inside lcd screen brands

Flat-panel displays are thin panels of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying text, images, or video. Liquid crystal displays (LCD), OLED (organic light emitting diode) and microLED displays are not quite the same; since LCD uses a liquid crystal that reacts to an electric current blocking light or allowing it to pass through the panel, whereas OLED/microLED displays consist of electroluminescent organic/inorganic materials that generate light when a current is passed through the material. LCD, OLED and microLED displays are driven using LTPS, IGZO, LTPO, and A-Si TFT transistor technologies as their backplane using ITO to supply current to the transistors and in turn to the liquid crystal or electroluminescent material. Segment and passive OLED and LCD displays do not use a backplane but use indium tin oxide (ITO), a transparent conductive material, to pass current to the electroluminescent material or liquid crystal. In LCDs, there is an even layer of liquid crystal throughout the panel whereas an OLED display has the electroluminescent material only where it is meant to light up. OLEDs, LCDs and microLEDs can be made flexible and transparent, but LCDs require a backlight because they cannot emit light on their own like OLEDs and microLEDs.

Liquid-crystal display (or LCD) is a thin, flat panel used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. They are usually made of glass but they can also be made out of plastic. Some manufacturers make transparent LCD panels and special sequential color segment LCDs that have higher than usual refresh rates and an RGB backlight. The backlight is synchronized with the display so that the colors will show up as needed. The list of LCD manufacturers:

Organic light emitting diode (or OLED displays) is a thin, flat panel made of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. OLED panels can also take the shape of a light panel, where red, green and blue light emitting materials are stacked to create a white light panel. OLED displays can also be made transparent and/or flexible and these transparent panels are available on the market and are widely used in smartphones with under-display optical fingerprint sensors. LCD and OLED displays are available in different shapes, the most prominent of which is a circular display, which is used in smartwatches. The list of OLED display manufacturers:

MicroLED displays is an emerging flat-panel display technology consisting of arrays of microscopic LEDs forming the individual pixel elements. Like OLED, microLED offers infinite contrast ratio, but unlike OLED, microLED is immune to screen burn-in, and consumes less power while having higher light output, as it uses LEDs instead of organic electroluminescent materials, The list of MicroLED display manufacturers:

LCDs are made in a glass substrate. For OLED, the substrate can also be plastic. The size of the substrates are specified in generations, with each generation using a larger substrate. For example, a 4th generation substrate is larger in size than a 3rd generation substrate. A larger substrate allows for more panels to be cut from a single substrate, or for larger panels to be made, akin to increasing wafer sizes in the semiconductor industry.

"Samsung Display has halted local Gen-8 LCD lines: sources". THE ELEC, Korea Electronics Industry Media. August 16, 2019. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020. Retrieved December 18, 2019.

"TCL to Build World"s Largest Gen 11 LCD Panel Factory". www.businesswire.com. May 19, 2016. Archived from the original on April 2, 2018. Retrieved April 1, 2018.

"Panel Manufacturers Start to Operate Their New 8th Generation LCD Lines". 대한민국 IT포털의 중심! 이티뉴스. June 19, 2017. Archived from the original on June 30, 2019. Retrieved June 30, 2019.

"Samsung Display Considering Halting Some LCD Production Lines". 비즈니스코리아 - BusinessKorea. August 16, 2019. Archived from the original on April 5, 2020. Retrieved December 19, 2019.

Herald, The Korea (July 6, 2016). "Samsung Display accelerates transition from LCD to OLED". www.koreaherald.com. Archived from the original on April 1, 2018. Retrieved April 1, 2018.

"China"s BOE to have world"s largest TFT-LCD+AMOLED capacity in 2019". ihsmarkit.com. 2017-03-22. Archived from the original on 2019-08-16. Retrieved 2019-08-17.

There has been a significant shift in the global display industry lately. Apart from new display technologies, the display world is now dominated by players in Asian countries such as China, Korea, and Japan. And rightly so, the world’s best famous LCD module manufacturers come from all these countries.

STONE Technologies is a proud manufacturer of superior quality TFT LCD modules and LCD screens. The company also provides intelligent HMI solutions that perfectly fit in with its excellent hardware offerings.

STONE TFT LCD modules come with a microcontroller unit that has a Cortex A8 1GHz Standard 256MB. Such a module can easily be transformed into an HMI screen. Simple hexadecimal instructions can be used to control the module through the UART port. Furthermore, you can seamlessly develop STONE TFT LCD color user interface modules and add touch control, features to them.

