NEC LCD Technologies today announced the successful development of a manufacturing technology that enables more flexible design of thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD) panels. The prototype design, a “heart-shaped,” low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) color TFT LCD module formed using two half-circular arcs and two straight lines, has a display width of 4.0 centimeters (cm), height of 3.6 cm and 146 pixels per inch.
Press Release After The Jump
The NEC heartshaped LCD module will be on display in the NEC Electronics America booth (#235) at the SID Exhibition May 20 through 22.
TOKYO, SANTA CLARA, Calif. U.S.A, May 19, 2008 – NEC LCD Technologies, together with its sales and
marketing channel in the Americas, NEC Electronics America, Inc., today announced the successful
development of a manufacturing technology that enables more flexible design of thin-film transistor (TFT)
liquid crystal display (LCD) panels. The prototype design, a “heart-shaped,” low-temperature polysilicon
(LTPS) color TFT LCD module formed using two half-circular arcs and two straight lines, has a display width
of 4.0 centimeters (cm), height of 3.6 cm and pixel pitch of 174 micrometers (146 pixels per inch). A
presentation about the new technology, titled “A Non-Rectangular Heart-Shaped SOG-LCD,” will be given
at the Society for Information Display (SID) Symposium on Friday, May 23, 2008, from 9:00 a.m. to
10:20 a.m. in Petree Hall at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The module also will be on display in the
NEC Electronics America booth (#235) at the SID Exhibition May 20 through 22.
NEC LCD Technologies’ new technology enables optimal arrangement of gate and souce lines in the pixel
array and minimizes the overlaps between gate and source driver circuitry (*1), when the module is nonrectangular
in shape. By applying its proprietary value-integrated TFT (VIT) technology and integrating the
driver circuits into the module along the perimeter of the LCD glass, NEC LCD Technologies has simplified
the interconnection scheme and substantially reduced the area needed to contain the wiring and
interconnections between external circuits, thereby yielding a bezel as slim as 2.0 millimeters (mm) (*2).
Traditional display modules are rectangular in shape, since it is the simplest, most efficient and versatile
shape for accommodating the pixel arrays. Recently LCD suppliers have started to introduce fairly simple
non-rectangular LCD shapes, including circles, ellipses and rectangles with trimmed corners. The shapes
have been fairly simple because the more complex the shape, the more difficult it is to accommodate the
wiring patterns, resulting in thicker bezels and greater consumption of power. Displays with nonrectangular
shapes are generally targeted to replace mechanical instrument gauges—such as the
speedometers and tachometers found in cars—and other applications that require simple shapes.
NEC LCD Technologies’ new technology enables LCD modules to be designed with varied, more flexible
shapes that can be adapted to embedded applications and also to nontraditional LCD applications. NEC LCD
Technologies believes this development will stimulate the development of new and unique LCD
applications.
There is no overlap between the gate driver and source driver in the heart-shaped prototype.
The bezel size of the glass substrate, excluding the interconnection area for FPC and driver.
