March 2007

news archive

Apollo Launches New Series of RGB/DVI/Video Converter Boards for TFT LCDs

Ronkonkoma, N.Y. - Apollo Display Technologies has launched its new PRISMA II series of RGB/DVI/Video Converter Boards, providing a range of cost-effective solutions with analog control for connecting TFT LCDs to standard graphics and/or video interfaces. Input signals such as analog RGB, analog video, or DVI are automatically converted into TTL or LVDS signals accepted by TFT displays, according to the company.

PRISMA II series boards scale the input signal to the appropriate TFT resolution as needed. A dynamic OSM (On-Screen-Menu) enables the user to make adjustments to any of the LCD's display attributes, such as adjusting the brightness, contrast, color, auto-adjust, etc. An external OSD (on-screen display) control button board is optionally available for all PRISMA II series converter boards.

All PRISMA II series converter boards support TFT displays from 6.4 in. to 82in. diagonal with 6-bit and 8-bit color depth, and single- and dual-channel LVDS supported. With the Auto-detect/Auto-configuration function, all analog RGB signals are automatically detected and optimally displayed on the LCD screen.

The PRISMA II series includes the new PRISMA II board - the next generation of Apollo's standard PRISMA RGB/DVI/Video Converter board, which is optimized for multimedia applications. It provides state-of-the-art features and a wide range of special functionalities and characteristics, including Component Video-In, support of resolutions up to full HD, WUXGA (1920x1200), improved video quality and de-interlacing, improved auto-adjust power supply options up to 24V, and an advanced HM-Interface option. With the new PRISMA II, the OSD can be controlled remotely over RS232 and, due to its picture-in-picture (PIP) and picture-by-picture (PBP) functions, two input sources can be displayed at the same time.

PRISMAeco II is the next-generation development of the PRISMAeco RGB converter board and is equipped with an additional DVI input and improved auto-adjust functionality at no additional cost. Apollo heralds the product as an ideal choice for basic monitor applications connecting TFT displays to RGB analog and DVI standard graphics interfaces. PRISMAeco II supports TFT displays from VGA to SXGA resolution, with TTL and LVDS output, and its scaler chip produces images of the highest quality, the company said.

Kopin Introduces Advanced Controller Chip and Evaluation Kits
for High-Resolution Displays

TAUNTON, Mass. - Kopin Corp., a manufacturer of microdisplays for mobile consumer and military electronics, has unveiled a new advanced display controller chip (A910) and evaluation kits for its high-resolution full-color displays.

The A910 is capable of driving two CyberDisplay® WVGA LV (854 x 480 resolution) or SVGA LV (800 x 600 resolution) displays, either in 2D or 3D stereoscopic mode at frame rates up to 60 Hz, or one CyberDisplay SXGA LV (1280 x 1024 resolution) display.

"The versatile A910 chip will enable low-power, compact solutions to high-end industrial and consumer products as well as defense systems," Kopin President and CEO Dr. John C.C. Fan said in a company statement. "3D stereoscopic operation of two CyberDisplay SVGA or WVGA LV displays with one A910 is very attractive for 3D gaming and virtual reality. For the advanced soldier systems, our high-definition CyberDisplay SXGA LV display and the A910 chip can provide an ideal solution for combining night vision and thermal imagery with situational awareness data and digital maps. The evaluation kits will enable OEMs to reduce their time to market for a range of mobile information applications."

According to information from Kopin, the A910 offers flexible scaling features, supporting digital data formats in 3:4, 4:5 and 16:9 (HDTV) aspect ratios at input video rates ranging from 25 Hz to 120 Hz. Integrated D/A (digital-to-analog) converters and video amplifiers drive the display directly, eliminating the need for external amplifiers. This powerful new chip provides functions such as de-interlacing, horizontal and vertical scaling, color space conversion, gamma correction and backlight (dimming) control. The A910 ASIC is available in a compact 12 x 12 mm BGA package. The A910 chip was developed with partial funding from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The evaluation kit consists of a display, a compact reference design board (1.5 x 1.5 inches) containing an A910 chip, and documentation. It accepts a wide variety of digital video formats, including 3D stereoscopic modes for binocular SVGA and WVGA LV applications. Horizontal and vertical scalers match the input format to the display's physical pixel array. The A910's memory controller interfaces to an external SDRAM frame buffer for use in scaling and stereo modes. The memory controller and/or PLL may be disabled for low power operation with native formats. All of the A910's options are configurable via an industry standard 2-wire serial interface. The evaluation kits for CyberDisplay WVGA LV and SVGA LV are available now.

