers, have come to regard as the most important. In practical terms the spec is designed to refer to the speed of the liquid crystal pixels and how quickly they can change from one colour to another, and therefore how fast the picture can be redrawn. The faster this transition can change, the better, and with more fluid changes the images can change overall a lot faster. This helps reduce the effects of blurring and ghosting in games and movies which can be an issue if response time is too slow. As a general rule of thumb, the lower the response time, the better.

Do not rely entirely on response time specs quoted by manufacturers as a be all and end all to the monitor’s performance. Different manufacturers have different ways of measuring their response time, and one 5ms panel might not be the same in real use to another 5ms panel for instance. Panel technology also plays a part here, and don’t get confused with standard response times and grey to grey (G2G) figures. However, response times can be treated a guide to the performance of the screen, and as a rule of thumb, the lower the better.

As you can see from the graph, the actual response time can vary quite considerably across the whole grey range, with some changes being much slower. This is the reason you cannot always rely on quoted specs to give an accurate representation of a screens actual pixel response performance. The quoted figures from manufacturers should be treated as a rough guide however to a panels response time, as generally there has been some improvements in the overall latency with the changes from 25ms > 16ms > 12ms > 8ms > 5ms panel generations for instance. The shape of the graph is likely to remain quite similar, but overall, the curve will probably be a little lower when comparing an 8ms to a 16ms for instance. Overall it won’t be twice as fast though.

One thing to note regarding pixel response time is that the overall performance of the TFT will also depend on the technology of the panel used. TN film panels offer response time graphs similar to that above, but screens based on traditional VA / IPSvariant panels can show response time graphs more like this (we are assuming for now non-overdriven panels):

Some reviews sites including TFTCentral have access to advanced photosensor (photodiodе + low-noise operational amplifier) and oscilloscope measurement equipment which allows them to measure response time as detailed above. See our article about response times for more information on that method. Graphs showing response time according to their equipment are produced. Other sites rely on observed responsiveness to compare how well a panel can perform in practice and what a user might see in normal use. We think it is important to study both methods if possible to give a fuller picture of a panels performance. For visual tests TFTCentral uses a program called PixPerAn (developed by Prad.de) which is good for comparing monitor responsiveness with its series of tests. The favourite seems to be the moving car test as shown here:

In addition to pixel response time measurements and visual tests described above, it is also possible to capture the levels of blurring and smearing the human eye will experience on a display. This is achieved using a pursuit camera setup. They are simply cameras which follow the on-screen motion and are extremely accurate at measuring motion blur, ghosting and overdrive artefacts of moving images. Since they simulate the eye tracking motion of moving eyes, they can be useful in giving an idea of how a moving image appears to the end user. It is the blurring caused by eye tracking on continuously-displayed refreshes (sample-and-hold) that we are keen to analyse with this new approach. This is not pixel persistence caused by response times; but a different cause of display motion blur which cannot be captured using static camera tests. Low response times do have a positive impact on motion blur, and higher refresh rates also help reduce blurring to a degree. It does not matter how low response times are, or how high refresh rates are, you will still see motion blur from LCD displays under normal operation to some extent and that is what this section is designed to measure. Further technologies specifically designed to reduce perceived motion blur are required to eliminate the blur seen on these type of sample-and-hold displays which we will also look at.

These tests capture the kind of blurring you would see with the naked eye when tracking moving objects across the screen (example from the Asus ROG Swift PG279Q). As you increase the refresh rate the perceived blurring is reduced, as refresh rate has a direct impact on motion blur. It is not eliminated entirely due to the nature of the sample-and-hold LCD display and the tracking of your eyes. No matter how fast the refresh rate and pixel response times are, you cannot eliminate the perceived motion blur without other methods.Tests like the above would give you an idea of the kind of perceived motion blur range when using the particular screen without any bur reduction mode active.

The Contrast Ratio of a TFT is the difference between the darkest black and the brightest white it is able to display. This is really defined by the pixel structure and how effectively it can let light through and block light out from the backlight unit. As a rule of thumb, the higher the contrast ratio, the better. The depth of blacks and the brightness of the whites are better with a higher contrast ratio. This is also referred to as the static contrast ratio.

