CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION DEFINITION HISTORY CONSTRUCTION HOW LCD WORKS TYPES OF LCD FEATURES AND ATTRIBUTES
ADVANTAGES OF LCD

DRAWBACKS CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION: You probably use items containing an LCD (liquid crystal display) every day. They are all around us -- in laptop computers, digital clocks and watches, microwave ovens, players and many other electronic devices. LCDs are common because they offer some real advantages over other display technologies. LCD has been widely hailed as a prized invention as it is relatively cheap and it consumes less power to function than competing technologies, making it almost indispensable in battery powered electronic devices. DEFINITION: A liquid crystal display (LCD) is an electronically-modulated optical device shaped into a thin, flat panel made up of any number of colour or monochrome pixels filled with liquid crystals and aligned in front of a light source (backlight) or reflector. This technology used for displays in notebook and other smaller computers. Like light-emitting diode and gas-plasma technologies, LCDs allow displays to be much thinner and lighter than cathode ray tube (CRT) technology. LCDs consume much less power than LED and gas-display displays because they work on the principle of blocking light rather than emitting it

But what are these things called liquid crystals? The name liquid crystal sounds like a contradiction. We think of a crystal as a solid material like quartz, usually as hard as rock, and a liquid is obviously different How could any material combine the two? We learned in school that there are three common states of matter. Solid, liquid or gaseous. Solids act the way they do because their molecules always maintain their orientation and stay in the same position with respect to one another. The molecules in liquids are just the opposite: They can change their orientation and move anywhere in the liquid. But there are some substances that can exist in an odd state that is sort of like a liquid and sort of like a solid. When they are in this state, their molecules tend to maintain their orientation, like the molecules in a solid, but also move around to different positions, like the molecules in a liquid. This means that liquid crystals are neither a solid nor a liquid. Thats how they ended up with their seemingly contradictory name So, do liquid crystals act like solids or liquids or something else? Their molecules behave more like liquids than solids. It takes a fair amount of heat to change a suitable substance from a solid into a liquid crystal, and it only takes a little more heat to turn that same liquid crystal

into a real liquid. This explains why liquid crystals are very sensitive to temperature .This property is advantageous when liquid crystals are used in instruments like thermometers, where temperature sensitivity is good and needed. The same property can make LCD screens unreliable when working in extreme climates. It explains why a laptop computer display may act funny in cold weather or during a hot day at the beach. HISTORY OF LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAYS LCD In 1888, liquid crystals were first discovered in cholesterol extracted from carrots (that is, two melting points and generation of colors) by Austrian botanist and chemist, Friedrich Reinitzer. In 1962, RCA researcher Richard Williams generated stripepatterns in a thin layer of liquid crystal material by the application of a voltage. This effect is based on an electro-hydrodynamic instability forming what is now called Williams domains inside the liquid crystal. According to the IEEE, Between 1964 and 1968, at the RCA David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, New Jersey, a team of engineers and scientists led by George Heilmeier with Louis Zanoni and Lucian Barton, devised a method for electronic control of light reflected from liquid crystals and demonstrated the first liquid crystal display. Their work launched a global industry that now produces millions of LCDs.

Heilmeiers liquid crystal displays used what he called DSM or dynamic scattering method, wherein an electrical charge is applied which rearranges the molecules so that they scatter light The DSM design worked poorly and proved to be too power hungry and was replaced by an improved version, which used the twisted nematic field effect of liquid crystals invented by James Fergason in 1969. James Iergason Inventor, James Fergason holds some of the fundamental patents in liquid crystal displays filed in the early 1970s, including key US patent number 3,731,986 for Display Devices Utilizing Liquid Crystal Light Modulation In 1972, the International Liquid Crystal Company (ILIXCO) owned by James Fergason produced the first modern LCD watch based on James Fergasons patent. 2007 In the 4Q of 2007 for the first time LCD surpassed CRT in worldwide sales 2008: LCD TVs are the main stream with 50% market share of the 200 million TVs forecast to ship globally in 2008 according to Display Bank.

CONSTRUCTION The combination of four facts makes LCDs possible

Light can be polarized. Liquid crystals can transmit and change polarized light. The structure of liquid crystals can be changed by electric current.

There are transparent substances that can conduct electricity. An LCD is a device that uses these four facts in a surprising way. Building a simple LCD is easier than you think. You start with the sandwich of glass and liquid crystals described above and add two transparent electrodes to it. For example, imagine that you want to create the simplest possible LCD with just a single rectangular electrode on it. The layers would look like this:

The LCD needed to do this job is very basic. It has a mirror (A) in back, which makes it reflective. Then, we add a piece of glass (B) with a polarizing film on the bottom side, and a common electrode plane (C) made of indium-tin oxide (ITO) on top. A common electrode plane covers

the entire area of the LCD. Above that is the layer of liquid crystal substance (D). Next comes another piece of glass (E) with an electrode in the shape of the rectangle on the bottom and, on top, another polarizing film (F), at a right angle to the first one. The electrode is hooked up to a power source like a battery. When there is no current, light entering through the front of the LCD will simply hit the mirror and bounce right back out. But when the battery supplies current to the electrodes, the liquid crystals between the common-plane electrode and the electrode shaped like a rectangle untwist and block the light in that region from passing through. That makes the LCD show the rectangle as a black area.

