a si tft lcd vs ips price

If you want to buy a new monitor, you might wonder what kind of display technologies I should choose. In today’s market, there are two main types of computer monitors: TFT LCD monitors & IPS monitors.

The word TFT means Thin Film Transistor. It is the technology that is used in LCD displays.  We have additional resources if you would like to learn more about what is a TFT Display. This type of LCDs is also categorically referred to as an active-matrix LCD.

These LCDs can hold back some pixels while using other pixels so the LCD screen will be using a very minimum amount of energy to function (to modify the liquid crystal molecules between two electrodes). TFT LCDs have capacitors and transistors. These two elements play a key part in ensuring that the TFT display monitor functions by using a very small amount of energy while still generating vibrant, consistent images.

Industry nomenclature: TFT LCD panels or TFT screens can also be referred to as TN (Twisted Nematic) Type TFT displays or TN panels, or TN screen technology.

IPS (in-plane-switching) technology is like an improvement on the traditional TFT LCD display module in the sense that it has the same basic structure, but has more enhanced features and more widespread usability.

These LCD screens offer vibrant color, high contrast, and clear images at wide viewing angles. At a premium price. This technology is often used in high definition screens such as in gaming or entertainment.

Both TFT display and IPS display are active-matrix displays, neither can’t emit light on their own like OLED displays and have to be used with a back-light of white bright light to generate the picture. Newer panels utilize LED backlight (light-emitting diodes) to generate their light hence utilizing less power and requiring less depth by design. Neither TFT display nor IPS display can produce color, there is a layer of RGB (red, green, blue) color filter in each LCD pixels to produce the color consumers see. If you use a magnifier to inspect your monitor, you will see RGB color in each pixel. With an on/off switch and different level of brightness RGB, we can get many colors.

Wider viewing angles are not always welcome or needed. Image you work on the airplane. The person sitting next to you always looking at your screen, it can be very uncomfortable. There are more expensive technologies to narrow the viewing angle on purpose to protect the privacy.

Winner. IPS TFT screens have around 0.3 milliseconds response time while TN TFT screens responds around 10 milliseconds which makes the latter unsuitable for gaming

Winner. the images that IPS displays create are much more pristine and original than that of the TFT screen. IPS displays do this by making the pixels function in a parallel way. Because of such placing, the pixels can reflect light in a better way, and because of that, you get a better image within the display.

As the display screen made with IPS technology is mostly wide-set, it ensures that the aspect ratio of the screen would be wider. This ensures better visibility and a more realistic viewing experience with a stable effect.

Winner. While the TFT LCD has around 15% more power consumption vs IPS LCD, IPS has a lower transmittance which forces IPS displays to consume more power via backlights. TFT LCD helps battery life.

Normally, high-end products, such as Apple Mac computer monitors and Samsung mobile phones, generally use IPS panels. Some high-end TV and mobile phones even use AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diodes) displays. This cutting edge technology provides even better color reproduction, clear image quality, better color gamut, less power consumption when compared to LCD technology.

What you need to choose is AMOLED for your TV and mobile phones instead of PMOLED. If you have budget leftover, you can also add touch screen functionality as most of the touch nowadays uses PCAP (Projective Capacitive) touch panel.

This kind of touch technology was first introduced by Steve Jobs in the first-generation iPhone. Of course, a TFT LCD display can always meet the basic needs at the most efficient price. An IPS display can make your monitor standing out.

IPS (In-Plane Switching) lcd is still a type of TFT LCD, IPS TFT is also called SFT LCD (supper fine tft ),different to regular tft in TN (Twisted Nematic) mode, theIPS LCD liquid crystal elements inside the tft lcd cell, they are arrayed in plane inside the lcd cell when power off, so the light can not transmit it via theIPS lcdwhen power off, When power on, the liquid crystal elements inside the IPS tft would switch in a small angle, then the light would go through the IPS lcd display, then the display on since light go through the IPS display, the switching angle is related to the input power, the switch angle is related to the input power value of IPS LCD, the more switch angle, the more light would transmit the IPS LCD, we call it negative display mode.

