vive schematics lcd panel manufacturer

Bottoms up! We flip the Vive and go eye-to-eye with the front-facing camera. This unblinking cyclops also provides AR for the Vive. What"s it running on? Let"s get inside and find out.

Nestled in a nook between the eyepieces is a proximity sensor that detects when the Vive is actually on your face—presumably to shut off the displays, conserving power and processor resources.

The Rift CV1 doesn"t have this feature, probably because its asymmetric lenses allow you to adjust focus by simply pushing the headset higher or lower on your face. Is this confirmation of a different approach to optics in the Vive? Only more teardown will tell.

This method is the exact opposite of the head-tracking technique found in the Oculus Rift. In the Rift, the desk-mounted camera tracked the IR emitters in the headset, whereas in the Vive, the headset sees light from the mounted IR emitters without actually "tracking" its location.

After adios-ing four Phillips screws and doing a little investigative prying, we lift away the display cover for access to one of the twin Samsung-branded AMOLED panels.

Each display measures ~91.8 mm diagonally, which translates to ~447 ppi. For comparison, the Rift CV1 has ~456 ppi due to a slightly smaller display (90 mm) that still packs the same resolution as the Vive.

Unlike the hybrid lenses we encountered in the Oculus Rift, the Vive"s lenses appear to have a uniform contour. It seems that HTC opted to control focus through adjustment of the eye relief.

The Vive is manufactured by HTC, but it"s quite evident that Valve had plenty of input on the design process. The controller touchpad is veryreminiscent of the ones we found on the Steam Controller.

Firing up our IR camera, we get a glimpse of the internals through the IR-transparent front panel—an array of bright IR LEDs, and a pair of motorized lasers make the Lighthouse shine bright.

While the Rift works with an IR camera and some fancy machine vision software to follow the Constellation IR LED array, the Vive uses an entirely different system for position tracking.

Though a completely wire-free experience is not yet available, HTC managed to fit all the power and data lines for the Vive into a single cable that routes neatly up and over your left ear—a big improvement from the heavy multi-cable ponytail that dangled from the original.

Where the original Vive kept nearly all its onboard silicon clustered onto a single board, the sequel uses two smaller boards. This daughterboard services the displays, I/O, and one or two other things we"ll show you in just a moment.

Winning in this market is now HTC’s all-or-nothing strategy. The HTC Vive VR Head-Mounted Display (HMD) is aimed at saving HTC from collapse. Vive VR can be used in different sectors, including gaming, entertainment, health, automotive, retail and education. It promises a premium VR experience.

BOE will invest 29 billion yuan ($4 billion) in the 600,000 sq. meter factory, according to Sunday"s announcement, with an eye toward expanding into markets for new technologies, such as panels for virtual reality (VR) devices, and a new type of high-end panel called mini-LED.

The Tokyo-based LCD specialist expects its favored display technology to become the standard for VR because it can achieve higher resolution than OLED while keeping costs reasonable. That advantage is imperceptible in mobile devices but becomes critical in the more demanding VR scenario.

LAS VEGAS, NV -- Today at CES 2018, HTC introduced the Vive Pro, which features updated display panels that produce a crisper, clearer image. It also offers support for Valve’s updated tracking system. There’s nothing wrong with the current Vive configuration. In fact, HTC plans to keep it around through 2018, but the two-year-old device is beginning to show its age. HTC is aware that the Vive is losing its grip on the VR market, and the company is ready with a new device to help it maintain its spot as a top-tier home VR solution provider.

Last week, HTC’s marketing team sent out a tweet that gave us a hint about a possible new HMD. The company posted an illustration of a Vive headset with the caption “New Year’s” in blurry text and “Resolution” in crisp text, which indicated that the company had something secret up its sleeve. We speculated that HTC could be preparing to announce Vive 2.0, and suggested that it may include a higher-resolution display, updated optics, Valve’s new Steam VR Tracking 2.0, wireless data transmission, and maybe eye-tracking sensors. Our expectations of HTC"s announcement were somewhat overzealous, but the company did trot out a new HMD at its CES press event.

The original Vive HMD featured a pair of 1080 x 1200 90Hz LCD panels. At the time, rendering a 2160 x 1200 at 90 frames per second was a tall order for most graphics cards. These days, a mid-range GPU can handle that resolution reasonably well, and high-end GPUs have enough headroom to dabble with supersampling to improve the image quality even further.

