NOV 2013

David Elien
VP of Marketing & Business
Development, Cree, Inc.

Let There Be
LIGHT
How Cree reinvented
the light bulb

Cutting Edge
+ Flatscreen
Technologies

New LED
+ Filament
Tower
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mensional array of LEDs behind the LCD
may offer the ultimate performance for
Lighting Electronics CONTENTS
d TVs, the performance possible with
panels (using LED light bars at the top/
or edges of the display) now provides
nstream market solution, accounting for
% of all LED backlit displays. And clearly
ge-lit displays requiring far fewer LEDs
irect backlight array, especially using the
brightness LEDs now available, the cost
is obvious.

TECH ARTICLE
How to Backlight LCD TV Dipslays
With Scrolling LEDs 4
TECH ARTICLE
Taking Measurements
of Single LEDs 10
COVER INTERVIEW
Interview with David Elien
Cree, Inc. 14
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHT
Cree’s Revolutionary LED
Filament Tower Light Bulb 20
TECH ARTICLE
Cutting Edge Flatscreen
Technologies 24

3
 Lighting Electronics

4
 TECH ARTICLE

By Girish Ramesh,
Sr. Marketing Manager, Atmel Corporation
and Kevin Hempson,
Staff Applications Engineer, Atmel Corporation

I
n just a few years, LEDs have become the
dominant technology for backlighting LCD
displays for TVs and desktop monitors,
consigning cold-cathode fluorescent tubes to
history. The challenge now for manufacturers,
as always, is optimizing designs to extract
maximum performance for minimum cost. And
this often comes down to what’s right for a
particular application.

So while direct LED backlighting, using a full

two-dimensional array of LEDs behind the LCD
panel, may offer the ultimate performance for
high-end TVs, the performance possible with
edge-lit panels (using LED light bars at the top/
bottom or edges of the display) now provides
the mainstream market solution, accounting for
over 90% of all LED backlit displays. And clearly
with edge-lit displays requiring far fewer LEDs
than a direct backlight array, especially using the
higher-brightness LEDs now available, the cost
benefit is obvious.

5
 Lighting Electronics
With LEDs able to illuminate
more localized areas of the
screen, and with their much
faster response times, it
becomes possible to dim the
backlight in darker parts of
the scene while retaining full
brightness elsewhere in the
same frame.
6
Scrolling is All About Timing
The basic requirement for edge-lit panels
is delivering a sufficiently bright backlight
evenly across the entire LCD panel. With
cold-cathode tubes, which were also
placed along the edges of the display,
this was achieved a combination of
diffusers and polarizers. Having a row of
LEDs at the edge of a display opens up
other possibilities, allowing the light from
individual LEDs to be directed to specific
areas of the display (known as illumination
zones). Additionally, although dimming
a cold cathode backlight can provide
enhanced contrast when viewing dark
scenes, this was generally restricted to the
whole screen, so at best only allows for
frame-to-frame variation and more likely
spills over to neighboring frames. With LEDs
able to illuminate more localized areas
of the screen, and with their much faster
response times, it becomes possible to dim
the backlight in darker parts of the scene
while retaining full brightness elsewhere in
the same frame.
 TECH ARTICLE

Figure 1: Pixel settling time after writing data

The secret to all of this lies in the timing of the

illumination, delivering the light to the screen
at precisely the right time, in synchronism
with the displayed image and allowing for
the characteristics of the LCD itself and any
losses in the optical components. The solution
is broadly referred to as a ‘scrolling backlight
system’ but employs a number of techniques
to realize a superior picture all of which are
made possible by sophisticated LED driver
technology, such as that embodied in Atmel’s
MSL2164 series devices. This article will reveal
how this works in principle with the help of
some timing diagrams and a description of
the different modes of operation.

Let’s start with a commonly used method for

overcoming one of the fundamental issues
with LCDs; namely the slow response time of
the liquid crystal material, which gives rise to
the problem of motion blur where on-screen
movement is faster than the time it takes for
the pixel to settle to a new value. This can be
greatly improved by blinking or interrupting
the backlight during the period while the pixel
is changing. Commonly referred to as ‘black

7
 Lighting Electronics
frame insertion’ (a confusing
expression since with LEDs the
backlight is only turned off during
part of the frame and not for a
whole frame as used to be the
case with cold cathode tubes), this
technique works particularly well in
conjunction with illumination zones
because the whole screen is not
blanked at the same time.