In this post, we list down 10 of the best famous LCD manufacturers globally. We’ll also explore why they became among the reputable LCD module manufacturers in the world.

Samsung is the world’s largest semiconductor and consumer electronics manufacturer by revenue. The electronics giant is well-known for its smartphones and home appliances, but the company also manufactures LCD, LED, and OLED panels.

Samsung now produces panels for smart TVs. With their ever-evolving technological expertise and high-quality products, the company shows no signs of slowing down as one of the world’s best famous LCD module manufacturers.

Stone provides a professional product line that includes intelligent TFT-LCD modules for civil, advanced, and industrial use. Furthermore, Stone also creates embedded-type industrial PCs. The company’s products are all highly-reliable and stable even when used with humidity, vibration, and high temperatures.

Stone Technologies caters to a wide range of clients and industries, being among the world’s best famous LCD module manufacturers. The company’s products are used in the following industries:

Originally, LG Display was a joint venture of mother company LG Electronics and the Dutch company Phillips. They dedicated the company to creating active-matrix LCD panels. Another joint venture called LG. Phillips Displays was created to manufacture deflection yokes and cathode ray tubes.

LG Display has risen above the rest because of its world-class module products. Because of this, the company caters to a massive range of famous clients including Hewlett Packard, Apple, Sony, Dell, Acer, and Lenovo. LG Display also creates LCD modules and similar display panels for the company’s television product range.

Innolux Corporation is another famous LCD module manufacturer. This company was established in 2003 and is currently based in Zhunan, Miaoli County, Taiwan.

The company is a well-known manufacturer of display panels in Taiwan. Innolux supplies TFT-LCD and LED panels, open cells, and touch modules for the following products:

What makes Innolux stand out from other LCD module manufacturers is the company’s commitment to its humanistic qualities. Innolux believes that they are in the business to contribute to the well-being and prosperity of their customers. This is then achieved by creating world-class products that satisfy its clients.

Sharp is a Japanese company founded in 1912. It is now based in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. The company produces various kinds of electronic products including mobile phones, LCD panels, calculators, PV solar cells, and consumer electronics. Sharp has produced TFT-LCD products as early as the 1980s.

For the regular public consumers, Sharp produces a variety of smart TVs and LCD TVs marketed under the Aquos brand. The company’s television line-up boasts of impressively high-quality technology. The TVs are equipped with technologies that support 4K and 8K UHD display, allowing for a great high-resolution viewing experience.

Sustainability is among the ultimate goals of AU Optronics. The company takes steps to integrate green solutions into their products for more sustainable development. This commitment to sustainability, among other strong qualities, makes AU Optronics one of the best LCD manufacturers in the world.

Most of these products use TFT-LCD panels alongside other technologies to create ultra-high-definition images. Also, modern Toshiba display products incorporate IoT and artificial intelligence for a smarter product experience.

Kyocera is a Japanese LCD manufacturer. The company started in 1959 as a fine technical ceramics manufacturer but gradually added consumer electronics products to its offerings.

The Japanese company acquired Optrex Corporation in 2012. The acquisition paved the way for creating an R&D center and more production, sales, and marketing bases. Hence, Kyocera’s global LCD business boomed even more.

The company also operates factories, R&D centers, and marketing facilities in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, North and South America, and Oceania continents. Kyocera has a vast worldwide reach that makes it one of the world’s best famous LCD module manufacturers.

All these high-end technologies make Tianma’s display products suitable for automotive, mobile phones, tablet PCs, industrial screens, avionic displays, medical equipment, and home automation products.

To wrap all this up, we listed 10 of the world’s best famous LCD module manufacturers. These are all highly-respected companies that built their reputations and climbed up the ladder of LCD module manufacturing. Their quality products, dedication to their craft, and excellent customer service truly make them among the world’s best display solutions providers.

a line of extreme and ultra-narrow bezel LCD displays that provides a video wall solution for demanding requirements of 24x7 mission-critical applications and high ambient light environments

a line of extreme and ultra-narrow bezel LCD displays that provides a video wall solution for demanding requirements of 24x7 mission-critical applications and high ambient light environments

This 32” RLCD computer monitor is the first in the world of its kind! Made primarily for those who experience discomfort from backlit monitors, it combines familiarity with groundbreaking innovation. It has no backlight, using only the ambient light that is available in most indoor settings. At a 32" diagonal size, it the largest monitor on the reflective market. there"s no flashing or blue light emissions. It is extremely easy to use. Just connect via HDMI and go! Its thin, sleek design will look great on any desktop.