According to Kopin, its microdisplays are the world's only transmissive active matrix liquid crystal displays (AMLCDs) that use high-quality single-crystal silicon transistors. They claim to offer the world's sharpest image quality and highest pixel density and resolution for their size. The CyberDisplay WVGA, SVGA, SXGA LV displays have diagonal dimensions of 0.58", 0.59" and 0.97", respectively. The CyberDisplay AMLCDs are based on the same color-filter technology and display architecture as the industry standard LCD monitor or TV, making it easier for design engineers to integrate them into their products.

ST Microelectronics Introduces New Family of Column-Driver ICs for Large-Screen LCD TVs

GENEVA, Switzerland - STMicroelectronics (ST) has successfully developed its first column-driver ICs for the large-size liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TV market. Developed in the company's Asia-Pacific Design Center (APDC) in Singapore, the STD8420C and STD8420A are the first chips in ST's new LCD driver family, and are now being sampled to key customers including Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT).

The device uses PPDS® (point-to-point differential signaling) display technology licensed from National Semiconductor to dramatically simplify the LCD intra-panel interconnect and to reduce the total number of column-driver signals required, aiding manufacturers by enabling a physically smaller bezel around the TV screen while providing cinema-quality display performance, ST said in a press release. The use of this technology in the new LCD driver complements ST's long experience and expertise in display systems and technologies, including computer monitors, TV applications, mobile displays, plasma screens, and small-size LCDs and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays.

"We have been working very closely with ST's Asia-Pacific Design Center in the design of this innovative new LCD-driver IC," CPT Director of Research and Development Wei Chun said in an ST press release. "ST is already an important player in the display market and we believe this new family of LCD drivers will make a significant contribution to our mission to deliver world-class displays and further accelerate the use of large-size LCDs in consumer products."

The STD8420x is being produced in a leading-edge process technology developed by ST specifically for this application, according to the company. Other products in the new family will also be designed in ST's APDC in Singapore.

The key features of the STD8420C include 414/420 outputs, PPDS interface compatibility, support for independent digital gamma control of each RGB color, support for Dot and N-line inversion drive schemes, operation over a wide output voltage range, and 1024 gray levels per output built from internal 12-bit linear digital-to-analog converters. The STD8420A incorporates all the features of the STD8420C with the exception of output gray levels, which are limited to 256 steps.

ST is setting up a complete business unit in Singapore for LCD drivers to establish a fully integrated presence at the center of major LCD-panel production. This unit provides a total value chain including design, product engineering, field application support, and marketing services, assisting manufacturers in meeting their customers' expectations for performance, TV set appearance, and economy, according to ST. Additionally, the chip design resources of the APDC have increased four-fold in the last five years, enabling the design of this innovative and cost-effective LCD column driver close in proximity to major flat-panel TV manufacturers to minimize time-to-market, according to a company statement.

"These first large-size LCD source-driver ICs are clearly an important milestone in the company's strategy to become a major player in the mainstream high-end LCD TV market," ST Display Division General Manager Philippe Berger said in the press release. "The company plans to offer extremely competitive driver products based around the PPDS display architecture and implemented in our leading-edge process technology developed specially for the application, together with dedicated design and display driver support resources located close to the key fast-growing markets in Asia."

Pioneer Launches New Plasma Display for Business Environments

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc.  on Mar. 15 announced the launch of a new 42-in. high-resolution professional plasma display that enhances digital signage, meeting room, board room and other commercial applications. According to Pioneer, the PureVision PDP-427CMX sets a new industry standard for picture performance with the integration of its proprietary First Surface Pure Color Filter that ensures enhanced color reproduction and the darkest black levels with improved contrast ratios in all environments. Working in concert with a multitude of Pioneer proprietary technologies, the new professional display features a new black bezel for a unique aesthetic look for commercial use. The display will be available in Summer 2007.
From intense shopping mall exhibits to conference meeting rooms, Pioneer is touting the display's superior picture quality in varied business environments along with an array of convenience and customization capabilities for current and future applications. The transition from a gray to black bezel is a further attempt to create a clean, sophisticated plasma that can upgrade the appearance of any professional setting, according to a company statement.

The PDP-427CMX professional display features a First Surface Pure Color Filter, which Pioneer claims delivers the truest colors possible. The filter is optically bonded to the front plasma substrate and utilizes a mesh infrastructure that helps optimize light output while simultaneously minimizing ambient light reflections. As a result, the company said, on-screen presentations possess brilliant color accuracy with sharp detail for jaw-dropping imagery in almost any professional use environment. By directly bonding the filter to the plasma glass there is less overall television weight and less future environmental waste impact. The reduction of the extra glass may, however, create a slight increase in audio noise from the plasma, the company warned.