HOW LCD DISPLAYS WORK This is the basic architecture of a pixel in a LCD: A pixel is made up of a column of liquid crystal molecules, hung between two electrodes (transparent ones) and two polarizing filters, the axes of polarity of which are at 90 degrees to each other. The arrangement of these polarization filters is such that without any liquid crystal existing between them, the light traveling through one would be stopped by the other. The presence of liquid crystals changes the polarization of light entering one crystal, enabling it to pass through the other. This is the basic principle of the working of LCDs What makes the liquid crystal polarize the light rays passing through it? It all happens at a molecular level. The liquid crystal molecules are electrically charged, and on application of an electric field to each transparent electrodes over each pixel/sub pixel, the molecules are twisted on their axes by the electrostatic force. This changes the polarization of the light passing through the crystal, allowing only certain degrees or light to make its way through the polarizing filters.

When an electric field is applied to the transparent electrodes attached to a pixel, the liquid crystal molecules will align themselves parallel to the applied field, thus limiting the polarization of the entering light. If the liquid crystal molecules are completely untwisted, the light making its way through them will be polarized at 90 degrees to the second filter, thereby completely blocking it from escaping. In other words, the LCD will appear unlit Therefore, by controlling the alignment of liquid crystal molecules in a pixel, it is possible to vary the amount of light passing through it, thereby illuminating it accordingly COLOR LCDS In color LCDs each individual pixel is divided into three cells, or subpixels, which are colored red, green, and blue, respectively, by additional filters (pigment filters, dye filters and metal oxide filters).Each subpixel can be controlled independently to yield thousands or millions of possible colors for each pixel. CRT monitors employ a similar subpixel structures via phosphors, although the electron beam employed in CRTs do not hit exact subpixels. Because they utilize red, green and

blue elements, both LCD and CRT monitors are direct application of the RGB color model.

Through the careful control and variation of the voltage applied, the intensity of each sub-pixel can range over 256 shades. Combining the sub pixels produces a possible palette of 16.8 million colors (256 shades of red x 256 shades of green x 256 shades of blue), as shown below These color displays take an enormous number of transistors. For example, a typical laptop computer supports resolutions up to 1 ,024x768. If we multiply 1,024 columns by 768 rows by 3 sub-pixels, we get 2,359,296 transistors etched onto the glass! If there is a problem with any of these transistors, it creates a bad pixel on the display. Most active matrix displays have a few bad pixels scattered across the screen. In color LCDs, color components can be grouped into separate pixel geometries, depending upon the usage of the monitor. If the software controlling the display understands the type of geometry being used by a

particular LCD monitor, the information can be used to improve the resolution of the display through a process called sub-pixel rendering. Sub-pixel rendering is used primarily to anti-alias text.

LCD Quality Control:

LCD panels may have a few unlit pixels, caused by a defective transistor or some missing connection. But, unlike ICs, an LCD with a few dead pixel is still usable. The number of defective pixels permissible is determined by the manufacturer. Display size is limited by the quality-control problems faced by manufacturers. To increase display size, manufacturers must add more pixels and transistors. As they increase the number of pixels and transistors, they also increase the chance of including a bad transistor in a display. Manufacturers of existing large LCDs often reject about 40 percent of the panels that come off the assembly line. The level of rejection directly affects LCD price since the sales of the good LCDs must

cover the cost of manufacturing both the good and bad ones.

Only

advances in manufacturing can lead to affordable displays in bigger sizes. Samsung offers its customers something called the zero defective pixel guarantee, which ensures a complete replacement of the product if there is even a single defective pixel on the monitor.

TYPES OF LCDS
LCDs are broadly classified as either transmissive or reflective, depending upon the position of their source of light. A transmissive LCD is illuminated by a light source from the back and is viewed from the front. Such LCDs are used in applications where high luminous levels are required, such as computer displays, personal digital assistants, televisions, and mobile phones. On the other hand, reflective LCDs, usually found in digital displays of watches and calculators, are illuminated by an external light, which in turn is reflected back by a diffusing reflector located behind the display. As the light has to pass twice through the liquid crystal layer, it is attenuated twice and hence reflective LCDs produce darker blacks than its transmissive counterparts. But, since the same attenuating phenomenon, to an extent, happens in the translucent part of the liquid crystal layer as

well, the contrast of the display image will be less than in a transmissive LCD. In terms of power consumption reflective LCDs, due to the absence of an artificial light source, are more power efficient than their transmissive counterparts. There are now LCDs, which combine the basic features of both transmissive and reflective LCDs. They are called Transflective LCDs and they operate transmissively or reflectively depending upon the ambient light conditions