When considering a TFT monitor, a contrast ratio of 1000:1 is pretty standard nowadays for TN Film and IPS-type panels. VA-type panels can offer static contrast ratios of 3000:1 and above which are significantly higher than other competing panel technologies.

Some technologies boast the ability to dynamically control contrast (Dynamic Contrast Ratio – DCR) and offer much higher contrast ratios which are incredibly high (millions:1 for instance!). Be wary of these specs as they are dynamic only, and the technology is not always very useful in practice. Traditionally, TFT monitors were said to offer poor black depth, but with the extended use of VA panels, the improvements from IPS and TN Film technology, and new Dynamic Contrast Control technologies, we are seeing good improvements in this area. Black point is also tied in to contrast ratio. The lower the black point, the better, as this will ensure detail is not lost in dark image when trying to distinguish between different shades.

Brightness as a specification is a measure of the brightest white the TFT can display, and is more accurately referred to as its luminance. Typically TFT’s are far too bright for comfortable use, and the On Screen Display (OSD) is used to turn the brightness setting down. Brightness is measure in cd/m2 (candella per metre squared). Note that the recommended brightness setting for a TFT screen in normal lighting conditions is 120 cd/m2. Default brightness of screens out of the box is regularly much higher so you need to consider whether the monitor controls afford you a decent adjustment range and the ability to reduce the luminance to a comfortable level based on your ambient lighting conditions. Different uses may require different brightness settings as well so it is handy when reviews record the luminance range possible from the screen as you adjust the brightness control from 100 to 0%.

The colour depth of a TFT panel is related to how many colours it can produce and should not be confused with colour space (gamut). The more colours available, the better the colour range can potentially be. Colour reproduction is also different however as this related to how reliably produced the colours are compared with those desired.

The colour depth of a panel is determined really by the number of possible orientations of each sub pixel (red, blue and green). These different orientations basically determine the different shade of grey (or colours when filtered in the specific way via RGB sub pixels) and the more “steps” between each shade, the more possible colours the panel can display.

Colour gamut in TFT monitors refers to the range of colours the screen is capable of displaying, and how much of a given reference colour space it might be able to display. It is ultimately linked to backlight technology and not to the panel itself.

Experiments at the beginning of the last century into the human eye eventually led to the creation of a system that encompassed all the range of colours our eyes can perceive. Its graphical representation is called a CIE diagram as shown in the image above. All the colours perceived by the eye are within the collared area. The borderline of this area is made up of pure, monochromatic colours. The interior corresponds to non-monochromic colours, up to white which is marked with a white dot. ‘White Colour’ is actually a subjective notion for the eye as we can perceive different colours as white depending on the conditions. The white dot in the CIE diagram is the so-called flat spectrum dot with coordinates of x=y=1/3. Under ordinary conditions, this colour looks very cold, bluish.

Laser Displays are capable of producing the biggest colour gamut for a system with three basic colours, but even a laser display cannot reproduce all the colours the human eye can see, although it is quite close to doing that. However, in today’s monitors, both CRT and LCD (except for some models I’ll discuss below), the spectrum of each of the basic colours is far from monochromatic. In the terms of the CIE diagram it means that the vertexes of the triangle are shifted from the border of the diagram towards its centre.

Traditionally, LCD monitors were capable of giving approximate coverage of the sRGB reference colour space as shown in the diagram above. This is defined by the backlighting used in these displays – Cold-cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL) that are employed which emit radiation in the ultraviolet range which is transformed into white colour with the phosphors on the lamp’s walls. These backlight lamps shine through the LCD panel, and through the RGB sub-pixels which act as filters for each of the colours. Each filter cuts a portion of spectrum, corresponding to its pass-band, out of the lamp’s light. This portion must be as narrow as possible to achieve the largest colour gamut.