Backlights are a common source of discomfort for many people due to flashing, high brightness, and blue light emissions. We developed a fundamentally different solution that doesn’t use a backlight: A monitor featuringColor Reflective LCD (RLCD) Technology.

This RLCD monitor is the first of its kind. Compared to other reflective technologies, like E-ink,it features a full-color spectrum, high refresh rate (no ghosting), and a 32 inch screen — the largest RLCD on the market. It’s great for work, watching videos, gaming, and more!

"I am truly enjoying the screen. It is WAY better than using e-ink to play games and stuff. I have been playing on e-ink for the last 5 years and I had forgotten what a colorful screen was. your screen has just changed my life. I feel reborn. Thanks for making this."

While it’d be fun to say this was all our idea, it wouldn’t be accurate. Truth be told, this was largely inspired by people like you. Thanks to your feedback, we saw the value in moving some of our reflective tech indoors. With it, we’ve developed something unique. Introducing our all new 32” RLCD Computer Monitor. Our thanks go to you. You helped make it happen! Read Our Story

As a highly trusteddisplay manufacturerfor some of the world"s largest OEMs, we take great care in the quality of our products. That"s why each of our RLCD Monitors comes standard with a1-Year Manufacturer"s Warranty. It"s our promise to you that we will replace any defective item or part for FREE in cases where damage or defects were the result of our manufacturing.

Transparent LCD’s provide an innovative display solution opening up new ways for brands to promote their products and services. Examples include retail stores looking to advertise a new fashion clothing or accessory, museums securely housing a precious artifact with information displayed on screen or brands looking to launch a new product at a live event or show. The opportunities are endless!

Our Transparent LCD Displays include a Grade A LCD panel with metal bezel protecting the edges / electronics and a media board supporting HDMI or VGA inputs from your PC, Laptop or Media Player.

Transparent screen technology offers intriguing ways to deliver visual information to your audience, being used to reveal or conceal products, objects or artefacts behind the screen.

The combination of HD LCD technology (4K on our 65″, 86″, 98″ version) with a transparent screen substrate opens up creative avenues that were previously closed with traditional LCD displays. Solid black pixels on a transparent background can be used in intriguing ways to hide (and gradually reveal) whatever is behind the screen.

Our Transparent LCD monitors are designed for integration into the customers own furniture housing or display case while our Transparent LCD showcases offer a complete solution including the display, housing and backlight with white or black options available on request. We can also offer custom freestanding options for POP / POS displays. Transparent LCD’s are predominantly fully housed however we’ve recently developed an innovative housing method using a high brightness LED panel which allows the display case sides to remain transparent for improved visibly into the display case.

Using their original design as a starting point, we worked closely with the team at Nike to adapt to the mechanical aspects of the design, the result was a sleek and minimalist set of nine Transparent LCD Display Screens, custom built to suit the applications requirements, bringing Nike’s original concept ideas to life.

These screens can also be granted multi-touch capability by combining them with infrared touch frames or PCAP touch overlays, to add an interactive element to your installation. This creates a very powerful impact when the content on screen integrates with real life objects behind the screen, encouraging viewers to interact on a level that will exceed expectations.

Transparent LCD’s comprise of an LCD panel without the backlight with white pixels appearing as transparent. In order to display an image, the Transparent LCD needs to be integrated into a housing with a high bright LED backlight.

We can also offer more complete solutions like our Transparent LCD Showcase that comes fully contained and ready to use with a powerful backlighting system to guarantee the best picture quality.

Yes in order to display an image Transparent LCD’s need to have a strong backlight. Notoriously Transparent LCD’s have also needed some form of housing to achieve optimum image quality, however, Nike’s House of Innovation paired our Transparent LCD’s with powerful, oversized backlights that allowed the screens to be mounted with no surround but still producing a high-quality image.

Transparent LCD’s are arguably the most popular transparent screens but are hindered by their need for a backlight to operate. For applications looking for a similar effect without the backlighting, Transparent OLEDs require no housing or surround but are only currently available in a 55″ screen size with HD quality. For larger transparent screen applications, Transparent LED’s are recommended with external and internal solutions usually installed to glass facades for the impact of an led screen without compromising the view from inside the building.