The regular tft lcd, it is a-si TN (Twisted Nematic) tft lcd, its liquid crystal elements are arrayed in vertical type, the light could transmit the regularTFT LCDwhen power off. When power on, the liquid crystal twist in some angle, then it block the light transmit the tft lcd, then make the display elements display on by this way, the liquid crystal twist angle is also related to the input power, the more twist angle, the more light would be blocked by the tft lcd, it is tft lcd working mode.

A TFT lcd display is vivid and colorful than a common monochrome lcd display. TFT refreshes more quickly response than a monochrome LCD display and shows motion more smoothly. TFT displays use more electricity in driving than monochrome LCD screens, so they not only cost more in the first place, but they are also more expensive to drive tft lcd screen.The two most common types of TFT LCDs are IPS and TN displays.

According to LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technology and LCD materials, mobile phone LCD assemblies can be classified into 2 types: TFT (Thin Flim Transistor) and OLED（Organic Light-Emitting Diode). TFT display needs with backlight, but OLED is light-emitting, each pixel is creating its own light.

For Original iPhone LCD, 5-8 plus and Xr, 11 is TFT, X-13 Pro Max is OLED (except XR and 11). But in mobile phone aftermarket, there are too many different types and different qualities, which makes customers confused.

What is in-cell? What is OGS or " with TP"? What is COF? What is COG? What is OEM? What is FOG? What is Original Change Glass? What is IPS? What is LTPS? What is a-Si?

HTPS with small size, high precision, and high contrast. Most used in magnified display products. Such as projectors, projection TVs, etc. And cannot be used as a mobile phone display, so we don"t talk about it here.

IGZO has 20–50 times the electron mobility than a-Sin. IGZO only has been licensed to Samsung Electronics and Sharp. However, it was Sharp who first implemented IGZO into their smartphones (Aquos Phone Zeta SH-02E), tablets, and 32-inch LCDs. IGZO for mobile phones is only Sharp. Almost all mobile phones on the market didn"t use IGZO.

Because the electrons deflect the liquid crystal molecules through the transistor. Electron mobility fundamentally determines the refresh rates of the TFT device. The smaller mobility, the slower transmission of holes and electrons, and the slower response rate. Can"t physically support high refresh rates.

In order to improve the response performance, can increase transistor size to enhance the migration, but this will lead to the extra TFT device that will occupy the display area pixel area. Therefore, the larger unit transistor area, the single-pixel occupy area is smaller(Pixel Aperture Ratio ), resulting in lower brightness.

Secondly, because the volume cannot be smaller, then the number of pixels per unit area is limited, which means the pixel density is small, which is what we call PPI is low, resulting in low resolution. The image needs to be zoomed, the original image data is lost, and resulting in the blurred image effect.

As we can see electron mobility of a-Si is very low (0.5-1cm2/Vs). But LTPS can deliver a hundred times the mobility than a-Si, and a much higher aperture ratio and PPI is much higher than a-Si resolution.

Compared with LTPS，a-si TFT have those "weakness":a-Si with so much low resolution and low definition. a-Si is 720*1280 with a very blurred display effect.

a-Si with so much bad display performance, but why are there still so many manufacturers producing phone LCDs with a-Si, or why do the customers willing to use a-Si LCD for their phone?

LCDs business has too much competition and wholesalers want to make more profit, they keep pushing suppliers to make LCDs at lower prices. So some of the suppliers start to produce aftermarket phone displays with a-Si to match customers" lower price requirements.

The customers with asymmetric information. End-Users don"t know how to distinguish LCDs qualities. Some of them just chase the price but not quality. That is another reason wholesalers want a lower price.

Now in the market a-Si LCDs for iPhone is TFT with TP but not in-cell. Our ZY a-Si will be in-cell not just TFT with TP. ZY a-Si incell for Xr and 11 ready now, please to get more details.

For more details or questions about in-cell and TFT with TP or about phone LCD display. Please click here to get more information, or Long press and scran the QR code to add me.

IGZO is an acronym for Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide and it’s actually a different type of semiconductor found in the TFT backplane; it’s not a different panel technology altogether.

In comparison to standard aSi-TFT IPS displays, an IGZO-TFT IPS display greatly saves on power consumption, while giving equally accurate and vibrant colors. However, they are much more expensive.

To clear away the confusion, IGZO is not a type of panel but a different type of transistor in the TFT (thin-film-transistor) backplane. Therefore, it can be implemented in all types of panels including TN, VA, IPS and even OLED.