Traditional CCFL backlighting offers a gamut pretty much covering the sRGB colour space. However, the sRGB space is a little small to use as a reference in specifications for colour gamuts and so the larger NTSC colour space reference is also sometimes used. The sRGB space corresponds to approximately 72% of the NTSC colour space, which is a figure commonly used in specifications for standard CCFL backlit monitors. If you read the reviews here, you will see that analysis with colorimeter devices allows us to measure the colour gamut, and you can easily spot those screens utilising regular CCFL backlighting by the fact their gamut triangle is pretty much mapped to the reference sRGB triangle. The sRGB colour space is lacking most in green hues as compared with the gamut of the human eye. It should be noted that most content is produced based on the sRGB colour space, including Windows, many popular applications and internet content.

To help develop and improve on the colour space a screen is capable of displaying a new generation CCFL backlighting was introduced. These so-called “wide gamut” backlights allow a gamut coverage of typically 92 – 102% of the NTSC colour space. There is a difference in practice which all users should be able to detect. The colour space available is extended mainly in green shades as you can see from the image above. Red coverage is also extended in some cases. This extended colour space sounds appealing on face value since the screens featuring WCG-CCFL backlighting can offer a broader range of colours. Manufacturers will often promote the colour space coverage of their screens with these high figures. In practice you need to consider what impact this would have on your use.

Of course the opposite is true if in fact you are working with content which is based on a wider colour space. In photography, the Adobe RGB colour space is often used and is wider than the sRGB reference. If you are working with wide gamut content, with wide gamut supported applications, you would want a screen that can correctly display the full range of colours. This could not be achieved using a traditional CCFL backlit display with only sRGB coverage, and so a wide gamut screen would be needed. Wide gamut displays are often aimed at colour enthusiasts and professional uses as a result.

LED backlighting has now become the norm for desktop monitors and is available in a few variations. The most common is White-LED (W-LED), which is a replacement for standard CCFL backlighting. The LED’s are placed in a line along the edge of the matrix, and the uniform brightness of the screen is ensured by a special design of the diffuser. The colour gamut is limited to sRGB as standard (around 68 – 72% NTSC) but the units are cheaper to manufacturer and so are being utilised in more and more screens, even in the more budget range. They do have their environmental benefits as they can be recycled, and they have a thinner profile making them popular in super-slim range models and notebook PC’s. It is possible to extend the colour gamut of W-LED displays using “Quantum Dot” technologies which are fairly new.

RGB LED backlighting consists of an LED backlight based on RGB triads, each triad including one red, one green and one blue LED. With RGB LED backlighting the spectrum of each LED is rather wide, so their radiation can’t be called strictly monochromatic and they can’t match a laser display, yet they are much better than the spectrum of CCFL and WCG-CCFL backlighting. RGB LED backlighting is not common yet in desktop monitors, and their price tends to put them way above the budget of all but professional colour enthusiast and business users. These models using RGB LED backlights are capable of offering a gamut covering > 114% of the NTSC colour space. They are not really used at all nowadays as they were prohibitively expensive.

There are also wide gamut LED backlights available and more commonly used nowadays as they are cheaper to manufacturer than older RGB LED versions. GB-r-LED for instance is provided by LG.Display and can offer wide gamut support from an LED backlight. Other panel manufacturers have their equivalents as well. Modern LED screens with wide gamut support tend to have a percentage coverage of the Adobe RGB reference space listed in the display spec, with 99% Adobe RGB being pretty standard for wide gamut LED technologies.

Viewing angles are quoted in horizontal and vertical fields and often look like this in listed specifications: 170/160 (170° in horizontal viewing field, 160° in vertical). The angles are related to how the image looks as you move away from the central point of view, as it can become darker or lighter, and colours can become distorted as you move away from your central field of view. Because of the pixel orientation, the screen may not be viewable as clearly when looking at the screen from an angle, but viewing angles of TFT’s vary depending on the panel technology used.

As a general rule, the viewing angles are IPS-type > VA-type > TN Film. The viewing angles are often over exaggerated in manufacturers specs, especially with TN Film panels where quoted specs of 160 / 160 and even 170 / 170 are based on overly loose measuring techniques. Be wary of 176/176 figures as these are sometimes used as over-exaggerated specs for a TN Film panel and are based on more lapse measurement techniques as well.