Transparent LCD’s are a great way to combine physical and digital displays in one central place making them a popular choice for museums and exhibitions. Our transparent screens can also be integrated into display furniture and appliances & vending machines like freezer doors for supermarkets. Other uses include POS displays, store window displays, trade shows and product launches.

We manufacture in Britain and ship worldwide – if you need further information, a pricing quote, or want to discuss ideas for using our Transparent LCD Display click the link below to contact us, email us via info@prodisplay.com or call us on +44 (0)1226 361 306.

TRU-Vu industrial LCD monitors and industrial touch screen solutions are designed and built with industrial-grade components. Our rugged TAA compliant LCD displays deliver the highest level of quality and reliable performance both indoors and out. TRU-Vu Monitors provides rugged displays for the most challenging  environments.

TRU-Vu Monitors offers over 200 industrial rugged TAA-Compliant monitors and industrial touch screen displays. Therefore, selecting the ideal monitor or touchscreen solution may sometimes be a bit overwhelming.  Use our Advanced Search Tool to help narrow down your choices. Just enter your project specifications.  The Search Tool will filter the choices to show only those computer monitor models that meet your criteria. Or just give us a call! Learn more About Us, or view our full site map.  View all of our informative VIDEOS on our tech center page.

Industrial LCD (liquid crystal display) monitors are a common technological fixture for a variety of Marine, military, and even commercial applications. These monitors have internal mechanisms that allow them to display specific images according to the user’s commands. In order for the screen to work, all of the internal components that make up the mechanism must function at full capacity. Liquid crystals are the main components that contribute to the picture quality, sharpness, and brightness, but there are also other crucial elements at play inside each screen.

Every computer screen has an LED backlight that produces white light. The light then travels through many different layers to produce an image on the screen. Flat panel displays feature LED backlights because they reduce overheating, have higher contrast ratios, more extensive brightness settings, and excellent overall colour reproduction.

Although they don’t produce light, liquid crystals are electrically charged molecules that have the ability to block or allow light to pass through. Electrical voltages are used to charge each liquid crystal and maneuver them to form specific patterns that result in the images that appear on computer screens.

In order for a screen to function properly and display crystal clear images without interruption, every single pixel needs to be charged with an electric current. Transparent conductive screen layers made from materials like indium allow the electric currents to pass through with ease.

Also known as a dual-action brightness enhancement film (DBEF), the reflector sheet increases the brightness level of the screen by reflecting the light diodes produced by the backlight. A single brightness enhancement film has the ability to increase brightness levels by about 40% to 60%. Certain applications that require maximum brightness levels use two reflector sheets to further enhance luminance.

The light guide plate is a weather-resistant transparent corrugated stiff plastic panel that controls the angle and direction in which light is displayed. As the light enters the back of the panel, the pattern formed by the ridges on the front guides it into different directions to illuminate the pixels and form the images that appear on the screen.

Diffuser sheets disperse the light evenly across the screen to eliminate the risk of hot spots that can cause the screen to overheat quickly. Spreading the light evenly across the screen also enhances the visibility and clarity of the images of the screen and reduces eyestrain by producing a softer lighting output.

LCD monitors feature two polarized glass sheets that function as filters that make it possible for users to clearly view images on the screen. The liquid crystals are located between the two layers of polarizing sheets. Essentially, polarizers allow vertical light waves to pass through the filter and contact the light bending liquid crystals. Horizontal light waves are blocked or filtered out because they distort the image quality. Since they’re made of a plastic-like material, polarizers are sensitive to extremely humid and hot temperature conditions.

Backplanes are typically used in thin-film transistor (TFT) LCD monitors. Located toward the front of the screen, this glass substrate displays the images that result from the dual polarization process to the end-user.

Modern LCD monitors use a material called indium-tin-oxide, which acts as the main power source for the entire screen and its light-emitting functions. This common electrode sends required voltage levels to activate and manipulate the liquid crystals. Most of the white light produced by the backlight is blocked out and colour filters are used to create crystal clear images on the screen. Colour filters consist of the primary colours red, blue, and green.

Nauticomp Inc.is one of the leading North American distributors of military, marine, commercial, and industrial LCD monitors. With 25 years of experience in the technological space, we’ve mastered the art of designing and crafting top-of-the-line digital displays that are custom-tailored to the needs of our customers. Contact ustoday to learn more.