Display technology has also improved in the last two years. When HTC introduced the Vive, the display panels in the headset were at the cutting edge of LCD design. No device on the market other than VR HMDs featured such high-resolution panels with that refresh rate and at that size. Today, the majority of VR HMDs offer higher resolution than the Vive and Rift. Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality HMDs, which can run on integrated graphics, boast at least 1440 x 1440 pixels per eye. And the resolution of HTC’s standalone Vive Focus HMD is even better than that.

When HTC created its first Vive headset, it turned to Samsung for the advanced display panels featured in the device. Samsung recently introduced a new OLED HMD display that offers 1440 x 1600 pixels and operates at 90Hz and above. Samsung uses the displays in its Odyssey Windows Mixed Reality HMD, and it provides the same panels to other OEMs. HTC didn"t specify that the new panels are from Samsung, but the new Vive Pro features two OLED panels with the same resolution. We"re not aware of any other 1440 x 1600 90Hz OLED displays for VR headsets, so we"re pretty confident the Vive Pro features Samsung"s new panels.

HTC didn’t discuss the minimum requirements for the Vive Pro, but the device’s high resolution will no doubt put additional strain on the graphics pipeline, and it will likely demand an incredible PC to operate. To put the change into perspective, the original HMD featured 2,590,000 pixels that must be updated 90 times per second. The new headset boasts 4,608,000 pixels to fill, which is a 78% increase. That’s a lot more work for the GPU.

The Vive Pro also features an updated head strap and integrated headphones. Last year, HTC released the Deluxe Audio Head Strap upgrade for the original Vive, which featured rigid construction and integrated headphones, both of which were major improvements to the overall package. For the Vive Pro, HTC expanded on the improvements that it made with the Deluxe Audio Head Strap. HTC redesigned the shape of the strap to offer more adjustment range for the headphones,and it reworked the rear section of the headstrap to provide additional support. The new headphones are also of higher quality, with a built-in amplifier to provide a premium audio experience.

The front of the Vive Pro headset also features two cameras, that point straight forward, instead of the single downwards facing camera found on the current Vive. HTC did not say what thier function is.

HTC said that the Vive Pro would be available later this quarter as an upgrade kit for existing Vive owners. The new headset would also be available as a full kit, presumably with updated base stations, later this year. HTC didn’t announce the price of the headset, but the company said that "more information about pricing and availability would be available soon."

Valve has developed custom lenses that work with both LCD and OLED display technologies and is making these lenses available to purchase for use in SteamVR compatible HMDs. These lenses and Valve’s unique calibration and correction software are designed specifically to be paired with several off-the-shelf VR displays to enable the highest quality VR visual experiences. These optical solutions currently support a field of view between 85 and 120 degrees (depending on the display). The lenses, which are designed to support the next generation of room-scale virtual reality, optimize the user’s perceived tracking experience and image sharpness while reducing stray light.

HTC has officially revealed the Vive Focus, its all-in-one VR headset. As previously announced, the Vive Focus runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip and uses inside-out positional tracking. It should be the first standalone six-degrees-of-freedom VR headset to see release, though HTC isn"t saying exactly when it"ll be available.

The Vive Focus uses a somewhat simple-looking three-degrees-of-freedom controller with a similar trackpad to the larger Vive devices. The headset"s design is unusual, taking cues from both PlayStation VR and HTC"s own Vive Deluxe Audio Strap, and it comes in a bright shade of blue. HTC hasn"t given a lot more away about the Focus" other specs, like its screen resolution.

HTC has only announced plans for the Vive Focus in China just yet, and even then there aren"t any details on pricing or a release date. If you were holding out for that Vive-branded standalone Google Daydream headset, meanwhile, there"s bad news — HTC and Google have cancelled their plans to bring it to the US.

A typical HMD has one or two small displays, with lenses and semi-transparent mirrors embedded in eyeglasses (also termed data glasses), a visor, or a helmet. The display units are miniaturized and may include cathode ray tubes (CRT), liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), liquid crystal on silicon (LCos), or organic light-emitting diodes (OLED). Some vendors employ multiple micro-displays to increase total resolution and field of view.