TFT screens do not refresh in the same way as a CRT screen does, where the image is redrawn at a certain rate. As a TFT is a static image, and each pixel refreshes independently, setting the TFT at a common 60Hz native refresh rate does not cause the same problems as it would on a CRT. There is no cathode ray gun redrawing the image as a whole on a TFT. You will not get flicker, which is the main reason for having a high refresh rate on a CRT in the first place. Standard TFT monitors operate with a 60Hz recommended refresh rate, but can sometimes support up to 75Hz maximum (within the spec) or sometimes even further using ‘overclocking’ methods. The reason that 60Hz is recommended by all the manufacturers is that it is related to the vertical frequency that TFT panels run at. Some more detailed data sheets for the panels themselves clearly show that the operating vertical frequency is between about 56 and 64Hz, and that the panels ‘typically’ run at 60Hz (see the LG.Philips LM230W02 datasheet for instance – page 11). If you decide to run your refresh rate from your graphics card above the recommended 60Hz it will work fine, but the interface chip on the monitor will be in charge of scaling the frequency down to 60Hz anyway. Some screens will allow you to run at the maximum 75Hz as well for an additional boost in frame rates and some minor improvements in motion clarity. The support of this will really depend on the screen, your graphics card and the video connection being used. You may find the screen operates fine at the higher refresh rate setting but in reality the screen will often drop frames to meet the 60Hz recommended setting (or spec of the panel) anyway. Generally we would suggest sticking to 60Hz on standard TFT monitors.

One thing which some people are concerned about is the frames per second (fps) which their games can display. This is one of the key reasons users will look to boost their screen beyond 60Hz. This is related to the refresh rate of your screen and graphics card. There is an option for your graphics card to enable a feature called Vsync which synchronizes the frame rate of your graphics card with the operating frequency of your graphics card (i.e. the refresh rate). Without vsync on, the graphics card is not limited in it’s frame rate output and so will just output as many frames as it can. This can often result in graphical anomalies including ‘tearing’ of the image where the screen and graphics card are out of sync and the picture appears mixed as the monitor tries to keep up with the demanding frame rate from the card. To avoid this annoying symptom, vsync needs to be enabled. With vsync on, the frame rate that your graphics card is determined by the refresh rate you have set in Windows. Capping the refresh rate at 60hz in your display settings limits your graphics card to only output 60fps. If you set the refresh at 75hz then the card is outputting 75fps. What is actually displayed on the monitor might be a different matter though as we explained above.

The desire to offer higher frame rate support and higher refresh rates has lead to panel manufacturers developing panels which can natively support 120Hz+. It is common now to see 120Hz or 144Hz as natively supported refresh rates. This allows much higher frame rates to be displayed and the increase in refresh rate also brings about positive improvements in perceived motion clarity. TN Film panels have been around for many years now with high refresh rates and in recent years there has been development in IPS-type and VA-type panels to boost their refresh rates as well. You will also now see some ‘overclocked’ monitors available where manufacturers have attempted to boost the refresh rate further. For instance the native 144Hz IPS-type panel of the Asus ROG Swift PG279Q up to 165Hz, or the 144Hz native VA-type panel of the Acer Predator Z35 up to 200Hz. Results of these overclocks do vary and are not guaranteed but may provide some additional benefits.

True 120HZ technology– to have a true 120Hz screen, it must be capable of accepting a full 120Hz signal output from a device (e.g. a graphics card). Because TV’s are limited at the moment by their input sources they tend to use the above interpolation technology, but with the advent of 3D TV and higher frequency input sources, this will change. Desktop monitors are a different matter though as graphics cards can obviously output a true 120Hz if you have a decent enough card. Some models can accept a 120Hz signal but need different interfaces to cope (e.g. dual-link DVI or DisplayPort).

Manufacturer specifications will usually list power consumption levels for the monitor which tell you the typical power usage you can expect from their model. This can help give you an idea of running costs, carbon footprint and electricity demands which are particularly important when you’re talking about multiple monitors or a large office environment. Power consumption of an LCD monitor is typically impacted by 3 areas:

Specs will often list a typical usage for the screen, normally related to whatever the default factory brightness control / luminance is. They may also list a maximum usage, when brightness is turned up to full and sometimes also an additional maximum when USB ports are in use. A standby power usage is often also included indicating the power draw when the screen is in standby mode. Some screens also feature various presets or modes designed to help limit power consumption, often just involving preset brightness settings. Again these can be useful in multi-monitor environments.