The display also utilizes a Crystal Emissive Layer technology sandwiched between the plasma glass and the individual light cells. The layer allows each cell to increase the speed at which it charges and discharges the phosphor colors, resulting in an extremely smooth transition from color to black, as well as providing increased detail in dark scenes and reduction in the overall energy consumption, according to the statement. Additionally, luminance efficiency is improved from previous models with greater power-saving performance.

The display also utilizes a Deep Encased Cell Structure for improved brightness and image reproduction. By deepening the entire cell structure, Pioneer claims it has increased the display's overall phosphor area to deliver some of the highest brightness levels (white peak) in the industry, while maintaining image accuracy for stunning high-resolution picture reproduction that will capture any audience's attention.

An exclusive feature of Pioneer professional plasmas, Pure Drive Pro technology delivers powerful signal processing engines with a 12-bit digital high-performance chip drive to ensure premium performance and reliability in any professional application. The single chip ensures full digital image processing with minimal data loss for all signal types. Pure Drive Pro incorporates Advanced Continuous Emission IV, which operates to enhance image quality by detecting the on-screen content and dynamically adjusting grayscale for greater black levels with enhanced detail.

Pioneer's plasma displays offer significant longevity for a commercial user. Sixty thousand hours is an approximate time for the display panel to reach half of its original luminescence, Pioneer said.

Sharp Unveils 46-in. LCD Module for Digital Signage Market

CAMAS, Wash. - Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas has announced the launch of a new 46-in. liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel module targeted at the digital signage market for installation in airports, train stations, malls and casinos. The new large-format display module delivers a contrast ratio of 1800:1 and a 6 ms response time, according to a company statement.

The new LK460D3LZ19 46-in. module will be manufactured at Sharp's new environmentally friendly Kameyama No. 2 LCD factory in Japan, which features the largest solar-cell installation in Japan, 100% waste-water recycling, and 40% reduction of carbon-dioxide emissions.

The new larger format display will be targeted for use in electronic signage, gaming facilities, malls, airports, train stations, and retail environments, Sharp said. The display offers high resolution combined with a small pixel pitch for a clean image and easier, up-close viewing. Sharp also touted the display's long-lasting design, low maintenance cost, and improved performance.

Other features include full-high-definition resolution and display (1920 x 1080), Advanced Super View Technology, and a wide viewing angle. In addition, the display offers 16 million colors, a 16:9 aspect ratio, panel brightness of 450 nits, and a symmetrical viewing cone of 176 degrees x 176 degrees, Sharp said.

"The introduction of a large-format display module aimed at the electronic-signage market…reinforces our commitment to an emerging and advancing segment of the industry," said Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas Senior Manager of Product Marketing Sriram Peruvemba in a company statement.

The LK460D3LZ19 is currently available as a demo and sample.

Solomon Systech Releases QQVGA Color OLED Driver

HONG KONG - Fabless semiconductor company Solomon Systech Ltd. announced on March 5 the launch of its SSD1355 color organic-light-emitting-diode (OLED) driver with integrated controller. The driver supports up to QQVGA resolution and 262,000 true colors and has intelligent display features for applications such as mobile phones, MP3 players, portable multimedia players, and digital cameras, according to the company.

Designed as a highly integrated device, the driver has features such as an on-chip oscillator, an SRAM display buffer, standard MCU interfaces, and a user-friendly command set. It is also value-added, with intelligent and automatic image quality self-adjustment and flexible-display performance enhancement. The built-in, one-time programming (OTP) for white-balance calibration and three programmable Gamma Look Up tables for colors red, green and blue enable state-of-the-art OLED displays to reveal realistic image colors. The SSD1355 is further enhanced with the Solomon Systech proprietary driving scheme, resulting in superior and low-power consumption, according to a company statement.

An extremely compact die size and a superfine pitch feature in the driver allow for the manufacturing of highly competitive COF packages to fit all popular resolutions in the color OLED market, such as 128RGBx128, 128RGBx96, 128RGBx64, and 96RGBx96.

Endicott Research Group Launches High-Performance HBLED Drivers

Endicott, N.Y. - Endicott Research Group (ERG), a U.S. manufacturer of DC-AC inverters for powering CCFL and EL backlit LCDs, announced in February the launch of its new Smart Force™ family of LED driver solutions for high-bright light-emitting-diodes (HBLEDs) used in a wide range of LCD backlighting applications.