LCD Features And Attributes

To evaluate the specifications of LCD monitors, here are a few more things you need to know

Native Resolution
Unlike CRT monitors, LCD monitors display information well at only the resolution they are designed for, which is known as the native

resolution. Digital displays address each individual pixel using a fixed matrix of horizontal and vertical dots. If you change the resolution settings, the LCD scales the image and the quality suffers. Native resolutions are typically: 17 inch l024x768 19 inch= 1280x1024 20 inch 1600x1200 Viewing Angle

Viewing Angle
When you look at an LCD monitor from an angle, the image can look dimmer or even disappear. Colors can also be misrepresented. To compensate for this problem, LCD monitor makers have designed wider viewing angles. (Do not confuse this with a widescreen display, which means the display is physically wider.) Manufacturers give a measure of viewing angle in degrees (a greater number of degrees is better). In general, look for between 120 and l 70 degrees. Because manufacturers measure viewing angles differently, the best way to evaluate it is to test the display yourself. Check the angle from the top and bottom as well as the sides, bearing in mind how you will typically use the display.

Brightness or Luminance
This is a measurement of the amount of light the LCD monitor produces. It is given in nits or one candelas per square meter. One nit is equal to on cd/m2. Typical brightness ratings range from 250 to 350 cd/m2 for monitors that perform general-purpose tasks. For displaying movies, a brighter luminance rating such as 500 cd/m2 is desirable.

Contrast Ratio
The contrast ratio rates the degree of difference of an LCD monitors ability to produce bright whites and the dark blacks. The figure is usually expressed as a ratio, for example, 500:1. Typically, contrast ratios range from 450:1 to 600:1, and they can be rated as high as 1000:1. Ratios more than 600:1, however, provide little improvement over lower ratios.

Response Rate
The response rate indicates how fast the monitors pixels can change colors. Faster is better because it reduces the ghosting effect when an image moves, leaving a faint trial in such applications as videos or games.

Adjustability
Unlike CRT monitors, LCD monitors have much more flexibility for positioning the screen the way you want it. LCD monitors can swivel, tilt up and down, and even rotate from landscape (with the horizontal plane longer than the vertical plane) to portrait mode (with the vertical plane longer than the horizontal plane). In addition, because they are lightweight and thin, most LCD monitors have built-in brackets for wall or arm mounting If you are looking for a new display, you should consider the differences between CRT and LCD monitors. Choose the type of monitor that best serves your specific needs, the typical applications you use, and your budget.

ADVANTAGES OF LCD MONITORS

Require less power -- Power consumption varies greatly with different technologies. CRT displays are somewhat power-hungry, at about 100 watts for a typical 19-inch display, The average is about 45 watts for a 19-inch LCD display. LCDs also produce less heat Smaller and weigh less - An LCD monitor is significantly thinner and lighter than a CRT monitor, typically weighing less than half as much, In addition, you can mount an LCD on an arm or a wall, which also takes up less desktop space. More adjustable - LCD displays are much more adjustable than CRT displays. With LCDs, you can adjust the tilt, height, swivel, and orientation from horizontal to vertical mode. As noted previously, you can also mount them on the wall or on an arm. Less eye strain - Because LCD displays turn each pixel off individually, they do not produce a flicker like CRT displays do. In addition, LCD displays do a better job of displaying text compared with CRT displays.

LCD DRAWBACKS
Before we end, here are some disadvantages of LCD displays, as opposed to other display technologies such as CRT and plasma.
As opposed to CRTs, LCDs can not form multiple resolution

images. LCDs can only produce crispy images in their native resolution or a small fraction of it.
The contrast ratio for LCD images is less than its CRT and plasma

counterparts.
Due to their longer response time, LCDs may show ghosting and

mixing when images change rapidly. For example, when moving the mouse quickly on an LCD, multiple cursors can sometimes be seen. The viewing angle of an LCD is narrower than a CRT or plasma display, thereby restricting the number of people who can conveniently view the image on the screen at one time. Image persistence is a common phenomenon with LCDs. This is something comparable to screen burn-in on CRTs.
Consumer LCD monitors tend to be more delicate than their CRT

counterparts. The screen may be especially vulnerable due to the lack of a thick glass shield as in CRT monitors

CONCLUSION: LCD technology has been around for a long time but it is now becoming very popular. LCDs are common because they offer some real advantages over other display technologies, but they have also some disadvantages. Improvements in LCD technology have narrowed the technological gap, allowing producers to offer lower weight and higher available resolution, and lower power consumption. More research on this technology can help us to avoid the drawbacks and more efficient LCDs can be produced.