This relates to the connection type from the TFT to your PC or other external device. Older screens nearly all came with an analogue connection, commonly referred to as D-sub or VGA. This allows a connection from the VGA port on your graphics card, where the signal being produced from the graphics card is converted from a pure digital to an analogue signal. There are a number of algorithms implemented in TFT’s which have varying effectiveness in improving the image quality over a VGA connection. Some TFT’s with then offer a DVI input as well to allow you to make use of the DVI output from your graphics card which you might have. This will allow a pure digital connection which can sometimes offer an improved image quality. It is possible to get DVI – VGA converters. These will not offer any improvements over a standard analogue connection, as you are still going through a conversion from digital to analogue somewhere along the line. Dual-Link DVI is also sometimes used which is a single DVI connection but with more pins, allowing for higher resolution/refresh rate support than a single-link DVI.

Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) is an industry standard for a mobile audio/video interface that allows consumers to connect mobile phones, tablets, and other portable consumer electronics (CE) devices to high-definition televisions (HDTVs) and monitors. You will sometimes see MHL listed in the spec and is often supported over the HDMI interfaces of a display.

DisplayPort is the most common monitor connection type nowadays, offering the highest bandwidth support and therefore being vital to provide the newest high resolution and high refresh rate panels. The DisplayPort (DP) connection comes in two types, either standard or Mini. They are interchangeable and a simple conversion cable can allow connection between each version.

Microtips Technology, one of the leading 4.3-inch TFT LCD module manufacturers, has introduced the new low-cost 4.3-inch TFT display. TFT or thin film transistor is primarily a variant of the LCD technology. TFTs are active matrix LCDs, which help improve contrast, color, and picture quality. They are affordable as well. This new 4.3-inch TFT LCD module touch screen has a resolution of 480X272 with an RGB interface. It has a brightness level of 280 nits and an active area of 95.04mm x 53.86mm. This display can be used in mobile devices, embedded systems, industrial equipment, and automotive devices.

Being a leading 4.3-inch TFT LCD module manufacturer, we can provide you these displays in customized specifications. You can get in touch with us for further details regarding pricing, customizations, and design-related queries regarding our low-cost4.3-inch TFT displays.

Since 1993 we offer LCDs and LCD system solutions. We are always up to date with the latest technology and are looking for the best products for our customers. Our TFT display range includes high-quality displays:

Orient Display sunlight readable TFT displays can be categorized into high brightness TFT displays, high contrast IPS displays, transflective TFT displays, Blanview TFT displays etc.

The brightness of our standard high brightness TFT displays can be from 700 to 1000 nits. With proper adding brightness enhancement film (BEF) and double brightness enhancement film (DBEF) and adjustment of the LED chips, Orient Display high brightness TFT products can achieve 1,500 to 2,000 nits or even higher luminance. Orient Display have special thermal management design to reduce the heat release and largely extend LED life time and reduce energy consumption.

Our high contrast and wide viewing angle IPS displays can achieve contrast ratio higher than 1000:1 which can make readability under strong sunlight with lower backlight luminance. High brightness IPS displays have been widely accepted by our customers with its superb display quality and it has become one of the best sellers in all our display category.Transflective display is an old monochrome display technology but it has been utilized in our color TFT line for sunlight readable application. Orient Display has 2.4” and 3.5” to choose from.

Blanview TFT displays are the new technology developed by Ortustech in Japan. It can provide around 40% of energy consumption for TFT panels which can use smaller rechargeable or disposable batteries and generate less heat. The price is also lower than traditional transflective TFT displays. Orient Display is partnering with the technology inventor to provide 4.3” and 5.0”.