For example, If we take an HDTV

with 1080 rows of pixels edge-lit
with just eight LEDs we get eight
horizontal illumination zones each
containing 135 rows of pixels.
As the LCD image is built up by
writing one whole row of pixels at
a time, we can see from figure 1
that there is a significant delay,
referred to as the ‘phase delay’,
after the vertical sync pulse (PHI)
before all the pixels in Zone 1 (rows
1-135) are fully settled. Clearly the
optimum time for viewing this zone
is once the pixels are settled so
ideally we only want to illuminate
this zone during that period. For
subsequent zones (zones 2 – 8)
the optimum viewing/illumination
period will be similarly offset by
the phase delay from the start of
that zone’s pixel writing period i.e.
staggered throughout the frame,
resulting in the illumination scrolling
down the display.

Another limitation of LCDs with

Figure 2: Reverse PWM avoids next pixel writing period
constant and uniform backlighting
is their limited contrast range. This
is because an LCD pixel is not a
perfect shutter so even in its dark
state there is some light leakage,
especially when the panel is
viewed at an angle. As noted
earlier, contrast enhancement is
possible by dimming the backlight
for dark scenes, but the advantage
when combined with scrolling
LED backlights is being able to
control the brightness during
the illumination period. Also, the
accuracy of addressing each
frame and zone independently
allows a much faster response to
dark-to-bright scene transitions
than is possible with non-scrolling
backlights.

8
 TECH ARTICLE

The method for adjusting brightness during

the fully settled pixel period is simply by

LED backlighting for LCD

varying the amount of time the backlight
is switched on during that period – a
method more generally termed ‘pulse-
width modulation’ or PWM. Typically, there
would be a default brightness level, with an
TVs using edge-lit display
associated PWM illumination period value,
that is less than the full period during which panels has rapidly become
the pixels are stable; this allows for higher
or lower brightness levels by setting larger
or smaller PWM values. Conventional PWM
the technology of choice,
dimming turns the backlight on at the start
of the stable pixel period and off after the providing both a high-
performance and cost-
PWM illumination period. But, as can be
seen in Figure 2, there is a danger that a
large PWM value may result in the backlight
remaining on into the next pixel-writing
period for that particular illumination zone
effective solution for the
(area A), which is clearly undesirable. To
overcome this problem the Reverse PWM majority of the TV and
method aligns the end of the PWM period
to the end of the fully settled pixel period
as can be seen at the bottom of Figure 2
desktop monitor market.
since it is better to always use area B and to
start the illumination as early as necessary
to achieve the desired brightness.

One point to note is the importance of

referencing the timing of all illumination
zones to the same V Sync that is associated
with the start of that frame’s pixel writing
process. Referencing some zones to a
subsequent V Sync can result in brightness
banding because of variations in frame
duration that can result from video
manipulation.

Conclusion

LED backlighting for LCD TVs using edge-

lit display panels has rapidly become
the technology of choice, providing
both a high-performance and cost-
effective solution for the majority of the
TV and desktop monitor market. The faster
switching speed of LEDs coupled with
advances in driver circuit design makes it
possible to address some of the previous
limitations of liquid crystal displays, namely
motion blur and poor contrast. ■

9
 Lighting Electronics

Measuring S
Alan Lowne, CEO Saelig Co. Inc.

Pocket-sized precise LED measurement s

With the advent of high-brightness blue and white LEDs, the market for LED light has been
growing exponentially. LEDs are used in displays, illuminated advertisements, lamps, and
throughout automobiles. LEDs are found in light fixtures, aircraft, traffic lights, and theater,
photographic, and architectural lighting. But is impossible for LEDs to be manufactured
with identical spectral properties due to the variations in production processes, physical
housings, and operating conditions. Brightness and color peak can vary substantially from

10
 TECH ARTICLE

Single LEDs
solution offers laboratory-grade precision
component to component even in the same production batch. For critical applications (not
merely indicator lights) LEDs need accurate testing methods during manufacture and in
final assemblies. Precise optical characterization is also valuable in research situations for
LED-based products, or for batching or “binning” LEDs (i.e. selection of color and brightness
groups) with nearly-identical characteristics for assembly lines.

