November 21, 2006, Seoul, Korea--In the race to develop the world's thinnest active-matrix LCD panel, Samsung Electronics appears to have taken the lead for the moment. Intended for use in mobile phones, the display is only 0.82 mm thick, or 0.07 mm (70 microns) thinner than its next-thickest rival.
Such an advance may seem like the equivalent of splitting a hair, but incremental reductions like this one have brought the thickness of small LCD panels down from several millimeters to their current credit-card-sized thickness. Thinner displays mean thinner cell phones--not just a stylistic plus, but an advantage in weight and size, too.
Samsung has developed a new packaging technology, which it calls "i-Lens," for integrating an entire LCD-panel assembly, including a protective layer, into a single, thinner module that is more shock-resistant and easier to read than conventional panels. To achieve the slimmer package size, Samsung's mobile-display team redesigned the light-guide-plate subassembly and the glass substrate, which accounted for most of the LCD module's thickness. Samsung says that its i-Lens technology will allow manufacturers to trim 1.4 to 2.4 mm from the thickness of a mobile phone.
Today, a typical mobile-phone screen leaves a 2 to 3 mm space above the panel before attaching a reinforced plastic sheet to protect the LCD module. In Samsung's i-Lens process, a shock-resistant protective sheet is fastened directly to the LCD module, eliminating the space between it and the panel surface. The company says that i-Lens also resolves the sunlight-reflection problem inherent in the use of reinforced plastic in conventional mobile-phone screens. As a result, the panel is much easier to view outdoors.
The new LCD screen is available in 2.1 and 2.2 in. diagonal screen sizes. It has a qVGA (240 x 320 pixel) resolution, 300 nit brightness, and a 500:1 contrast ratio. ("Nit" is an abbreviation for the measure of brightness also referred to as "candelas per square meter," or cd/m2.) Mass production is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2007.