Engineers and scientists use HMDs to provide stereoscopic views of computer-aided design (CAD) schematics.CAVE for VR simulation. HMDs are predominantly used for single-person interaction with the design, while CAVEs allow for more collaborative virtual reality sessions.

The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display created by Palmer Luckey that the company Oculus VR developed for virtual reality simulations and video games.HTC Vive is a virtual reality head-mounted display. The headset is produced by a collaboration between Valve and HTC, with its defining feature being precision room-scale tracking, and high-precision motion controllers. The PlayStation VR is the a virtual reality headset for gaming consoles, dedicated for the PlayStation 4.Windows Mixed Reality is a platform developed by Microsoft which includes a wide range of headsets produced by HP, Samsung, and others and is capable of playing most HTC Vive games. It uses only inside-out tracking for its controllers.

Different displays use different types of TCONs. In this article we will be talking about TCONs for the IT market: LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) notebook PCs and monitors.

An LCD panel has millions of Red, Green, and Blue (RGB) liquid crystals that are used to block a white backlight when electrical voltage is applied to them. High voltage signals to each individual pixel control how much of the backlight to block. A white display means nothing is being blocked. A black display means all three colors are blocked at maximum effort.

TCONS direct the high voltage driver chips that move the color filters and are usually found on a circuit board that sits below the glass panel (Fig. 1).

eDP connections are fast, use few wires, and are flexible for size, bandwidth and adding features eDP provides all panel connections in one plug, including power, data, and control signals. This is Analogix’s specialty.

While the GPU is responsible for transforming mathematical equations into individual pixels and frames, a TCON takes the individual frames generated by the GPU, corrects for color and brightness, then sends out parts of the image to each individual driver at the panel’s specific timing.

The human eye has an incredible dynamic range.  That means we can see both very dark images and very bright images, at the same time. However, neither camera sensors nor display panels can display that range. Your camera generates HDR images by using images from multiple exposures to combine the brightest and darkest parts of the picture. This increases the contrast (dynamic range) between light and dark, pulling out details from darkened or washed out areas.

HDR accurately maps real world color and luminance to a display panel. VESA DisplayHDR™ standard specifies HDR quality, including luminance, color gamut, bit depth, and rise time.

Display panels have difficulty displaying a wide range of brightness. Normal sunlight can reach 10,000 nits, but the backlight on most notebooks today is around 250 nits

VESA DisplayHDR requires the panel to meet minimum brightness, contrast, and color. No panel can reach 10,000nits of natural light. The brightest a 250nit notebook panel can produce is 250nits and any image above 250nits is washed out.  Also, no details from 250 nits to 10,000nits can be seen.

The HDR400 specifications require a dimmable backlight which helps with both producing darker blacks and lowering the power consumption. Tone mapping is used to map the whole range of 10,000 nits down to what the panel can handle, so the details can be seen. Tone mapping does not increase the brightness of the panel; it only makes the details visible.

VESA DisplayHDR600 Requires local dimming. No LCD panel can reach the VESA DisplayHDR600 requirement of 6000:1 contrast ratio. However, this can be overcome with local dimming.

For example, a 750:1 contrast panel requires 8 different backlight power settings to reach 6000:1 contrast ratio. However, unless there are thousands of separate regions, local dimming always produces halos around the bright areas. In order to reduce the halos, the following are recommended:

Monitors can use a direct backlight with many regions. An extra layer of liquid crystal can be used to dim the backlight at a specific location but this often results in a panel that is too thick for a notebook.

Notebook backlights use LEDs on the edge of the panel to reduce panel thickness. These can be on 1 side, 2 sides, or all 4 sides. Each edge adds to cost and bezel size.

Global Dimming Power Savings - Figure 6 shows a 15.6” UHD panel with 400nit maximum brightness. Figure 7 shows a comparison of backlight power consumption values between 400nit, 50nit and, respectively 5nit.

The primary goal of color management is to obtain a good match across color devices; for example, the colors of one frame of a video should appear the same on a computer LCD monitor, on a TV screen, and as a printed poster. Color management helps to achieve the same appearance on all of these devices, provided the devices are capable of delivering the needed color intensities. Color management cannot guarantee identical color reproduction, as this is rarely possible, but it can at least give more control over any changes which may occur.