11
 Lighting Electronics
Full-color LED displays contain many thousands of LEDs,
and their illumination characteristics need to be matched
to ensure good color uniformity.
Measuring single LED performance may
also be necessary once they have been
installed on a PCB. Quality control of in-
coming LEDs delivered by different suppliers
may be needed for binning, or for charac-
terizing fiber optic sources like endoscopes,
or even calibrating lighting fixtures made of
many LEDs. Other applications for LED test-
ing include investigating the influence of
dimming, testing diffusers or optics installed
on LEDs, monitoring changes of spectra,
color or luminous flux due to current drive,
time, or temperature.
Uniform luminance and color in automobile
cockpits is also very important, requiring
color matching various sub-assemblies
and modules from different suppliers.
Full-color LED displays contain many
thousands of LEDs, and their illumination
characteristics need to be matched
to ensure good color uniformity. Other
applications include LED-based measuring
instruments such as blood analyzers that
determine blood-sugar concentration.
Precise characterization of LEDs in these
applications is critical since this affects the
life-saving accuracy of the results.
12
Measurements
Typical measurements can include:
Lumens (luminous flux), CCT (correlated
color temperature according to CIE
standards), CRI (color rendering index
according to CIE standards), COLOR
(color coordinates according to CIE
1931 and CIE 1964), and mWatt (radiant
power value).
One very useful highly portable solution
that offers the accuracy of benchtop
instruments is the combination of the
GL SPECTIS 1.0 and the GL OPTI SPHERE
48. Ready to run within 10 seconds of
connecting this handheld plug ’n’ play
combo to a computer, the system
automatically detects which accessories
have been attached to it, and it is rapidly
ready to perform measurements. Each
instrument and accessory is provided with
individual instrument calibration comes
as standard to ensure that the results
produced are correct and reliable. It is
a portable solution that can be taken to
the production line or packed in a travel
bag for field use.
 TECH ARTICLE

The GL SpectroSoft software included

in the package is intuitive, user-friendly,
delivers results within seconds, with the
ability to easily export or import results
or settings. Measurements include: CIE-
compatible color coordinates, correlated
color temperature, Color Peak, Color
dominant, CRI color rendering index, MI
metamerism index, color charts according
to different CIE standards, etc. By default,
this mini-spectrometer measures from 340-
750 nm but the range can be reduced for
measurements of particular light sources.

The software includes a BIN EDITOR which

helps to define a binning set, specifying
individual fields on the chart with X Y values.
Specific names and X1, Y1 X2, Y2, X3, Y3…
values are assigned to these fields, which
designate a specific rectangle on the
chart. The most critical bin criteria that
impact product performance are light
output and color temperature. Binning for
light output is very straightforward - LEDs
are individually measured and sorted
by lumen output into prescribed ranges.
Luminaire manufacturers can easily select
the bin or bins that best meet the lumen Summary
performance requirements of their fixture.
Binning for color temperature is a more GL SPECTIS 1.0 and the GL OPTI SPHERE 48 are a useful
complex process. Color temperature bins tool combination for manufacturers, production
are defined by (x,y) coordinates on the environments, field work, as well as laboratories in a
CIE 1931 Chromaticity Diagram (shown at range of real-world applications. ■
right). These bins are grouped as quadrants
around the standard chromaticity lines for
a specified color temperature. For more » CLICK HERE
information about color binning, bin sizes
and the ANSI C78 377A, see: http://www. to comment on the article.
nema.org/media/pr/20080221a.cfm.

13
 Lighting Electronics

Out With the Old,

In With The New
David Elien, VP of Marketing & Business Development, Cree, Inc.

