LCD and SED monitors

Good day everyone! In this post, I will be talking about two types of flat-screen monitors.

1) LCD (liquid crystal display)

a) What is it? What is it for?

LCD is a common type of display technology. It is an output device and is normally found in monitors, television sets, etc.

b) What does it look like?

3) What is the technology behind it?

The LCD monitor polarizes light into a viewable image. There are two plate glasses in an LCD monitor. When a light ray passes through first plate glass, the liquid crystal between the two glass plates (substrates) is influence by the electric current flow and allows only the specific light waves of the current image to pass through them to second glass plate. The actual image one sees is the light projected on the second glass plate.

LCD's have an matrix of horizontal and vertically arranged micro-transistors on the glass plate and utilize both active matrix technology and passive matrix technology. LCD monitor resolution is directly related to the size of screen. 17 inch screens are capable of 1024 x 768 resolution, 19 inch screens are capable of 1280 x 1024 resolution and 20 inch screens are capable of 1600 x 1200 resolution. However, unlike a CRT, LCD monitors can only accept digital signal data (including DVI (digital visual interface) format).

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2) SED (surface-conduction electron-emitter display)

a) What is it? What is it for?

SED is a new display technology co-developed by Canon and Toshiba. It is a type of output for presentation of visual information.

b) What does it look like?

c) What is the technology behind it?

SED uses technology from CRT displays. Each subpixel has its own electronic gun, instead of using a single electron gun. It has huge advantage over LCD and Plasma because in luminance contrast ratio of 100,000, it produces highly accurate color reproduction and true blacks. Carbon nanotubes are used in the electron guns, allowing substantial power savings. However, it is only in its protoype stage, so we will not be expecting it in the market very soon.

Sources:

http://gdgt.com/terms/sed/

http://www.tech-faq.com/flat-monitor.shtml

http://media.teamxbox.com/dailyposts/hardware/display/sed_tv.jpg

http://www.techfresh.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/benq-world-fastest-lcd-monitor.jpg

Accessed on August 6, 2009.