Standard transistors in most of these panels are made of amorphous silicon. So, in this article, we’ll be comparing aSi-TFT IPS panels to the IGZO-TFT IPS panels.

IPS (in-plane switching) panels are found in most high-end LCDs because they’re capable of delivering the most accurate and consistent colors as well as impeccable viewing angles.

LG’s AH-IPS and Nano IPS panels are the latest improvements to the IPS panel technology which offer even more accurate colors and faster response times, while IPS Black improves upon contrast ratio.

The IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide) compound semiconductor was licensed by Samsung and Sharp. However, it was Sharp who first implemented IGZO into their smartphones, tablets and 32-inch LCDs.

The IGZO transistor is made from rare metals such as the Indium and Gallium, and therefore it is costly. For instance, the NEC PA322UHD is a 4K resolution monitor with a 14-bit Look-Up Table for precise calibration and covers 99.2% of the Adobe RGB color space.

At the moment, the main advantage of IGZO is its very low power consumption. In comparison to the standard a-Si panel monitor, it can be up to 80%-90% more power efficient due to the higher electron mobility, which is 20-50 times faster than that of a regular panel.

While a-Si panel monitors require more power for the backlighting of higher pixel density displays, IGZO does not – in fact, it can create even brighter images at significantly lower power consumption.

This is ideal for portable devices with high pixel density. In short, IGZO can deliver a better resolution, speed and pixel density, no matter the size of the display.

While the difference between the IGZO-TFT and a-Si-TFT IPS panels may not be meaningful now, especially considering the difference in the price, IGZO will certainly greatly contribute to the future development of displays.

Since it can drastically reduce power consumption and offer stunning pixel density, resolution, and speed, high-quality touch-sensitive transparent displays are getting closer and closer to reality.

As you might already be aware, there’s a large variety of versatile digital display types on the market, all of which are specifically designed to perform certain functions and are suitable for numerous commercial, industrial, and personal uses. The type of digital display you choose for your company or organization depends largely on the requirements of your industry, customer-base, employees, and business practices. Unfortunately, if you happen to be technologically challenged and don’t know much about digital displays and monitors, it can be difficult to determine which features and functions would work best within your professional environment. If you have trouble deciphering the pros and cons of using TFT vs. IPS displays, here’s a little guide to help make your decision easier.

TFT stands for thin-film-transistor, which is a variant of liquid crystal display (LCD). TFTs are categorized as active matrix LCDs, which means that they can simultaneously retain certain pixels on a screen while also addressing other pixels using minimal amounts of energy. This is because TFTs consist of transistors and capacitors that respectively work to conserve as much energy as possible while still remaining in operation and rendering optimal results. TFT display technologies offer the following features, some of which are engineered to enhance overall user experience.

The bright LED backlights that are featured in TFT displays are most often used for mobile screens. These backlights offer a great deal of adaptability and can be adjusted according to the visual preferences of the user. In some cases, certain mobile devices can be set up to automatically adjust the brightness level of the screen depending on the natural or artificial lighting in any given location. This is a very handy feature for people who have difficulty learning how to adjust the settings on a device or monitor and makes for easier sunlight readability.

One of the major drawbacks of using a TFT LCD instead of an IPS is that the former doesn’t offer the same level of visibility as the latter. To get the full effect of the graphics on a TFT screen, you have to be seated right in front of the screen at all times. If you’re just using the monitor for regular web browsing, for office work, to read and answer emails, or for other everyday uses, then a TFT display will suit your needs just fine. But, if you’re using it to conduct business that requires the highest level of colour and graphic accuracy, such as completing military or naval tasks, then your best bet is to opt for an IPS screen instead.

Nonetheless, most TFT displays are still fully capable of delivering reasonably sharp images that are ideal for everyday purposes and they also have relatively short response times from your keyboard or mouse to your screen. This is because the pixel aspect ration is much narrower than its IPS counterpart and therefore, the colours aren’t as widely spread out and are formatted to fit onto the screen. Primary colours—red, yellow, and blue—are used as the basis for creating brightness and different shades, which is why there’s such a strong contrast between different aspects of every image. Computer monitors, modern-day HD TV screens, laptop monitors, mobile devices, and even tablets all utilize this technology.