Cree, Inc. is a market-leading innovator of LED lighting products, LED components,

and semiconductor products. The company aims to make energy-wasting
traditional lighting technologies obsolete through the use of energy-efficient,
environmentally friendly LED lighting. In recent months, Cree has been leading the
lighting revolution by unveiling its line of LED light bulbs for the consumer market.
With its ENERGY STAR® certification and commercial retailer in place, Cree hopes
to achieve mass adoption of these LED bulbs to ensure energy efficiency and a
greener future.

We spoke with David Elien, VP of Marketing & Business Development at Cree,

about Cree's innovative work environment, its brand new LED bulb, and how the
company plans on getting on board with this revolutionary technology.

14
COVER INTERVIEW

15
 Lighting Electronics
“At Cree, our goal is to give the
consumer a no-compromise solution.
The only way people are going to
transition to energy-saving alternative
technologies is if consumers know
LED lighting products work as well as,
or better than the products they are
already using.”
Tell us about Cree’s latest products—
what are you excited about what are
you introducing into the market?
Well, we’re introducing a lot of products. We
have a long track record of innovation, and
continue to deliver enhanced solutions that
make it more rewarding and economical
for consumers, businesses and entire cities
to switch to LED. A product that people are
talking about lately is our Cree LED Bulb. This
is for a variety of reasons—one being that
you can view it as a hallmark for the lighting
industry. This is an LED bulb that looks like a
bulb, lights like a bulb, but works much better
than all the alternatives that are available to
consumers. The Cree LED Bulb has served as
a platform for us to introduce the Cree brand
to a broad audience.
The Cree LED Bulb is sold exclusively at The
Home Depot. We just achieved ENERGY
STAR® certification for the soft white Cree LED
Bulb, making the bulb eligible for utility rebates
throughout the country. It’s the industry’s first
affordable LED bulb to look and light like an
incandescent and achieve ENERGY STAR level
of qualification.
16
Being able to dim an LED light
bulb like a traditional bulb is also
a really appealing feature for a lot
of customers.
At Cree, our goal is to give the consumer a no-
compromise solution. The only way people are
going to transition to energy-saving alternative
technologies is if consumers know LED lighting
products work as well as, or better than the
products they are already using. One of the
rules we follow for every product launched,
is that it has to deliver an as-good or better
experience than what is being replaced, plus
superior economics.
So what have been the greatest
challenges in replacing traditional
bulbs in the market?
The biggest challenge was designing a bulb
that looks like a bulb. In hindsight, it seems
pretty straightforward. It’s because we created
a solid plan. There is a lot of engineering that
went into designing a bulb that looks and lights
like an incandescent while leveraging all the
great attributes of LED technology. I think the
first thing to consider in designing an LED bulb