As you can imagine, the more pixels there are to display, the more critical it is that your monitor has a high refresh rate, especially when it comes to gaming. Typically, the standard has been a 120-hertz refresh rate in gaming monitors, but many features a 144-hertz refresh rate. The quicker a monitor can refresh the display, and the smoother the visual experience will be. This is because the refresh rate in the monitor works in tandem with a low response time (which specifies how quickly the monitor can send and receive new information) to make a seamless visual transition. Sometimes, if the response rate is not quick enough, some residual pixels can remain on the screen as the monitor is trying to refresh new ones. This is called ‘ghosting.’ Although it’s standard to have a four-millisecond response time on many gaming monitors, Samsung, LG, BenQ, Viewsonic, and more all offer 2k and 4k monitors with one-millisecond response times. It is also important to ensure refresh rates are identical if you plan to sync two monitors for your display.

Regarding the internal specs, response time and refresh rate are the main factors contributing to a smooth, immersive viewing experience. Still, the physical panel type of the monitor can also play into this. First, there’s the matter of how the monitor lights up: either with LCD or LED. The main difference lies in the material that is used to light the liquid crystals in the display. In LCD, it’s cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs), and in LEDs, it’s tiny light emitting and low-energy consuming diodes. This is the preferred type in most monitors because it consumes less power and produces less harsh light, so darker colors appear more vivid. Additionally, LED monitors can be much thinner than LCD ones.

Newer LCD monitors have improved with the implementation of IPS (In-Plane Switching) panels. For some, it’s a matter of preference, but where the IPS panels have shown their strength with accurate color reproduction, which is great for content creators who want to do photo editing or graphic design. The panel type you choose depends more on preference than anything else. Samsung is well known for championing the IPS panel in their monitors, and many people also enjoy using them for gaming.

For some people, it’s essential, not just the monitor specs. Having a monitor that is fast, intuitive, and also looks nice on their desk is a crucial part of a computer build designed to make a statement. Asus’ Predator X34 shows off with its 34-inch curved IPS panel that also features Nvidia’s Gsync technology, which matches the gaming framerates with the monitor’s native refresh rate to prevent screen tearing. For those who want the style without the price tag, Samsung offers a 29-inch curved monitor with a 4-millisecond response time.

As touch navigation becomes more normalized due to mobile browsing, you may also want to consider a touch monitor for maximum accessibility. Planar offers a 22-inch optical touchscreen monitor that is highly portable due to its USB connection type. For something you can use in meetings for presentations, Dell provides a capacitive touchscreen monitor that also features an IPS panel.

When you’ve picked out the perfect display, don’t forget the essential accessories to go with it. For a two or three-screen setup, Ergotron, Rosewill, and SIIG offer a variety of stationary and swivel monitor mounts for both the wall and your desk. Soon, you’ll have a command center that you’ll never want to leave. So, ready to get started?

They are a shorthand to describe how many pixels in total are displayed on the monitor. For 2k, that’s 1920 x 1080 in a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. For 4k, it’s 3840 by 2160 in a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio.

Since monitors have to be lit in order for the viewer to see anything, the difference between the two types is in what is used to light up the crystals within the display. For LCD, that’s cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL’s) and in LEDs, it’s tiny light emitting and low-energy consuming diodes. LED monitors tend to be thinner and more power-efficient, but improvements in the panel types have made LCDs more competitive.

Based in South Korea, Samsung has become one of the world"s leading electronic brands, and its main competitor is LG. Their lineup includes some monitors with IPS panels, but many have VA panels with a curved screen. Although VA panels look great in dark rooms, the main downside is that they have narrow viewing angles, which isn"t ideal for sharing your screen with others. They"ve even started including Mini LED backlighting on high-end models, further improving the picture quality, peak brightness, and dark room performance. It helps that Samsung already produces TVs with this Mini LED technology, so they"ve become an industry leader for monitors with it.

Nearly every computing device needs one to be used, so the insides of monitors must be something special, yes? Well, there"s only one way to find out. Let"s gear up and prep the theatre for another fascinating dissection of a crucial piece of hardware.

Having a visual display of the output of a computing system is a crucial element to the whole thing, and we"re surrounded by them -- monitors connected to desktop PCs, screens in laptops, tablets, and smartphones; even modern TVs are essentially a basic computer these days.