Orient Display can also provide full customized or part customized solutions for our customers to enhance the viewing experience. Orient Display can provide all the different kinds of surface treatments, such as AR (Anti-reflection); AG (Anti-glare), AF (Anti-finger print or Anti-smudge); AS (Anti-smashing); AM (Anti-microbial) etc. Orient Display can also provide both dry bonding (OCA, Optical Clear Adhesive), or wet bonding (OCR, Optical Clear Resin and OCG, Optical Clear Glue) to get rid of light reflective in air bonding products to make the products much more readable under sunlight and be more robust.

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.

Engineers are always looking for lower cost, faster, more convenient interfaces to transmit signals and to accept data and commands. The numbers of available interfaces available in the market can be dazzling. Orient Display follows market trends to produce various kind of interfaces for our customers to choose.

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.

Our new line of 10.1” TFT displays with IPS technology are now available! These 10.1” IPS displays offer three interface options to choose from including RGB, LVDS, and HDMI interface, each with two touchscreen options as capacitive or without a touchscreen.

The new line of 3.5” TFT displays with IPS technology is now available! Three touchscreen options are available: capacitive, resistive, or without a touchscreen.

ASI-T-17711A1SPN/D is a 1.77 inch transflective TFT with a resolution of 160 x 128, SPI interface and with a brightness of 110 Nits; viewable in direct sunlight.

ASI-T-20043A5PMN/AY is a 2.0 inch TFT with a resolution of 480 x 360, 3W SPI+16 bit RGB or MIPI interface, IPS all view, with a high brightness of 500 Nits.

ASI-T-240DA8BN/D is a 2.4 inch high brightness TFT with a resolution of 240 X 320, CPU 16-bit interface and with a brightness of 800 Nits; viewable in direct sunlight.

ASI-T-240DA10SMN/AQ is a 2.4 inch high brightness TFT with a resolution of 240 x 320, SPI & MCU interface, IPS all-angle view and with a brightness of 1000 Nits; viewable in direct sunlight. It also features an extra wide operating temperatures of -30 to +80C; perfect for extreme environmental applications.

ASI-T-240DAKBN/D is a 2.4 inch high brightness TFT with a resolution of 240 x 320, MCU interface and with a brightness of 1000 Nits; viewable in direct sunlight.

ASI-T-283DAKCRN/A is a 2.83 inch high brightness TFT with a resolution of 240 x 320, CPU, RGB, SPI interface and with a brightness of 1000 Nits; viewable in direct sunlight

ASI-T-3501RA1EN/A is a 3.5 inch TFT with a resolution of 480 x 640, 18 bit RGB, All View interface and with a brightness of 120 Nits; viewable in direct sunlight

ASI-T-3501RA1EN/D is a 3.5 inch TFT with a resolution of 480 x 640, 18-bit DBI Type B, All View interface and with a brightness of 120 Nits; viewable in direct sunlight

ASI-T-350EA8RCY6/A is a 3.5 inch high brightness TFT with a resolution of 320 x 240, 24-bit Parallel RGB/Serial RGB/CCIR/YUV interface and with a brightness of 850 Nits; viewable in direct sunlight with Capacitive Touch Panel

ASI-T-350EA10SRN/A is a 3.5 inch TFT with a resolution of 320 x 240, SPI & RGB interface and with a high brightness of 1,000 Nits and wide temperature range of -30 - +85 C.

This IPS TFT display has a high resolution 1024x600 screen. The IPS technology delivers exceptional image quality with superior color reproduction and contrast ratio at any angle. This 24-bit true color Liquid Crystal Display includes better FPC design with EMI shielding on the cable, is RoHS compliant, and has a 10-point multi-touch capacitive touchscreen.

Choose from a wide selection of interface options or talk to our experts to select the best one for your project. We can incorporate HDMI, USB, SPI, VGA and more into your display to achieve your design goals.

Equip your display with a custom cut cover glass to improve durability. Choose from a variety of cover glass thicknesses and get optical bonding to protect against moisture and debris.