should be getting the aesthetic of the light
right. In all of our research, we’ve inferred that
one of the reasons our bulb is outselling every
other bulb at The Home Depot is because
it actually looks like an incandescent bulb;
consumers associate form with function. If
you’re going to position or market something
as a replacement, then it makes it easier for
the consumer to make that leap if your bulb
actually looks like one.
The second challenge was getting the cost
right. It was critical for us to deliver a series of
bulbs that could be below the $10 barrier.
Again, there was a lot of engineering
and strategic supply chain management
to deliver a low-cost, no-compromise
lighting alternative. One of the technical
breakthroughs that enabled Cree to break
the $10 threshold is our new Cree LED Filament
Tower™ Technology. The Filament Tower is
the Cree innovation that lets our LED bulb
replicate the look and feel filament based
traditional lights. The new bulbs showcases
innovation across the entire system: LEDs,
power supply, optics and system design.
With this LED technology, what
differentiates it from the competing
products on the market?
The first and most obvious differentiator of the
Cree LED Bulb is the form, which is the first thing
the customer sees. Many other LED bulbs out
there, frankly, look like a science project. They
don’t look like something a consumer wants
to use or can use in their home. Once we won
from an aesthetic perspective, the consumer
sees the phenomenal pricing of the bulb.
We created the first incandescent bulb-quality
LED bulb to launch under $10. With the recent
ENERGY STAR qualification, in some markets,
there will be instant rebates available that
take the cost of the bulb to under $5. This
price will be a major differentiator, coupling
that with performance is the winning ticket.
The other key differentiator is that it lights like
a bulb. It’s omnidirectional—when you take it
home, it gives the quality of light you are used
to from an incandescent. You wouldn’t know
the difference. The last feature to highlight
is our industry-leading 10-year warranty. The
customer doesn’t have to go out on a limb
by adopting our technology; it’s affordable
and backed by an outstanding warranty,
limiting risk and compelling consumers to try.
COVER INTERVIEW
What does it mean when you say the
bulb is ENERGY STAR Rated?
There are specifications around light distribu-
tion, reliability testing, CRI (Color Rendering In-
dex) and overall efficiency. The ENERGY STAR
Rating is there to protect the consumer. Con-
sumers want to do the right thing and save
energy and they have been bitten in the past
by lighting solutions that have fallen woefully
short of their expectations, such as compact
fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). They have had poor
experiences to the point where it has slowed
their appetite for energy-efficient technology.
So ENERGY STAR has set the standard to help
prevent these poor experiences. Many utilities
that offer rebates only allow t bulbs that are
ENERGY STAR rated to be eligible. Our bulb is
the first bulb that actually looks and acts like
a bulb to achieve that certification.
What is the future of LED lighting?
What kind of innovations are
happening that will continue to push
this technology forward?
We are just beginning to scratch the
surface of what’s possible in
LED lighting. The LED lighting
industry is very lightly pen-
etrated—we’re talking
less than 10 percent
of installed lighting is
using LED technol-
ogy today. There’s
a lot of innovation
left and the key will
be to continue to
draw toward parity
with current tech-
nologies in a wider
array of applications.
This means more than the
A19 bulb, but BR30 bulbs,
and more.
Cree’s New
LED Bulb
17
 Lighting Electronics
We have a lot of activity, quite frankly, on
the commercial side of Cree that’s driving
LED adoption for businesses, governments
and entire cities. Cree launched an industry-
changing LED residential street light starting
as low as $99 – making it more affordable
than ever for cities, municipalities and utilities
to convert to energy-efficient LED. In June
2013, we announced the breakthrough Cree
UR Series LED upgrade kit for commercial
buildings such as offices, with the potential
to obsolete linear fluorescent lighting—saving
more energy, providing better light and lasting
twice as long as the 32-watt linear fluorescent
lights it replaces.
We tend to focus on the biggest problems
that have the biggest impact in the shortest
time. So when I talk about street lighting, this
is aimed at replacing every streetlight that is
out there today. With our XSPR LED streetlight,
which is the $99 residential streetlight we
launched, cities and municipalities can
place the light where they want as LED is a
directional light source. You’re working with
discrete packets of light that you can shape
and place where you want. Cree, as we solve
some of these applications and look to create
value, is developing some of those attributes
and technologies.
Given the challenges of getting your
product into more industries and
tackling new markets what do you see
as the greatest challenge in driving
Cree forward?
Getting the industry moving is our biggest
challenge. We spend a lot of the time thinking
about what we need to demonstrate to the
industry, at an ever-increasing pace, that the
technology is ready and they ought to want
to jump in.
In terms of the increasing competition; we
invite that—we want it because it validates
our strategy and that it’s working. Take the
Cree LED Bulb for instance, we launched our
bulb in March and in the last few months
we’ve seen a flurry of announcements from a
variety of manufacturers large and small, and
retailers, that they finally have a $10 LED bulb
or that they’re striving to be as good as ours.
That’s a validation that we’re doing things to
move the market. What we need to be careful
of, is ensuring that the industry is accountable
for delivering great products that will further
18
move consumers toward adoption. So that’s
our biggest challenge—how do we continue
to innovate at a technical and commercial
level and show that you can create substantial
value for our consumers with our technology
to get the market moving in the right direction.
Absolutely. That’s a big challenge, and
that’s what keeps everybody moving.
And one way to highlight that from a numbers
perspective is that there are 5 billion sockets
in the U.S. that use an Edison-like bulb and I
can tell you we may be the best selling bulb at
The Home Depot by a large measure, but it’s
still early on in the market. Our goal is to drive
100 percent adoption of LED technology, so
there’s a lot of opportunity.
What’s the company culture like
at Cree?
Cree, Inc. is a market-leading innovator
of LED lighting products, LED components
and semiconductor products, changing the
way people use light. Our goal is to drive
100 percent adoption of LED lighting in order
to obsolete energy-wasting technologies.
Every day we come to work, our goal is to
relentlessly innovate. The only way we’re
going to change a century-old industry is
to develop products that really change the
game, compel consumers to try, and then
deliver a positive experience. This will help
drive some of the incumbents in the industry
to shift toward LED technology at a faster
pace than they would otherwise.
Because of our mission, our culture is
characterized by being very fast-paced,
believing anything is possible with a mindset
of continuous improvement. Even though
we’ve achieved a lot, there’s always a way
to do it better.
Is there a collaborative innovation
process at Cree?
We have a strong focus on teamwork
here at Cree. No matter what the goal is,
everyone has a role to play. If you interact
with executives here and walk around, you’d
see it’s very unassuming—it’s flat and there
isn’t a lot of hierarchy or sense of entitlement
with executives. For example, there are no
reserved parking spaces. We have a very
team-orientated culture.
 COVER INTERVIEW