IPS (in-plane-switching) technology is almost like an improvement on the traditional TFT display module in the sense that it has the same basic structure, but with slightly more enhanced features and more widespread usability. IPS LCD monitors consist of the following high-end features.

IPS screens have the capability to recognize movements and commands much faster than the traditional TFT LCD displays and as a result, their response times are infinitely faster. Of course, the human eye doesn’t notice the difference on separate occasions, but when witnessing side-by-side demonstrations, the difference is clear.

Wide-set screen configurations allow for much wider and versatile viewing angles as well. This is probably one of the most notable and bankable differences between TFT and IPS displays. With IPS displays, you can view the same image from a large variety of different angles without causing grayscale, blurriness, halo effects, or obstructing your user experience in any way. This makes IPS the perfect display option for people who rely on true-to-form and sharp colour and image contrasts in their work or daily lives.

IPS displays are designed to have higher transmittance frequencies than their TFT counterparts within a shorter period of time (precisely 1 millisecond vs. 25 milliseconds). This speed increase might seem minute or indecipherable to the naked eye, but it actually makes a huge difference in side-by-side demonstrations and observations, especially if your work depends largely on high-speed information sharing with minimal or no lagging.

Just like TFT displays, IPS displays also use primary colours to produce different shades through their pixels. The main difference in this regard is the placement of the pixels and how they interact with electrodes. In TFT displays, the pixels run perpendicular to one another when they’re activated by electrodes, which creates a pretty sharp image, but not quite as pristine or crisp as what IPS displays can achieve. IPS display technologies employ a different configuration in the sense that pixels are placed parallel to one another to reflect more light and result in a sharper, clearer, brighter, and more vibrant image. The wide-set screen also establishes a wider aspect ratio, which strengthens visibility and creates a more realistic and lasting effect.

When it comes to deciphering the differences between TFT vs. IPS display technologies and deciding which option is best for you and your business, the experts at Nauticomp Inc. can help. Not only do we offer a wide variety of computer displays, monitors, and screen types, but we also have the many years of experience in the technology industry to back up our recommendations and our knowledge. Our top-of-the-line displays and monitors are customized to suit the professional and personal needs of our clients who work across a vast array of industries. For more information on our high-end displays and monitors, please contact us.

Thin-Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Displays use thin-film transistors to control the voltage applied to the liquid crystal layer at a sub-pixel level. The structure of TFT LCDs consists of a TFT “sandwich” and a BLU (Backlight Unit). A typical configuration is shown in the schematic diagram below.

Firstly, between the back and front polarizers, TFT LCD cells are made with two glass substrates – one for color filters, the other for a TFT array – and a liquid crystal layer sandwiched in between.

Secondly, BLU (Backlight Unit) usually consists of three components: BEF (Brightness Enhancement Film), DBEF (Dual Brightness Enhancement Film), and LGP (Light Guide Plate).

For normally black TFT LCDs, if we follow along a piece of light setting off from its backlight source, it will bea)guided uniformly by LGP;b)reflected and enhanced by BEF and DBEF;c)polarized by the back polarizer;d)polarization changed by twisted LC under the voltage applied by TFT arrays;e)“tinted” red/green/blue by corresponding color filter of the subpixel;f)let through the front polarizer by matched polarization; andg)finally, it will reach the surface and appears in viewer’s eyes.

For normally white panels, processd)will be the opposite – known as the polarization rotation effect, light is twisted in a voltage-off stage and can pass through the front polarizer by default, thus displaying white normally. However, when the voltage applied increases, this polarization rotation effect would be gradually diminished. And the light would not be able to pass through the front polarizer anymore without changing its polarization. In this way, certain pixels will appear in different colors.

Normally black LCDs have higher contrast and wider viewing angles without grayscale inversion phenomenon compared to their normally white relatives. And whether TFT LCDs are normally black or white depends on their LC switching mode:

2Chen, HW., Lee, JH., Lin, BY.et al.Liquid crystal display and organic light-emitting diode display: present status and future perspectives.Light Sci Appl7,17168 (2018).https://doi.org/10.1038/lsa.2017.168

Schematic diagram of the (a) TN mode, (b) VA mode, (c) FFS mode, and (d) IPS mode. *LC orientations shown are under applied voltages. C/F stands for the color filter.