Our willing victim in this anatomy lesson is a Hewlett Packard LA2306x LCD monitor, manufactured way back in August 2012. At the time, it was a decent office-oriented monitor, but not the best for gaming. Like all displays, it"s basically a big grid of colored dots (picture elements or pixels) that altered many times a second give a smooth visual output from a computer.

The screen is technically classed a twisted nematic, thin film transistor, liquid crystal display (TN TFT-LCD). Don"t worry about what any of that means for now. It"s 23" in diagonal size (corner-to-corner) and the arrangement of pixels is such that there are 1920 columns and 1080 rows -- better known as the resolution of the monitor. This type of display needs a light source to make the pixels visible, and ours uses a strip of white LEDs along the bottom of the unit.

TFT-LCD panels are so heavily used that manufacturers across the world (the majority based in China and Taiwan) churn out thousands of them every single day. In a previous feature "Display Tech Compared: TN vs. VA vs. IPS, What"s the Difference?" we looked at the different types of TFT-LCD panels in detail, and we covered the difference between the 3 most popular types around:

The ventilation slots around the back are needed, because although the monitor doesn"t use much power (42W at most), a build up of heat would damage the LCD panel. At the left of the back, there is a socket to plug in a standard main AC electricity cable, and the video inputs are on the right.

The VGA is entirely analogue, which means the information about the color of each pixel, for the screen to show, is sent through 5 separate voltages. These are limited by how quickly they can vary and how accurate they are, which limits the total number of pixels to color and how frequently the screen can be updated.

The LCD panel is at the top, lifted out of the way, so we can see the electronics used. The circuit board on the right takes the mains electricity and converts it into a range of low, direct current voltages -- the cable on the far right powers the screen, and the little one next to it is for the control buttons on the monitor.

A closer inspection of this board shows that it looks a bit like the inside of a PC power supply unit (it does a very similar job, after all). The extra circuit board at the top provides power and control to the display electronics.

We can see the display connectors along the top, the power and control inputs down the right, the output to the LCD panel on the bottom, and the connection to the extra USB ports on the left.

The big chip in the middle is an MStar Semiconductor LCD display driver. It takes the video output signal from the computer and works out when and how to activate all of the pixels in the panel. Every monitor will have one of these, but some are more advanced than others.

To protect the driver chip, and keep the power/heat levels down, most monitors run at a lower rate than this, and our anatomy victim normally runs at 124 MHz. Screens with more pixels need faster clocks, though, and if you"ve got a big 4K monitor, your pixel clock will be 500 MHz or even higher.

At this point, we should really talk about something called refresh rate. Before LCD panels became the norm for monitors, cathode ray tubes (CRTs) were used for the display -- these work by firing a beam of electrons (sub-atomic particles) at a layer of material that would glow when struck by the beam.

Most CRTs would start the beam in the top left-hand corner of the screen, then work across a row, before zipping back across, in a pattern called a raster scan. Once the pattern is finished, the beam would be disabled, and then pointed back up to the starting position.

This return trip was called the vertical retrace or refresh, and during this time, the image on the screen would start to fade. To the monitor user, they would experience this as a slight flickering, as many vertical refreshes would take place each second.

LCD panels don"t fade like this, but the drawing process still undergoes a similar pattern and return. They don"t flicker in the same way that a CRT does, but the more frequently the panel can draw out a new picture, the better the user"s experience will be.

Our HP monitor remains fully functional, though prising apart LCD panels can often ruin them. So we"re going to bring out another one from HP, but this one is already dead.

This is actually the screen from a laptop, but the panel is essentially no different to that used in a monitor. The differences lie in where all the supporting electronics can be found. Let"s pull it out and flip it over:

The most obvious thing is that the panel was made by Samsung, and it"s another TFT-LCD, but we can spot the display driver chip hidden under a protective film. Given that this doesn"t work anymore, we can rip it all off and have a closer look.

The brand name of the display driver chip says WiseView, but it"s actually Samsung"s own product. There"s little else here, other than the signal input to connect the panel to the laptop (just to the right of the driver) and the multiple strips of wires that hook the chip to the screen. To the lower left of the display processor, the metal socket is for power.

The majority of LCD monitors and TVs also allow you to alter the "temperature" of the screen -- you"re not really making the panel hotter or colder, though. Instead, you"re essentially trying to replicate how sunlight appears at different times of the day. The temperature part refers to how hot the surface of the Sun would need to be in order for this light to naturally occur.