Above: Cree’s manufacturing facility in

Durham, North Carolina
“In terms of
the increasing Where would you like to see the LED
industry moving towards?
competition; we We need to make sure as an industry that
 invite that—we want we’re driving toward a no-compromise
solution—that we deliver in a lot of instances,
it because it validates however the industry has opportunities to do
a lot better than it’s doing and consumers
our strategy and that deserve better. As an industry, the emphasis
ought to be on meeting or exceeding the
it’s working.” current experience customers are getting
with their light sources, and being really clear
and thoughtful about the performance of
your product. Anything short of that does a
disservice to the consumer and it impedes
the overall growth of the industry. I think
consumers have had to put up with enough
compromises, whether from CFL bulbs or LED
bulbs that compromised function for cost. We
have a real opportunity to deliver a solution
that consumers can use and be happy with
for decades. ◌

19
 Lighting Electronics

CREE LED Bulbs

Compete With
Incandescent and CFL
Cree, Inc., the leading supplier of energy-efficient LED lighting products, broke the
$10 price barrier with new LED A-type bulbs for the home—the Cree® LED Bulb.
These bulbs are the ideal replacement for both traditional incandescent and CFL
bulbs. The Cree’s soft white LED Bulbs are ENERGY STAR qualified, making the bulbs
eligible for many utility rebates that could bring the cost of the products to under $5
in certain regions.

20
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHT

21
 Lighting Electronics
Cree LED Bulb vs. Incandescent
The Cree LED Bulbs offer the size,
shape, warm color temperature, and
omnidirectional illumination of traditional
incandescent bulbs while using 78% to 85%
less energy and boasting a rated-lifetime of
25,000 hours. These new Cree LED Bulbs are
available in six versions – including the new
93 CRI Cree TW Series LED Bulb – designed
to replace 40 and 60 watt incandescent
Compared to incandescent bulbs, Cree LED
Bulbs save the user energy, money, and time.
bulbs while consuming only 6 to 13.5 watts.
And they’re available in color temperatures
of 2700 K (soft white) and 5000 K (daylight).
Compared to incandescent bulbs, Cree LED
Bulbs save the user energy, money, and time.
For example - compared to an incandescent
bulb - over its 25,000 rated- lifetime the
Cree 9.5W (60W) bulb saves 1260 kWh of
energy, $139 in electricity costs (based
on 11¢/kWh), and 25 incandescent bulb
replacements.
Cree LED Bulb vs. CFL
The Cree LED Bulbs are also attractive
replacements for twisty CFL bulbs. The Cree
bulbs use less energy, have a longer rated-
life, and contain no mercury. And unlike
some CFL bulbs the Cree LED Bulbs are
dimmable with most incandescent dimmers,
have a pleasing color temperature and are
instant-on.
Cree Lighting Technology
To achieve incandescent-like
omnidirectional illumination approximately
20 Cree-manufactured LED Arrays are
mounted on a cylinder and placed inside
22
a glass bulb. Cree calls this the Cree LED
Filament Tower™. The Cree LED Filament Tower
creates the same nuance and visual texture as
a traditional incandescent bulb by emulating
the compact light source of an incandescent
filament
Lighting Outside the Home
LED lighting products are offered for nearly
every application including residential, retail
stores, restaurants, industrial, parking and
street lighting. In fact, Cree was the leading
supplier to the world’s largest LED street
lighting upgrade completed by the City of Los
Angeles in 2013.
LED User Support
Cree manufactures high-intensity LEDs having
superior price/performance by combing highly
efficient InGaN materials with proprietary
G-SIC® substrates. Cree LEDs are available in
chips, components, modules, and in lighting
products for end-users. Cree offers complete
applications support to lighting manufacturers,
driver manufactures, solution providers, and
other users of Cree LED components and
modules. A few of the services include thermal
simulation, photometric testing, binning,
electrolytic capacitor evaluation, and dimmer
compatibility.
More Cree Technology
In addition to lighting devices, Cree
manufactures advanced SiC power MOSFETs
and Schottky diodes to 1700 volts as well as SiC
and GaN RF power amplifier devices to 11 GHz.
PRODUCT HIGHLIGHT