As previously mentioned, TN mode functions with the polarization rotation effect. Under traditional TN/VA display mode, the liquid crystal molecules are vertically arranged, with a relatively narrow visual angle. When an external force is exerted on the screen, the liquid crystal molecular structure will sink in a herringbone pattern to slowly recover – a pattern called vertical alignment. Therefore, an evident “water ripple” usually appears when the display surface is touched and impacts the user experience. In comparison, the VA mode provides higher contrast. And MVA (multi-domain vertical alignment) is an upgraded version of VA with improved viewing angles.

Under IPS mode, the LC directors are horizontally (homogeneously) aligned, which makes them free from ripple effects when made into touch panels. The drawback is lower transmittance, especially for LCs in a “dead zone”close to electrodes.

In an FFS cell, LC molecules rotate in both vertical and horizontal dimensions, enabling excellent viewing angles, high transmittance, low driving voltage/power consumptions, and high contrast ratio.

3 Yang DK, Wu ST.Fundamentals of Liquid Crystal Devices. 2nd edition. New York, USA: John Wiley & Sons. 2014.4 BOE ADSDS Ultra Hard screen Technology, Restoring Real and Beautiful Life. 2020 BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd.  Retrieved December 01, 2020, fromhttps://www.boe.com/en/cxkj/boecx/boecxxqy/dynamic/pecbbd751.html

VIS024TN01 is a 2.4″ TFT LCD display module model that adopts TN type LCD with 240*320 resolution. CTP (Capacity Touch Panel) or RTP(Resistive Touch Panel) can be added according to user requirements.

The 2.4-inch TFT-LCD is probably the most sold LCD panel size in the world in terms of unit shipments. It has a wide range of applications and life cycle.

Based on the substantial and long-term shipments of 2.4 inch TFT LCD panels, we can guarantee a stable supply of this LCD display module throughout the life cycle of your product.

Based on the 2.4 inch LCD’s high stability, low price, and excellent storage and operating temperature range, this type of LCD display module can be widely used in feature phones, smart homes, pos machines, industrial instruments (meters), and small medical equipment and other products.

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The world of smartphones has been busy for the past few months. There have been numerous revolutionary launches with groundbreaking innovations that have the capacity to change the course of the smartphone industry. But the most important attribute of a smartphone is the display, which has been the focus for all prominent players in the mobile phone industry this year.

Samsung came up with its unique 18:5:9 AMOLED display for the Galaxy S8. LG picked up its old trusted IPS LCD unit for the G6’s display. These display units have been familiar to the usual Indian smartphone buyer. Honor, on the other hand, has just unveiled the new Honor 8 Pro for the Indian market that ships with an LTPS LCD display. This has led to wonder how exactly is this technology different from the existing ones and what benefits does it give Honor to craft its flagship smartphone with. Well, let’s find out.

The LCD technology brought in the era of thin displays to screens, making the smartphone possible in the current world. LCD displays are power efficient and work on the principle of blocking light. The liquid crystal in the display unit uses some kind of a backlight, generally a LED backlight or a reflector, to make the picture visible to the viewer. There are two kinds of LCD units – passive matrix LCD that requires more power and the superior active matrix LCD unit, known to people as Thin Film Transistor (TFT) that draws less power.

The early LCD technology couldn’t maintain the colour for wide angle viewing, which led to the development of the In-Plane Switching (IPS) LCD panel. IPS panel arranges and switches the orientation of the liquid crystal molecules of standard LCD display between the glass substrates. This helps it to enhance viewing angles and improve colour reproduction as well. IPS LCD technology is responsible for accelerating the growth of the smartphone market and is the go-to display technology for prominent manufacturers.

The standard LCD display uses amorphous Silicon as the liquid for the display unit as it can be assembled into complex high-current driver circuits. This though restricts the display resolution and adds to overall device temperatures. Therefore, development of the technology led to replacing the amorphous Silicon with Polycrystalline Silicon, which boosted the screen resolution and maintains low temperatures. The larger and more uniform grains of polysilicon allow faster electron movement, resulting in higher resolution and higher refresh rates. It also was found to be cheaper to manufacture due to lower cost of certain key substrates. Therefore, the Low-Temperature PolySilicon (LTPS) LCD screen helps provide larger pixel densities, lower power consumption that standard LCD and controlled temperature ranges.

