Technology
LCD 2.0
The Future of Energy-Efficient Display Technology is Here
Optimizing Device Displays for All Lighting Conditions
Traditional LCDs have long fought against the conditions they work in – using power-hungry backlights to light a screen that is just competing against external light sources. The same holds true with emissive displays such as OLED and microLEDs. While the RLCD addresses this issue by replacing the rear polarizer with a mirror at the back of the pixels so that the LCD can harness the ambient light around it, this creates a new issue – when there is no ambient light or backlight, the display is nearly useless.
To help device designers stop making this tradeoff between power consumption and display readability, Azumo introduced LCD 2.0 – a complete power-efficient solution for RLCDs that uses reflected ambient light when available but also includes a low-power front light for efficient low-light operations. Now, device designers can look beyond simple readability specs to optimize their devices using more advanced specs such as ambient contrast ratio (ACR), resulting in devices that maintain consistent contrast across dynamic lighting conditions.
Moving Beyond the Power-Hungry Backlight
Optimizing battery life for portable devices has long been a massive challenge for the tech industry, with most inefficiencies coming directly from the display stack, and the backlight specifically. This is because backlights are as bright as a car headlight, yet most of that energy is wasted by poor transmissivity and fighting external light sources. Instead, an RLCD optimizes battery usage by embracing ambient light to provide excellent readability, even in direct sunlight, offering 10X power savings over traditional transmissive LCDs.
But, to operate in low-light conditions, RLCDs need to be paired with an efficient front light solution such as the Azumo Front Light Panel. With improved optical coupling, collimation, and attenuation, our front light solution efficiently delivers more light exactly where you need it, and efficient LEDs can be used without experiencing typical issues with diffusion and material losses. Plus, as few as one low-power LED can be used in an Azumo front light instead of the five or more LEDs needed for alternative display light guides, making our solution the most efficient front light option available today.
Learn About Our Front Light Panel
Minimize the Presence of Your Display Stack
Our LCD 2.0 Solution, which includes an RLCD and our optically bonded front light panel, is designed to minimize the volume the display module takes up in a device. Since our light guide film can be made as thin as 50 microns, our LCD 2.0 solution takes up anywhere from 39 to 80 percent less volume than a typical backlit LCD module.
Our front light panel can use a single LED in the light bar, inserting light into a film that is thinner than a piece of paper. The light is mixed evenly throughout our ultrathin optical film, yielding a high-resolution display with a quick refresh rate and consistent contrast indoors and outdoors. Our solution can integrate with the front surface of most reflective displays – enabling the optimum LCD 2.0 display module for a wide-variety of devices and applications.