23
 Lighting Electronics

24

Cutting Edge
Flat Screen
Technologies
Rob Riemen
EEWeb Contributing Author
Do you still use a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitor?
The big tube TV’s and monitors, that dominated the
display market from it’s inception in the 1950’s up until
the beginning of the millennium, have rapidly lost their
dominance. The new kid in the game, the flat screen,
is smaller, healthier, and produces a much higher
quality picture. Because of these characteristics,
flat screens have taken over the display industry.
Through the evolution of display technology, a slew of
methods are being used to produce a quality picture.
The main form of displays that are available for
purchase are Plasma, (Organic) Light Emitting Diodes
(O)LED, and Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD). Each provide
a crisp, clear picture over the outdated CRT displays,
but OLED displays are becoming the standard, and
the future of flat panel technologies. Electronic
displays have become a fixture in the home ever since
CRT displays became cheap and readily available,
but with advances in display technology, flat panel
displays, such as plasma, LED, and LCD , have pushed
the CRT down from it’s throne, leading to revelations
in new screen technologies. What started as a few
experiments with cathode rays by J.J. Thomson in
TECH ARTICLE
1897, turned into a whole new industry of displays. J.J.
Thompson was able to deflect cathode rays, which
is one of the main functions of the commercially
produced CRT. Engineers of Western Electric started
to produce commercial display products based on
this design. But, the television in the form of a CRT,
as we know it today, wasn’t produced commercially
until 1934 by Telefunken. Over the next several years,
display technology remained relatively stagnant,
in terms of televisionesque displays. Other types
of display technology were developed such as the
Direct-View Bistable Storage Tube in 1968, which was
able to provide a static display, one that didn’t need
to be refreshed consistently. Around the same time
LED displays began entering the main stream display
market, but they were mainly used as business
displays, rather than in consumer televisions. The
technology to implement LED technology into
commercial televisions didn’t materialize until much
later. LCD technology began to evolve in the mid
1980’s as twisted and super-twisted nematic LCD
screens began entering the market.
25
 Lighting Electronics
Each display technology has
the same goal in mind, that is,
produce a large number of high
quality pixels in order to create
a crisper, cleaner picture at
high resolutions.
What started as a few experiments
with cathode rays by J.J. Thomson
in 1897, turned into a whole new
industry of displays. J.J. Thompson
was able to deflect cathode rays,
which is one of the main functions
of the commercially produced CRT.
Engineers of Western Electric started to
produce commercial display products
based on this design. But, the television
in the form of a CRT, as we know it
today, wasn’t produced commercially
until 1934 by Telefunken. Over the next
several years, display technology
remained relatively stagnant, in terms
of televisionesque displays. Other
types of display technology were
developed such as the Direct-View
Bistable Storage Tube in 1968, which
was able to provide a static display,
one that didn’t need to be refreshed
consistently. Around the same time
LED displays began entering the main
26
stream display market, but they were
mainly used as business displays,
rather than in consumer televisions.
The technology to implement LED
technology into commercial televisions
didn’t materialize until much later.
LCD technology began to evolve in
the mid 1980’s as twisted and super-
twisted nematic LCD screens began
entering the market.
These LCD screens didn’t make much
of a splash in commercial displays until
the thin film transistor (TFT) LCD was
introduced in 1986. The next step in
display technology came in the form of
plasma televisions. Plasma televisions
were released in 1995 with a low
resolution by Fujitsu. The most recent
development in display technology
is Organic LED technology. It is taking
over the market and is able to produce
a high quality picture without using a
 TECH ARTICLE
lot of resources. Oddly enough, none of
these display technologies are directly
related to each other. Besides LED’s and
OLED’s all of the other types of flat screen
technologies are separate in their own
right. The big three screen technologies
are all available today, each trying to
claim their stake in the flat screen market.