The AMOLED display technology is in a completely different league. It doesn’t bother with any liquid mechanism or complex grid structures. The panel uses an array of tiny LEDs placed on TFT modules. These LEDs have an organic construction that directly emits light and minimises its loss by eradicating certain filters. Since LEDs are physically different units, they can be asked to switch on and off as per the requirement of the display to form a picture. This is known as the Active Matrix system. Hence, an Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) display can produce deeper blacks by switching off individual LED pixels, resulting in high contrast pictures.

The honest answer is that it depends on the requirement of the user. If you want accurate colours from your display while wanting it to retain its vibrancy for a longer period of time, then any of the two LCD screens are the ideal choice. LTPS LCD display can provide higher picture resolution but deteriorates faster than standard IPS LCD display over time.

An AMOLED display will provide high contrast pictures any time but it too has the tendency to deteriorate faster than LCD panels. Therefore, if you are after greater picture quality, choose LTPS LCD or else settle for AMOLED for a vivid contrast picture experience.

LCD or AMOLED, 1080p vs 2K? There are plenty of contentious topics when it comes to smartphone displays, which all have an impact on the day to day usage of our smartphones. However, one important topic which is often overlooked during analysis and discussion is the type of backplane technology used in the display.

Display makers often throw around terms like A-Si, IGZO, or LTPS. But what do these acronyms actually mean and what’s the impact of backplane technology on user experience? What about future developments?

For clarification, backplane technology describes the materials and assembly designs used for the thin film transistors which drive the main display. In other words, it is the backplane that contains an array of transistors which are responsible for turning the individual pixels on and off, acting therefore as a determining factor when it comes to display resolution, refresh rate, and power consumption.

Examples of backplane technology include amorphous silicon (aSi), low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) and indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO), whilst LCD and OLED are examples of light emitting material types. Some of the different backplane technologies can be used with different display types, so IGZO can be used with either LCD or OLED displays, albeit that some backplanes are more suitable than others.

Amorphous silicon has been the go-to material for backplane technology for many years, and comes in a variety of different manufacturing methods, to improve its energy efficiency, refresh speeds, and the display’s viewing angle. Today, a-Si displays make up somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of the smartphone display market.

For mobile phone displays with a pixel density lower than 300 pixels per inch, this technology remains the preferable backplane of choice, mainly due to its low costs and relatively simple manufacturing process. However, when it comes to higher resolution displays and new technologies such as AMOLED, a-Si is beginning to struggle.

AMOLED puts more electrical stress on the transistors compared with LCD, and therefore favours technologies that can offer more current to each pixel. Also, AMOLED pixel transistors take up more space compared with LCDs, blocking more light emissions for AMOLED displays, making a-Si rather unsuitable. As a result, new technologies and manufacturing processes have been developed to meet the increasing demands made of display panels over recent years.

LTPS currently sits as the high-bar of backplane manufacturing, and can be spotted behind most of the high end LCD and AMOLED displays found in today’s smartphones.  It is based on a similar technology to a-Si, but a higher process temperature is used to manufacture LTPS, resulting in a material with improved electrical properties.

LTPS is in fact the only technology that really works for AMOLED right now, due to the higher amount of current required by this type of display technology. LTPS also has higher electron mobility, which, as the name suggests, is an indication of how quickly/easily an electron can move through the transistor, with up to 100 times greater mobility than a-Si.

For starters, this allows for much faster switching display panels. The other big benefit of this high mobility is that the transistor size can be shrunk down, whilst still providing the necessary power for most displays. This reduced size can either be put towards energy efficiencies and reduced power consumption, or can be used to squeeze more transistors in side by side, allow for much greater resolution displays. Both of these aspects are becoming increasingly important as smartphones begin to move beyond 1080p, meaning that LTPS is likely to remain a key technology for the foreseeable future.

The drawback of LTPS TFT comes from its increasingly complicated manufacturing process and material costs, which makes the technology more expensive to produce, especially as resolutions continue to increase. As an example, a 1080p LCD based on this technology panel costs roughly 14 percent more than a-Si TFT LCD. However, LTPS’s enhanced qualities still mean that it remains the preferred technology for higher resolution displays.

