Rugged displays target industrial applications

Rugged displays target industrial applications
Several leading display manufacturers are targeting industrial applications with high reliability and rugged displays. Many of the newest designs operate in indoor and outdoor environments and are rugged enough to be used in marine products, medical equipment, ATMs and kiosks.

In addition to offering a variety of options for brightness, contrast, temperature range, power consumption, these displays are available in any number of sizes from 3.5-inch to 15-inch displays. Here's a sampling of recent product offerings from NEC Electronics America, One Stop Displays, REACH Technology, Sharp Microelectronics, and Toshiba America Electronic Components.

Several of the smallest displays targeting industrial applications were unveiled at the Society for Information Display (SID) Symposium and Conference earlier this year. For example, Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas (Camas, Wash.) expanded its lineup of industrial displays offering a variety of options for brightness, contrast, temperature range, power consumption and size.

These Sharp displays include the 3.7-inch CG-Silicon display (LS037V7DW01), the 5.7-inch amorphous silicon transmissive TFT display (LQ057Q3DC12), as well as the 3.5-inch (LQ035Q7DH06) and 4.3-inch (LQ043T3DX02) Advanced Super View (AD-TFT) displays, all optimized for handheld and portable devices that can be used in a wider range of environments.

Also introduced at SID 2006, NEC Electronics America, Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif. ) has developed four small industrial-grade, amorphous-silicon, thin-film transistor (TFT) LCD modules. These industrial-type mobile display modules that range in size from 2.7 to 4.3 inches claim high brightness, low-power consumption and high contrast levels, which make them suitable for mobile devices that need to operate in a wide range of viewing environments and applications. These modules are suitable for RFID devices, handheld scanners, temperature testing devices, and global positioning systems.

One Stop Displays (Winter Park, Fla.) has released a 640 x RGB x 480 full VGA resolution transflective p-Si TFT-LCD display for commercial and industrial handheld devices including Wi-Fi mobile computers. The 3.5-inch display offers dual VGA/QVGA resolution and offers high brightness and contrast.

For embedded products, REACH Technology Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) offers a 4-inch color TFT touch display module for medical, industrial, and gaming applications. Said to deliver PC-like graphics, the SLCD module enables users to access detailed menus and help screens with a graphical touch interface rather than traditional pushbuttons and character displays. The display module is controlled by a standard serial port with simple high-level commands, and features soft switches, knobs, and readouts for user interface flexibility.

Slightly larger offerings come from NEC, Sharp and Toshiba. NEC has beefed up its transflective TFT-LCD portfolio to include four additional super-transmissive natural light technology (ST-NLT) modules. The ST-NLT technology uses a high-luminance backlight as a light source and minimizes the surface reflection of outdoor light. It also enables high-contrast images for indoor and outdoor applications.

The four new NEC LCD modules include the 8.4-inch VGA (NL6448BC26-09C), 8.4 -inch SVGA (NL8060BC21-03), the 10.4-inch VGA (NL6448BC33-xx) and 15-inch XGA (NL10276BC30-18C). These are suitable for high-ambient-light environments, targeting rugged laptop PCs, fish finders, navigation systems, ATMs and kiosks.

Similarly, Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (Irvine, Calif. ) has expanded its line of active matrix TFT-LCDs for industrial applications with a broad line of 6.5- to 15.0-inch RoHS-compliant displays. The high-brightness LCD modules are designed to meet industrial requirements for applications such as factory automation, test and measurement, diagnostic equipment, kiosks, medical equipment and point-of- sale (POS).

The high-luminance Toshiba modules offer a selection of resolutions including VGA (640 x 480), SVGA (800 x 600), WSVGA (1024 x 600), and XGA (1024 x 768). They are also RoHS compatible.

Advanced technologies

Display manufacturers are also developing new display technologies for greater performance characteristics. In this case, Sharp's new Strong 2 technology standard for its industrial amorphous silicon liquid crystal displays (a-Si LCDs) is said to provide greater performance in areas of brightness, contrast, temperature range, and shock/vibration.

Sharp is currently offering four Strong 2 displays — the 10.4-inch LQ104V1DG61 and LQ104V1LG61 and the 12.1-inch LQ121S1DG61 and LQ121S1LG61. These displays are designed for industrial devices such as patient monitoring, human-machine interface, factory automation and e-signage. They offer a wide temperature range, higher brightness, greater contrast, and better resistance to shock and vibration. In addition, the company said a Strong 2 display integrated into an industrial design requires fewer enhancements at the outset, and the final products can achieve longer lifetimes with more durable display components.

Toshiba unveiled several advanced product and technology prototypes at SID 2006 including a unique 3-D display that enables 3-D images to be viewed with the naked eye without the need for special glasses. Estimated commercialization is approximately two years.

Toshiba also demonstrated how lightweight and ultra-thin form factors can be achieved by using 0.2-mm thin glass substrates with its QVGA (240 x 320) displays in 2.0-, 2.2-, 2.4-, and 2.6-inch models that provide a high pixel density ranging from 154 pixels per inch (ppi) for the 2.6-inch size up to 200 ppi for the 2.0-inch size.

For mobile devices, Toshiba unveils a high-luminescent 2.2-inch and 3.5-inch low temperature poly silicon (LTPS) organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays for mobile phones and portable media players; a dual-input, high-resolution LTPS 2.4-inch VGA (480x640 pixels, at 333 pixels per inch) for cell phones; a LTPS 2.4-inch QVGA System-on-Glass (SOG) finger-shadow sensing display, and other novel mobile displays that feature thin 0.2-mm glass, light weight, and high resolution.

Toshiba said by improving and incorporating higher resolution LTPS technology, the latest generation LTPS TFT LCDs have achieved faster switching speeds, greater photo-sensor sensitivity, and more precise control of the input signal. In addition, the LTPS TFT LCD-based SOG technology enables the complete driving circuit required to operate the LCD to be fully integrated directly onto the glass. These prototypes, with fully-integrated circuitry, are expected to be used in mobile phone and various other applications. Targeting industrial applications that demand higher resolution, greater luminance, and durability, Sharp has introduced two Advanced Super View TFT-LCDs for factory automation and control system applications. The 12-inch SVGA and 15.0-inch XGA displays may also be used in gaming, medical, ATMs, signage, and other applications.

Said to push performance levels higher for resolution and luminance output, the Sharp 12.1-inch (LQ121S1LW01) and 15.0-inch (LQ150X1LW72) models also meet growing requirements for viewability in a variety of indoor and outdoor settings as well as lighting conditions. Both displays incorporate Sharp's proprietary Advanced Super View technology with a 170-degree symmetrical viewing cone. This super-wide viewing cone is said to allow off-axis perception of the image without color shifting or loss of detail.

These displays also exhibit fast response times for flicker-free screens, and because the LCDs are normally black, users perceive much crisper, clearer images, said the company.