A PC in HDR and SDR modes use different color gamut but the same screen. Dual-panel phones and notebooks need the color of the two sides to match perfectly. Graphic artists for web sites, movies, video games, etc., need to know what they are creating looks the same on their screen as on their customers’ screens.

As panels improve, the color space of new panels may exceed the color space from Windows.  This results in displays which look oversaturated. There is a trend towards low blue light or “night shift” panels, while still retaining color accuracy for the other colors. Today, low blue light panels are created by measuring each individual panel, then hoping that the yield is high enough.

Analogix’s Advanced Color Blocking (ACB) technology is used to create consistent image quality across different panels and change color space for different usage modes (Fig. 8). It allows for 3D color gamut rotation in the optical color domain rather than the RGB domain and color space change on the fly, such as color mapping of BT.2020 source to sRGB or DCI-P3 panels. It includes LUT shadow registers and hardware transition calculations (to smooth changes).

Color conversion in the TCON can dynamically and continuously adjust the incoming signal from the GPU for a low blue light color space. This way, no individual panel measurement is needed and yields should increase. While this can also be done by the GPU itself, that takes GPU bandwidth and 500x more power.

Panel Self-Refresh (PSR) – frame buffer in a TCON can maintain a display image without receiving video data from the CPU. For a still image, this allows the GPU to enter a low-power state and the eDP main link to turn off. Allowing the GPU to power down between display updates will save significant power and extend battery life.

Panel Self-Refresh with Selective Update (PSR2) is a superset of the panel self-refresh feature and it allows the transmission of modified areas within a video frame with obvious benefits when watching a movie or playing a game. PSR2 identifies when only a portion of the screen is static, which is a selective update. In PSR2, when the full screen is static, the refresh rate can be lowered for further power savings as done by Intel Low Refresh Rate (LRR). Intel LRR lowers the refresh rate by changing pixel clock or by changing vertical blank depending on the scenario such as idle, playing video, browsing, etc. All Analogix TCONs support Intel LRR.

In-Cell Touch embeds the touch function in the display itself, the panel including all the touch sensors, controllers, and needed processing. This simplifies the production process and reduces weight and reflection by removing the cover glass. It also allows for thinner bezels as there is no need for daughter cards and no separate wires for touch, as well as lighter devices as the cover glass is removed.

Analogix has pioneered the in-cell touch notebook panel TCONs. About 15% of notebooks support touch and we expect the touch attach rate to increase as more active pen support is introduced.

The functional Elf headset prototype was the same impressively small form-factor as I saw previously, featuring a pair of Kopin’s 1-inch ‘Lightning’ displays each with a 2,048 x 2,048 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. The headset isn’t just significantly more compact than others—at just 220 grams it’s less than half the weight of the Rift and Vive (though at this point it’s lacking integrated audio, IPD adjustment, or positional tracking tech, which would require additional hardware and weight).

The second thing I noticed was the field of view which felt much closer to Google’s Daydream headsets than what you’d be used to with the Rift, Vive, or PSVR. Kopin said the prototype I was looking through was a 70 degree field of view, and that they’re working on developing different lenses to offer 80 and 100 degree fields of view (and I got to look through early versions of those lenses; more on that later). On the 70 degree prototype, the ‘binocular’ feeling (of having very noticeable dark circles around your field of view) was quite apparent. Despite the incredibly smooth and sharp image I was seeing, the low field of view is an immersion killer so it’s a good thing that Kopin is also developing lenses with a wider view.

With more than three times the pixels than the Rift and Vive (2,048 x 2,048 vs. 1,080 x 1,200), it looked stunningly sharp (pixel density in this case is getting an extra boost from the lower field of view too). Individual pixels are all but invisible, and I couldn’t make out any screen door effect. Since the 70 degree FoV lens isn’t Fresnel, I didn’t see any god ray artifacts (which are prevalent on the Rift and Vive), nor did I spot any chromatic aberration. I didn’t see any obvious mura issues which is good, but would want more time in the headset to be sure that there is none. Also, because this is a micro OLED display, the blacks were very deep. However, I didn’t get a chance to see the right scene to assess whether or not there was any black-smearing present.