Currently, a-Si and LTPS LCD displays make up the largest combined percentage of the smartphone display market. However, IGZO is anticipated as the next technology of choice for mobile displays. Sharp originally began production of its IGZO-TFT LCD panels back in 2012, and has been employing its design in smartphones, tablets and TVs since then. The company has also recent shown off examples of non-rectangular shaped displays based on IGZO. Sharp isn’t the only player in this field — LG and Samsung are both interested in the technology as well.

The area where IGZO, and other technologies, have often struggled is when it comes to implementations with OLED. ASi has proven rather unsuitable to drive OLED displays, with LTPS providing good performance, but at increasing expense as display size and pixel densities increase. The OLED industry is on the hunt for a technology which combines the low cost and scalability of a-Si with the high performance and stability of LTPS, which is where IGZO comes in.

Why should the industry make the switch over to IGZO? Well, the technology has quite a lot of potential, especially for mobile devices. IGZO’s build materials allow for a decent level of electron mobility, offering 20 to 50 times the electron mobility of amorphous silicon (a-Si), although this isn’t quite as high as LTPS, which leaves you with quite a few design possibilities. IGZO displays can therefore by shrunk down to smaller transistor sizes, resulting in lower power consumption, which provides the added benefit of making the IGZO layer less visible than other types. That means you can run the display at a lower brightness to achieve the same output, reducing power consumption in the process.

One of IGZO’s other benefits is that it is highly scalable, allowing for much higher resolution displays with greatly increased pixel densities. Sharp has already announced plans for panels with 600 pixels per inch. This can be accomplished more easily than with a-Si TFT types due to the smaller transistor size.

Higher electron mobility also lends itself to improved performance when it comes to refresh rate and switching pixels on and off. Sharp has developed a method of pausing pixels, allowing them to maintain their charge for longer periods of time, which again will improve battery life, as well as help create a constantly high quality image.

Smaller IGZO transistors are also touting superior noise isolation compared to a-Si, which should result in a smoother and more sensitive user experience when used with touchscreens. When it comes to IGZO OLED, the technology is well on the way, as Sharp has just unveiled its new 13.3-inch 8K OLED display at SID-2014.

Essentially, IGZO strives to reach the performance benefits of LTPS, whilst keeping fabrications costs as low as possible. LG and Sharp are both working on improving their manufacturing yields this year, with LG aiming for 70% with its new Gen 8 M2 fab. Combined with energy efficient display technologies like OLED, IGZO should be able to offer an excellent balance of cost, energy efficiency, and display quality for mobile devices.

Innovations in display backplanes aren’t stopping with IGZO, as companies are already investing in the next wave, aiming to further improve energy efficiency and display performance. Two examples worth keeping an eye are on are Amorphyx’ amorphous metal nonlinear resistor (AMNR) and CBRITE.

Starting with AMNR, a spin-off project which came out of Oregon State University, this technology aims to replace the common thin-film transistors with a simplified two-terminal current tunnelling device, which essentially acts as a “dimmer switch”.

This developing technology can be manufacturing on a process that leverages a-Si TFT production equipment, which should keep costs down when it comes to switching production, whilst also offering a 40 percent lower cost of production compared with a-Si. AMNR is also touting better optical performance than a-Si and a complete lack of sensitivity to light, unlike IGZO. AMNR could end up offering a new cost effective option for mobile displays, while making improvements in power consumption too.

CBRITE, on the other hand, is working on its own metal oxide TFT, which has a material and process that delivers greater carrier mobility than IGZO. Electron mobility can happily reach 30cm²/V·sec, around the speed of IGZO, and has been demonstrated reaching 80cm²/V·sec, which is almost as high as LTPS. CBRITE also appears to lend itself nicely to the higher resolution and lower power consumption requirements of future mobile display technologies.

Furthermore, this technology is manufactured from a five-mask process, which reduces costs even compared to a-Si and will certainly make it much cheaper to manufacture than the 9 to 12 mask LTSP process. CBITE is expected to start shipping products sometime in 2015 or 2016, although whether this will end up in mobile devices so soon is currently unknown.

Smartphones are already benefiting from improvements in screen technology, and some would argue that things are already as good as they need to be, but the display industry still has plenty to show us over the next few years.