Available as an LED driver board or a complete kit including driver board and LED rails, ERG's Smart Force LED Solutions provide compact, reliable, electrically efficient and low-cost technology for driving HBLEDs to backlight LCDs from 6.4 in. to 20 in. diagonal and larger, according to an ERG press release. ERG driver boards employ a DC-DC boost to provide voltage to a constant current driver and LED rail. ERG can design driver boards with input voltages ranging from 5V up to 48V.

"What makes Smart Force LED Solutions unique is the small size of the driver boards and the thermal management used to dissipate heat from the LED junction," Bill Abbott, ERG's Director of Sales and Marketing, said in a press release. "They're very easy to integrate and are extremely reliable."

ERG's Smart Force LED Solutions are offered as standard products with input voltages of 12V, 24V, or 48V in single, dual or three-channel versions, with custom designs readily available. According to ERG, they are also extremely compact. The driver board with 48V input measures only 34mm x 60mm in size.

Exceptionally efficient thermal management gets the heat out of the LED rails and the display assembly, ERG said, ensuring reliability for the increasingly stringent demands of many LCD applications. Standard features include separate enable/disable and PWM dimming controls. The PWM dimming control provides the high dimming ratios required by many of the more demanding LCD applications.

Samsung Develops New DDI Package to Improve Heat Dissipation in LCD TVs

SEOUL, South Korea - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. claims it has developed the industry's first thermally enhanced chip-on-film (TECOF) package for the display driver IC (DDI) used in large-screen, high-resolution liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TVs, improving thermal heat dissipation by 20 % over a conventional COF package, allowing the DDI to last longer and operate with greater reliability.

Demand for LCD TVs is surging with increased accessibility to digital broadcasting, while at the same time, rapidly improving LCD TV performance has sparked explosive demand for full-high-definition models with a screen size of 40 in. or larger, Samsung said in a press release.

A typical DDI requires at least 15V to drive these larger, higher-resolution LCD TV panels that operate on broader frequency spectrums to reproduce high-speed video images. As a result, the DDI generates greater heat, which can create reliability problems. But Samsung has developed a new material for the thin metal tape component that has the optimal properties for effectively maximizing heat dissipation. The company has also developed a new automated process for attaching the metal tape to the COF package. By applying Samsung's new TECOF package, the thermal emissions from the DDI are quickly released via the metal tape, minimizing heat build-up.

In addition, heat build-up limits the number of channels a single DDI chip can cover, creating an obstacle to reducing the total number of DDI per panel. With the new TECOF package, the number of source DDIs for a full-HD LCD TV is reduced from 14, 313 channel-DDIs to 8, 720 channel-DDIs, Samsung said.

"Package technology has become an important element, along with circuit design, in the development of DDIs for large-screen LCD TVs," said Sa Yoon Kang, vice president for Samsung's System LSI Division, in a company statement. "With the development of TECOF package, we propose the new standard for DDI product and solidify our global leadership position in developing display driver ICs for the LCD market."

Samsung has completed reliability testing of the new TECOF package and expects to ship its DDI product with the new TECOF package technology in Q2 2007, the company said.

NEC Claims World's Brightest Projector Under Four Pounds

CHICAGO - NEC Corp. America announced in February what it is hailing as the world's brightest projector that weighs less than 4 pounds. The NEC NP60 automatic digital projector features a brightness of 3000 lumens in only a 3.5-pound package, with a footprint similar to the size of a mouse pad, NEC said.

"NEC was the first to produce an award-winning fully automatic projector last year, and we've improved upon previous models by reducing the new NP projectors' size and weight by 20%," Senior Product Marketing Manager of NEC's Visual Systems Division Keith Yanke said in a company statement. "The NP60 is the world's lightest projector at 3000 lumens and is packed with a multitude of automatic features, while sporting a very inexpensive price tag."

The NEC NP60 projector is specifically engineered for the SMB/SHHO and corporate markets, targeting road warriors and sales executives, NEC said. To give the presenter the ultimate ease of use, the projector also includes many automatic features including auto focus, auto vertical keystone correction, auto source selection, quick shut down, and AutoSense™ technology, which intuitively syncs the projector with most computer signals and features one-touch image optimization.

The projector achieves its light weight and high brightness through the adoption of a magnesium material for the main body as well as NEC's exclusive hybrid cooling system, promoting an efficient exchange through the fan and air pump, the company said.