0.96″ 80 x RGB x 160 Color TFT LCD Phoenix Display International PDI09601A‐V3 is a small-size 0.96” color TFT liquid crystal display (LCD) with a module size of 13.30 x 27.9 x 1.4 mm and active area of 10.80 x 21.70. This product is IPS TFT, negative, Transmissive glass with a 262K color 80 x RGB x 160 resolution. Its brightness is 350 nits with a contrast ratio of 600. Using an ST7735S driver with an 8 bit 8080 system parallel interface and a Hot-Bar type flex interconnect. This product offers improved contrast, color saturation and response time. All our…

1.3″ 240 x RGB x 240 Color TFT LCD Phoenix Display International PDI013021B-V1 is a small-size 1.3” color TFT liquid crystal display (LCD) with a module size of 26.85mm x 29.55mm x 1.5mm and active area of 23.4mm x 23.4mm.This product is IPS TFT, negative, Transmissive glass with a 262K color 240 RGB x 240 resolution. Its brightness is 350 nits with a contrast ratio of 600. Using an ST7789V driver with an 8 bit 8080 system parallel interface and a Hot-Bar type flex interconnect. This product offers improved contrast, color saturation and response time.…

1.3″ Round 240 x RGB x 240 Transmissive Color TFT Display Phoenix Display International PDI013A2402HS is a small-size round 1.3” color TFT liquid crystal display (LCD) with a module size of 35.5 x 8.23 x 1.4 mm and active area of 32.34 x 32.34 mm.This product is IPS TFT, negative, Transmissive glass with a 262K color 240 RGB x 240 resolution. Its brightness is 220 nits with a contrast ratio of 600. Using an ST7789V driver with an SPI interface and a board to board interconnect. This product offers improved contrast, color saturation and response…

1.44″ 128 × 128 Transmissive Color TFT Display Phoenix Display International PDI144011CPIL is a small-size 1.44” color TFT liquid crystal display (LCD) with a module size of 34.4mm x 30.3mm x 3.4 mm and active area of 25.5mm x 26.5mm.This product is a-Si TFT, Positive, Transmissive glass with a 262K color 128 x 128 resolution. Its brightness is <200 nits with a contrast ratio of 250:1. Using an ILI9163C driver with an 8 bit 8080 system parallel interface and a Hot-Bar type flex interconnect. This product offers improved contrast, color saturation and response time. Similar product(s): None. All our…

1.54″ Round 320 x RGB x 320 Color TFT LCD Phoenix Display International PDI1540HVBS-01 is a small-size 1.54” color TFT liquid crystal display (LCD) with a module size of 31.82mm x 33.87mm x 1.8mm and active area of 27.744mm x 27.744mm. This product is IPS TFT, negative, Transmissive glass with a 16.7M color 320 x 320 resolution. Its brightness is 280 nits with a contrast ratio of 900. Using an ST7796S driver with an 8 bit 8080 system parallel interface and a Hot-Bar type flex interconnect. This product offers improved contrast, color saturation and response time. All our color displays…

1.77″ 128 x 160 Transmissive Color TFT Display Phoenix Display International PDI018AOP-S13 is a small-size 1.77” color TFT liquid crystal display (LCD) with a module size of 34.70mm x 46.70mm x 2.55mm and active area of 28.03mm x 35.04mm.This product is a-Si TFT, Positive, Transmissive glass with a 262K color 126 x160 resolution. Its brightness is 170 nits with a contrast ratio of 250:1. Using an ILI9163C driver with an 8080 MPU 8bit interface and a Hot-Bar type flex interconnect. This product offers improved contrast, color saturation and response time. Similar product(s): PDI018A0P-SE3 has lower brightness…

1.77″ 128 x 160 Transmissive Color TFT Display Phoenix Display International PDI018QQHG-13 is a small-size 1.77” color TFT liquid crystal display (LCD) with a module size of 34 * 43.78 * 2.45 mm and active area of 28.03 * 34.04 mm. This product is a-Si TFT, Positive, Transmissive glass with a 262K color 126 x 160 resolution. Its brightness is 220 nits with a contrast ratio of 250. Using an TBD driver with a MCU interface and a Hot-Bar type flex interconnect. This product offers improved contrast, color saturation and response time. Similar product(s): PDI018A0P-S13 has…

1.77″ 128 x 160 Transmissive Color TFT Display Phoenix Display International PDI018AOP-SE3 is a small-size 1.77” color TFT liquid crystal display (LCD) with a module size of 46.70mm x 34