So what makes each display technology

so different, and why do we need three
different types of screen technologies?
OLED, Plasma, and LCD, constitute of
most of the flat panel displays used for
televisions and monitors. Since each
display technology is conceptually
different, it is best to understand each
technology in order to see why each type
exists. Starting with the earliest developed
flat screen technology, LCD displays have
become a fixture in the display world. LCD
takes advantage of the light modulating
properties of liquid crystals. Simple LCD
displays are those that are commonly used
in calculators and other simple displays. But,
those displays do not produce the colors
needed for current display demands. In
order to create large displays using LCD Figure 1: Super-Twisted Nematic LCD Screen
technology thin-film transistors (TFT) must
be implemented. In order to make the
transistors work with the liquid crystal,
transparent conductive Indium tin oxide
(ITO) layers must be engineered to contain
small capacitors with a layer of insulating
liquid crystal. When all these work together
a single pixel can be displayed. Hundreds
of thousands of these individual TFT-LCD
setups must be interconnected across
the display and once that occurs, higher
resolutions can be achieved.

Each display technology has the same

goal in mind, that is, produce a large
number of high quality pixels in order to
create a crisper, cleaner picture at high
resolutions. In comparison to the LCD
technology, the LED televisions are built
around thousands of mini LEDs. The type
of LED’s that are able to be used to make
flat panel displays is solely organic LED.
The difference between normal LEDs and
OLEDs is the fact that the layer in which
emits light from the supplied electrical
current is a film of organic compound. Figure 2: Flexible OLED Screen

The semiconductor layer that is standard

in all diodes is now organic and placed
between two electrodes. Each pixel is

27
 Lighting Electronics

Figure 3: OLED Schematic

made up of three organic diodes of green,
red, and blue. These are driven together
to produce a full color display. This is done
without a back-light as the LEDs produce their
own light. The same can be said for plasma
displays. Plasma displays represent pixels in the
form of cells. Each cell contains electrically
charged ionized gases which produces an
effect similar to miniature fluorescent lamps.
This means that plasma displays have the
capability for a broad spectrum of colors as
well as a bright picture. Although with all of
the technologies available for flat screens,
each one has their ups and downs based on
the physics described above.
to pushing the limits of picture quality. With
a contrast ratio of 1000000:1 and above
and a better display of colors puts the OLED
display at the forefront of display technology.
Based on the technology advancements
with OLED and the green technology behind
these flat screens proves that they are the
prime candidate to be the future of display
technology.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Medienstelle. BBC STN Matrixanzeige
540×270. Digital image. Wikipedia. Wikimedia
Foundation, 28 July 2012. Web. 18 Sept. 2013.

Each screen has benefits that make it a better Meharris. OLED EarlyProduct. Digital image.
choice when purchasing, but which gives Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 May
the most overall value? Taking into account 2001. Web. 18 Sept. 2013. ■
brightness, contrast, color, resolution and
sharpness and cost, we can compare the
qualities of each flat screen technology and
provide an insight to what the future of flat » CLICK HERE
screen technology may be leading to.
to comment on the article.
LCD and plasma screens are perfect solutions
for the average consumer. The plasma screen
is always bright based on the fluorescent
lamp physics with a competent contrast. LCD
screens do not stack up in any way compared
to the other technologies and in some cases
need an LED backlit display in order to provide
a significant brightness. But, they are much
cheaper than the other options. OLED blows
these two out of the water when it comes

28
 TECH ARTICLE

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