Whatever source produces the background lighting for the LCD panel, it needs to be spread across the whole screen -- in the case of our laptop corpse, this is done using a thick layer of polymer, called a light guide plate.

With all of the protective layers and side trim removed from the panel, we can now see how the screen is built. In the image above, the top is the back of the screen and would normally be covered by a layer of white plastic. The polymer layer, for scattering the background light over the panel, comprises almost half the thickness of the whole thing.

Eventually, all of this scattered and diffused light will reach the outer layers of the actual LCD screen: a composite structure of multiple sections. The first one is a thin layer made from glass, and it"s job is to polarize the light coming from the CCFL or LEDs.

The very last layer in the LCD sandwich is also glass, and it too polarizes the light. The plane of vibrations for the two glass slices are 90 degrees to each other and normally, this would completely block any light from travelling through the panel -- the screen would look almost black.

But in-between these is yet another sandwich. This one contains thousands of little pockets filled with a compound: the so-called liquid crystal. This also polarizes the light: in this particular LCD technology, the crystalline molecules form a twisted structure (hence the name twisted nematic) and it "rotates" the light to match the plane of the last polarizing layer.

What we would see is a white screen and to get a totally black one, a voltage gets applied across the crystals in such a way that they change their plane of polarization. When it"s 90 degrees out of phase, the crystals no longer allow light through and become almost completely opaque.

Sharp eyed readers may have spotted something here: each pixel looks like it has several colors. In fact, they do! Each pixel in the screen is made up of 3 sub-pixels, and they have a color filter applied to them: red, green, and blue (RGB).

This arrangement of sub-pixels is called a vertical strip and most widescreen monitors use this pattern. Other LCD screens, such as those found in smartphones, often use a horizontal layout or even one set at angles. It"s about how the monitor/screen is normally going to be set: i.e. portrait or landscape.

Now remember that this is TFT-LCD, a thin film transistor panel. This tells us that there is a microscopic silicon layer, so thin that light easily passes through, over all of the grid. For each sub-pixel, a single transistor is fabricated into the film, to apply the voltage to switch the crystals about.

The very last part to the whole LCD shebang is a protective sheet, usually made from glass, that"s been coated with a thin layer of polymer to reduce reflections (known as anti-glare). This all needs to be quite tough, so it doesn"t crack easily, but also hard enough to prevent scratching.

As amazing as LCD panels are, there are drawbacks to all of this wonderful tech. Starting with the background light source (or backlight, for short). You might think that it stays permanently on, because the liquid crystals block out the light, but they"re actually pulsed on and off, very rapidly to improve the perceived color quality. Unfortunately, this pulsing does make the whole screen flicker slightly, and for some people, it can be really distracting; it also adds blur to moving images. Better quality monitors try to pulse at very high rates, to reduce the issue, or synchronize the pulse with the vertical refresh (marketed as motion blur reduction).

Another issue is that the background lighting can bleed through the edges of the LCD panel and between the pixels themselves, although again, better quality monitors try to reduce this. And speaking of the pixels, most TFT-LCD panels, especially TN ones, have a limit to the number of bits to represent a color.

TFT-LCD panels pretty much dominate the display industry and can be found in monitors, TVs, phones, tablets, car displays, and so on. But they"re not the only technology out there.

TVs and monitors are sometimes classed as being an LED screen, but only because the backlights aren"t CCFLs. Genuine LED displays use an array of light emitting diodes for the pixels, but they"re really only used for very large information screens, and tend to consume quite a lot of power.

OLED (Organic LEDs) are better in this respect, and screens that use them can be found throughout the smartphone industry and are also popular in high end televisions. LED/OLED displays have superior color reproduction and genuine black levels compared to LCD panels -- this is because they don"t use any kind of background light. The pixels themselves emit the image and they can switch on and off much faster than a liquid crystal can twist. The downside to this is that they"re not as bright as LCD panels and they don"t last as long; as they degrade, images can be permanently "stuck on" (a problem known as burn in).

Twenty years ago, LCD monitors were still very expensive, despite a boom in sales and steep decline in prices. In this anatomy lesson, we can see why: they"re hugely complex structures, packed full of thousands of fragile and tiny components. Making these, reliably and cheaply, took decades to perfect. But perfect it they have and you can now get glorious screens, to treat your eyes, for the same price as a medium sized SSD, or low end graphics card.